MPs backing Co-op ideas, says Labour whip

TOMMY McAVOY

December 27 2009

GOVERNMENT Deputy Chief Whip Tommy McAvoy has raised hopes that Labour’s general election manifesto will have a significant co-op dimension.

The Labour/Co-op MP for Rutherglen & Hamilton West told the Scottish Co-op Party conference that the global financial situation offered opportunities for co-oper-ative and mutual ideas to be put into practice.

He said there is support within the Parliamentary Labour Party for the Co-op Party’s ‘The Feeling’s Mutual’ campaign and revealed the Government continues to look favourably at re-mutualising the failed privatised Northern Rock bank.

Cathy Jamieson, Labour/Co-op MSP, told the Glasgow conference that Scotland is ready to hear the co-op message. She said that after Labour lost power in Scotland in 2007, it had to accept the agenda had changed and “needed to create the space to develop ideas with others who are interested in our co-op agenda”.

This is why Labour in the Scottish Parl-iament had supported the setting up of the cross-party groups on co-operatives and credit unions, she explained.

Michael Stephenson, Co-operative Party General Secretary, called on co-oper-ators to campaign for co-operative and mutual solutions and told conference that the Party had to “influence policy at all levels and work for the election of as many co-operators as possible”.

The conference approved policy papers on co-op enterprise and public services, which will become part of its manifesto for the Scottish elections in 2011.

It also heard from Claudia Beamish, Chair of the Scottish Labour Party and Labour/Co-op PPC for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, who said the mutual message was going down well on the doorstep.

Category: Politics

Your views:

Tim Cummins said 227 days ago:

This is very good news for the co-operative sector, but we must insist that there is a real commitment rather than just good words. The following is my letter that was was published in Inside Housing magazine on 8th jan 2010: "Following the publication of the report into the co-operative and mutual housing sector Bringing Democracy Home, I felt compelled to write to housing minister John Healey outlining my concerns over funding for housing co-ops. I applaud Mr Healey’s endorsement of the report from the commission on co-operative and mutual housing. And I read with interest his comment on the report in which he states: ‘I hope to see those looking to build a new co-operative applying for a share of the £7.5 billion that the government is making available to build the decent, secure and affordable homes we need across the country.’ As someone who works for an established and successful housing co-op I thought Mr Healey should know that it seems almost impossible for small co-ops to access grant funding under the current regime. All funding is directed to the Homes and Communities Agency’s ‘preferred partners’ - large social landlords, none of which are co-operatives. To access any funding co-ops must go cap-in-hand to these large social landlords, literally begging for the crumbs of their allocation. Sadly, in my experience these landlords do not want to know. So I am asking the housing minister to put his money where his mouth is and set aside development funding specifically for new and existing housing co-ops, similar to the designated funding that was in place, up until recently, for black and minority ethnic social landlords. Tim Cummins, director of housing, Ekarro Housing Co-operative"

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