It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq). May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who has joined us on the Front Bench this morning?
I congratulate the hon. Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) on reaching Second Reading with his Bill and on the committed and passionate advocacy that he and his team have shown on behalf of the mutuals sector. It takes a team effort to get things done, as my colleagues could sometimes benefit from remembering, and this is no exception. I pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), for his hard work over the summer, with officials, to bring us to this important moment. I also thank the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), who started the ball rolling; it is delightful that she was able to join us today. As the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn says, this is a cross-party endeavour, and it is all the stronger for it.
The fantastic speeches from Members across the House have brought to life the tapestry of co-operatives and mutuals and their contribution to society across the United Kingdom. We heard about the Darlington Building Society’s five-year sponsorship of the Darlington rail heritage quarter. We were reminded of Robert Owen and the origin of the Welsh co-operative movement. My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) took us back to the birthplace of the co-operative movement. My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) spoke about the
contribution of White Rock Neighbourhood Ventures, which is helping to build her society. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) made a typically thoughtful contribution; he not only auditioned for the support of the wider co-operative movement, but rooted co-operative and community values firmly in the tradition of Disraeli.
Let me say a little about the Government’s intentions for the Bill. I can confirm that we will support it because we believe in, understand and recognise the contribution that the mutual model makes to society and financial inclusion, which is important to hon. Members on both sides of the House, and the diversity that it provides for the financial services sector. We have a fantastic financial services sector in this country, and mutuals are an important part of that and we wish to see them continue. The scale is often not fully understood, but Royal London is the largest mutual life insurance, pensions and investment company in the UK, and has assets under management of £164 billion—8.8 million policies in force. Therefore, as well as contributing to their communities up and down the United Kingdom, mutuals are also a very important part of our financial sector.
We heard, too, from my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) about Parracombe, from my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) about the contribution being made by the Hinkley and Rugby Building Society, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter). This shows the real contribution that these organisations make.
Let me make some progress on the Bill itself. The Government see this private Member’s Bill as a valuable attempt to build on progress, and further support the mutual model by granting His Majesty’s Treasury the power to make changes to what co-operatives, mutual insurers and friendly societies are able to do under legislation.
The House will note that the final Bill is more focused compared with the original long title. Allow me to briefly set out what we aim to achieve through the Bill. The Bill will allow co-operatives, mutual insurers and friendly societies further flexibility in determining for themselves the best strategies for their business relating to surplus capital. More specifically, this allows the Treasury to create regulations to provide these mutuals with the option to restrict the distribution of surplus capital—defined as equity minus members’ shareholdings and share interest—to their members on solvent dissolution of the mutual, or on the sale or conversion of the mutual to a company. The Bill does that by providing the power to create regulations to allow co-operatives, mutual insurers, and friendly societies to choose to adopt legal restrictions on the use of their assets. The intention is that, where the members choose to adopt these restrictions, the use of the assets would be limited to specific purposes in line with the purpose of the mutual society.
The Government anticipate that this will provide additional safeguards against demutualisation for those societies that choose to adopt the so-called “asset lock”. The Government understand that many here today were motivated by the proposed sale and demutualisation of LV= in 2021. Although, ultimately, that sale did not go through, because the vote in favour of selling was
not backed by a sufficient proportion of members, we understand that it is right to interrogate the demutualisation process and consider the case for reform.
Voluntary asset locks—to prevent the distribution of legacy assets on the dissolution, sale, or conversion of a mutual—are already successfully adopted and freely entered into by co-operatives, mutual insurers, and friendly societies. The aim of these voluntary asset locks is to limit the financial incentives that many believe sit behind demutalisation processes. For example, many mutual entities have adopted “charitable assignment clauses” into their rules. This determines that any capital surplus on the dissolution, conversion, or sale has to go to a nominated charitable cause and not to the members at that moment in time. Within this, it is an established practice for mutuals to adopt high voting thresholds when members are deciding on decisions that affect the future strategic direction of the mutual.
We think these aims are laudable, but what the Government want to do is to build on the safeguards already in place to preserve the mutual movement. By placing an ironclad guarantee in legislation, we aim to support mutuals to make these locks harder to unpick in the future so that a mutual’s funds continue to be used for their social purpose and the social contract with its members and future members continues to be honoured, where the members choose to implement it.
By bringing forward this legislation, we are granting these efforts with a statutory footing should a mutual and its members decide that this is the best route for them. The optionality of the statutory asset lock is key, for it leaves the decision on the future of a mutual in the hands of mutuals and their members. Throughout, we have been guided by the core value of what it is to be mutual—with the interests of their members and communities at the heart of what they do.
If possible, I would like to go further: in alignment with the spirit in which the hon. Member for Preston has introduced this Bill, we are exploring the options for delivering reviews of key legislation underpinning the sector, including engagement with the Law Commission to help us to finalise our approach. I cannot go further than that today, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire pressed me to, but that is something we are looking at and will move forward with.