Once‑in‑a‑generation consultation on co‑operative growth launched in the UK

28 November 2025

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has used her Autumn 2025 Budget statement to launch a once‑in‑a‑generation consultation on how to support co-operative and mutual growth. The government’s agenda includes a regulatory reform plan for financial mutuals.

The announcement welcomed by the UK co-operative and mutual industry is hot on the heels of a successful industry advocacy strategy deployed by a group of the UK’s largest co-op and mutual businesses, after the Keir Starmer Labour Government committed to doubling the size of the co-op and mutual sector.

In October, the BCCM welcomed key members of the new UK Business and Co-operative Sector Business Council and the UK Labour Government’s co-op and mutual envoy to Australia for high-level talks on the UK’s mutual growth plans.

Delegates to the BCCM Leaders’ Summit heard from Co-op Group CEO, Shirine Khoury-Haq and Nationwide Building Society Chair, Kevin Parry OBE, about the sector’s plans to grow significant market share and partner with government to deliver essential services and housing to hard to reach markets and marginalised groups.

The BCCM facilitated a round of meetings between Treasury Ministers and Andrew Pakes MP, Member for Peterborough and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Co-operatives and Mutuals, on the Starmer Government’s pledge to grow the co-op and mutual sector.

The BCCM and the UK Co-ops and Mutuals Business Council have committed to working closely on the reform agenda in both countries.

BCCM CEO, Melina Morrison, said, “Developments globally and in the UK are evidence that we are at an opportunistic moment for the sector. Dissatisfaction with ‘business as usual’ in the electorate and the need for innovative business models that are inclusive by design and capable of taking a long term view are motivating political parties and governments around the world to reassess co-operative and mutual solutions. Once the vanguard of social infrastructure, co-ops and mutuals have spent decades hamstrung from making deeper investments in areas like housing, social care and manufacturing because of capital constraints. With landmark legislative changes enacted in the last five years, the brakes are partly off, but we need more progressive regulatory settings and a UK-like mandate to grow.

Those discussions are progressing well, and we look forward to more progress in Canberra.”

The BCCM set out an ambitious growth agenda for the sector in its submission to the Treasurer’s Productivity Agenda earlier this year.