Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies and Credit Unions Bill [HL]

My Lords, I briefly thank everybody who has participated. When the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, spoke at the beginning, he made the sort of speech that I should have liked to make—the ideological case for co-operatives, mutuals and community benefit societies—but I had a fairly self-denying ordinance today, believing that my greater duty to the House was to make sure that I got the Bill through Second Reading with the support that, subsequently, we have seen. I am particularly grateful for the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, to whom I have already paid tribute, although I must stop making this look like a love-in. I was very grateful to hear from her that it is not her intention to table amendments so we can look forward to the Bill receiving a smooth reading. I have one thing to say. There has been a lot of emphasis on credit unions from the right reverend Prelate, the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, and my noble friend Lord Graham. There has been a lot of emphasis on the small-scale nature of co-operatives and credit unions. Let me just disabuse that slightly towards the end. Not all the business covered by the Bill is small scale. This morning I listened to Peter Marks, the chief executive of the Co-operative Group, on the radio. He was talking about the merger of the bank with the Britannia Building Society to form one of the biggest financial institutions in the country. He referred to the fact that the Co-operative Group is one of the United Kingdom’s largest farmers and the country’s fifth-largest supermarket. Although in the credit union sector a lot of the work is small scale, it is our ambition to see it grow and become greater. I am interested in the ideas put forward by noble Lords about the role that the Post Office could have in that development. But let us not think of co-operatives as being only small scale; they are very large-scale players in the economy, and the legislation is necessary for the stability of the large part of the sector as well as the potential for growth from the smaller parts. I thank everybody who has participated. It is my pleasant duty to commend the Bill. Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.