“It’s time to deliver,” Jonathan Reynolds, the UK’s first Labour/Co-op Business and Trade Secretary, told Co-operative Party delegates at a showcase event on 12 October.
Hosted by the Co-op Group at its HQ in Manchester, the event explored how the government can meet its manifesto pledge to double the size of the UK’s co-operative and mutual economy.
Reynolds told the audience it was time to “have more ambition”, not retreat, arguing that the government’s growth agenda seeks to benefit all parts of the UK.
Earlier in the week, he had unveiled a new Employment Rights Bill from the Co-op Group’s distribution centre in Bartley, pledging to upgrade workers’ rights and tackle poor working conditions.
“Stronger rights in the workplace is what good business is about,” he said, praising the Co-op Group for being “a business that looks after its people”.
The government has also published a green paper on establishing a new industrial strategy.
Reynolds revealed that plans for small businesses, key policy reform packages and a new trade strategy are also in the works. As part of this, the government will also look at enabling access to finance to drive grassroots co-op growth.
“Not only are we committed to, we are going to double the size of the co-operative sector in the UK,” he said. “This is just the beginning, I am absolutely certain that our best days lie ahead. This can be the very best phase of our history.”
Related: Labour conference explores ways to double the co-op and mutual economy
Similar pledges were made by deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, who argued that low pay and insecure work had replaced good jobs in her local Stockport and talked about co-ops’ role in improving working conditions.
She explained how in 1901, the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) factory at Crumpsall, Manchester, became the first biscuit factory in the UK to introduce the eight-hour working day for its employees.
The new Employment Rights Bill is the biggest expansion of workers’ rights in a generation, expected to benefit 10 million UK employees, she added.
Related: Co-op Group welcomes government bill on workers’ rights
Earlier this year, the government also announced plans to introduce a Community Right to Buy for valued community assets, such as empty shops, pubs and community spaces.
“Community assets can’t just be taken away, their faith should be in the community’s hands,” said Rayner.
July’s election resulted in a record number of 43 Labour/Co-op MPs in the House of Commons, grouped under the Co-operative Party Parliamentary Group. Its chair, Preet Kaur Gill, said the group will focus on driving forward the Co-operative Party’s manifesto pledges around co-op growth, community-owned energy generation, support and growth of local community ownership, tackling retail crime and better protecting shop workers.
Emma Hoddinott, the Party’s assistant general secretary, said it wants to see co-op solutions made part of every discussion in national, regional or local government.
More than half of the 650 MPs elected in July are new to the role, including Labour/Co-op MPs Paul Waugh (Rochdale), Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth), Jack Abbott (Ipswich) and Andrew Pakes (Peterborough).
“We’re here because of the effort the movement put into it,” said Pakes, whose constituency is home to the English Mustard Growers, a co-op founded by local farmers in 2007 to support each other after a difficult harvest.
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Pakes warned that “too many people have lost faith in democracy” – but said co-op values can help rebuild that trust. He called for “not just local government devolution” but a community-led one, adding that the co-op movement is “the trade union for community power”.
He pointed out that investing in co-op development is key to supporting community groups looking to set up co-ops. “Building infrastructure is how we get lasting change within our movement,” he added.
“We’re here because of you so use us,” said Waugh, adding that co-op values had been at the heart of his electoral campaign. He highlighted the Rochdale Pioneers’ role in the creation of a global movement for social justice and inspiring communities elsewhere to set up similar business models, including Rochdale Village, a housing co-op in Queens, New York.
For Abbott, community energy can help addressing the UK’s energy crisis, which he sees a national priority – and he noted the government‘s lifting of the de facto ban on new onshore windfarms.
The Party has the opportunity to bring more people into the movement, using its elected representatives, he added.
During another panel, stakeholders explored how the government can take action on retail crime. The Co-op Group started campaigning on this issue in 2018 after witnessing an increase in offences in its stores.
Paul Gerrard, campaigns, public affairs and board secretariat director at the Group, said that more than 40,000 members wrote to their MPs asking them to support the creation of a standalone criminal offence for assaulting a retail worker. The campaign was supported by other co-operative retail societies as well as trade union Usdaw.
“For the last seven years we have been pushing uphill to try to get the government to take this seriously,” said Gerrard, adding that the new home secretary sees it as a priority. “The difference now is [..] we aren’t having to persuade government to take this seriously,” he said.
Gerrard revealed that many of the retail crimes disproportionately affect women and people of colour. To address this, the Group spends £4m a year on security, three times more than the sector average. Extra measures include the roll out of SmartWater forensic spray in some stores to ensure stolen products can bebe traced back to the place they were stolen from. Employing security guards can also deter shoplifters, although this is less effective in the case of organised crime, said Gerrard.
Since the pandemic, retailers have witnessed a rise of organised crime and gangs within stores and rise in shoplifting, said Usdaw’s Jayne Allport. The union’s latest survey found that seven out of 10 respondents have been verbally abused, 46% had received threats of physical violence and 8% assaulted.
A huge amount of incidents are not being reported, warned Allport. And although the government is committed to changing the law, she said members should keep reporting incidents so the campaign can continue.
And although Usdaw’s members feel more secure if there is a security guard, it is not always effective as a deterrent, she said. She praised the Group for measures to aid the arrest and prosecution of offenders and urged police to work with store colleagues to ensure they know what information is necessary when reporting a crime. Both Usdaw and the Group advise shop workers to avoid putting themselves at risk.
Emily Spurrell, Labour/Co-op police and crime commissioner for Merseyside, argued that it is important to include retail crime as a priority within police and crime commissioners’ plans. She asked retailers to encourage staff to report incidents, adding that the reporting process needs to be simplified.
The event also touched on co-operation in devolved nations, exploring the potential for collaboration with Westminster. Labour/Co-op MSP Sarah Boyack praised the government for its plans to work with the Scottish government and local authorities, marking a “big shift” from the previous government’s approach.
She sees the potential for more co-ops in Scotland, particularly in housing and renewable energy. Scotland is home to Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op, she said, providing affordable housing for studens and helping them develop skills that make them more employable after they graduate.
Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow and Co-op Party NEC member, agreed on the need for more co-ops in these sectors, adding that today’s Scotland faces similar pressures to those faced by the Rochdale Pioneers during the industrial revolution.
Meanwhile, in Wales, where the Labour Party has enjoyed over a century of electoral success, reforms to elections for the Welsh Parliament could bring more seats for other parties, particularly Plaid Cymru and Reform.
In this context, Becky Gittins MP for Clyde East, thinks co-op values “have a huge amount of relevance”, as a key to tackling populism. She agreed on the potential to expand community energy initiatives in Wales, which, she thinks, could help rural communities struggling with high bills and market volatility, and win voters over.
Party chair Jim McMahon addressed the conference, reiterating its four campaign pledges. “Winning power to give power away is the co-op way and we’ll make sure we do that in all we do,” he said.
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Before becoming an MP, McMahon was an Oldham councillor and helped to set up the Co-operative Councils’ Innovation Network (CCIN) to facilitate collaboration between local authorities and promote co-op solutions.
CCIN has recently launched a Councils’ Co-operative Development Toolkit, to support the identification of opportunities to improve the local co-operative development context.
Presenting the toolkit, CCIN chair Jim Robbins said the network aims to support the government in its challenge of doubling the size of the co-op and mutual sector.
Alex Norris MP, minister for democracy and local growth, said the government aims to put communities at the heart of decision-making, including through the introduction of a Community Right to Buy. The government is looking at extending the current six months community groups have to bid for assets of community value and allocate more resources to enable them to acquire assets of community value, he added.
Oldham Council leader Arooj Shah shared her council’s experience of buying the Spindles Town Square Shopping Centre in October 2020 to support the town centre’s regeneration.
Shah said co-op values embedded in communities lead to more resilient communities that have more trust and confidence. “If they co-design something with the council they are invested in it,” she added.
In Stretford, Trafford, a group of locals acquired Stretford Public Hall from the local council in 2015, which is now run by Friends of Stretford Public Hall, a charitable community benefit society with 800 members.
Annoushka Deighton, chair of Friends of Stretford Public Hall, argued that if communities are given a say through Right to Buy, local organisations will create services more efficiently alongside statutory agencies.
Across the rest of Greater Manchester, co-operative models are being used to provide solutions to local issues. “We’re pulling together as one team,” said regional mayor Andy Burnham, adding that Manchester’s economy is growing at a faster pace (2.2%) than the country as a whole (1.9%).
Burnham has launched a range of co-operative initiatives in recent years, including Beyond the Music Festival, a co-operatively run music conference and festival.
Another scheme will see 14 Greater Manchester credit unions sell annual bus passes to residents through weekly interest-free payments, saving individuals £5 a week.
“As people buy the passes from credit unions they might go for other services there,” said Burnham.
The mayor addressed the Party a day after the first meeting of the new Council of Nations and Regions, which involves the prime minister, the first ministers of the three devolved administrations and the mayors of England’s combined authorities.
“What took place yesterday was a conversation that I’d never seen in my lifetime in politics,” he said, revealing that the discussion had centred on the the upcoming English Devolution Bill. “If we get it right, it could tilt the British state away from the centre and towards the regions and nations.”
Burnham also plans to take control of government cash used to get people back into work, through a new programme called Live Well.
He thinks Greater Manchester’s portion of the £6bn employment support budget should be rooted through the local community, including the voluntary sector, co-ops and social enterprises, instead of the Job Centre, and argues they would be better placed to support people back into work.
“That is a policy that gets you close to doubling the size of co-op sector,” he said, arguing that if Greater Manchester can prove it can do it, other regions could follow suit.
“We’re in a good position. We’ve got a lot to believe in here,”he said. “The Labour Party and the Co-operative Party have always done great things but this is a moment we can take this to a whole new level.”
Another panel explored how the co-op model can be used in the context of the government’s Local Power Plan to cut energy bills, create jobs and deliver energy security.
Megan Corton Scott, deputy director of the Labour Climate and Environment Forum, argued the model can not only to grow communities in terms of wealth but also reach them to come together and ease division.
She added that further planning reform is needed to boost community energy schemes – while people need to be reached where they are in a language they understand, rather than expert jargon.
Councils can also help deliver the pledge, said Cllr Adam Hug, chair of the Labour group on the Local Government Association, by having a climate and an energy plan, making land and spaces available to community energy groups, offering long-term contracts to a community-owned energy provider, and facilitating discussions between partners.
For Mete Coban, deputy mayor of London for environment and energy, community energy can be a way to articulate more ideas around water ownership, air pollution or cleaning waterways.
Another issue raised was the Financial Conduct Authority’s rule that members of co-ops have to trade with it directly, which means that community energy groups cannot register as co-ops.
The Party’s secretary general Joe Fortune said a more favourable regulation of energy and other aspects of co-op development would enable co-ops to focus on wider member benefits.
“We have record numbers of members, record numbers of supporters, record numbers of elected representatives, record numbers of commitments,” he said. “These things are good, we definitely want more. We definitely have higher ambition for our party. I hope that events like today and the work you do in local parties and regional parties, and the wider co-op movement are built into something special.”
