Opening keynote address – Andrew Pakes MP

29 October 2025

Andrew Pakes, Labour (Co-op) MP for Peterborough

BCCM Leaders’ Summit, Friday, 24 October 2025, Adelaide

One of the first visits I undertook as an MP was to 28 The Causeway in Peterborough. Home of my local Nationwide building society branch.

A branch that had been there since 1974. But started its life in the city in 1954, a few doors down from its current location as the Co-operative Permanent Building Society.

Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. The world was very different.

To a post-war generation, building societies were part of the new social contract.

Work hard and you can get on in life. Get a home. Make a future for your children.

The co-operative and mutual ideal has always been strong in the UK.

But the idea of a purpose-driven economy feels even greater in today’s world. Against a backdrop of division, short-termism and populism – mutuals offer purpose and social value to our economy.

The co-operative and mutual sector is a vital part of inclusive economic growth – £93 billion in gross value added, £180 billion in turnover, 27 million members. Despite moves to demutualise the building societies in the UK – an act of economic vandalism – we still have over 40 building societies, holding nearly a one-third of UK mortgages.

Nationwide still stands strong and is the biggest lender to first-time buyers in the UK.

This movement was born out of hard times – and it came into its own during the recent hard times of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.

The Co-operative Group’s co-op shops helped so many with the cost-of-living crisis, striking a chord with people who want not just affordable, healthy food but to give something back to their area.

The statistics for the UK co-operative movement speak for themselves.

• The total income of the co-operative and mutual economy has reached a record £165.7 billion
• The sector’s 9,342 businesses employ more than 1.3 million people
• Memberships of co-operatives and mutuals have risen by 2.8 per cent to 68.8 million
• Co-operative new-starts are more than twice as likely to survive beyond the first five years
• There’s been a 49.5 per cent increase in community-owned pubs over 5 years

In my own constituency we are home to the English Mustard Growers Co-operative – an illustration that mutual drive covers a wide range of industries, not just retail. All of this started from cooperative principles.

A few months ago, I attended co-op congress in Rochdale Town Hall. Birthplace of a movement.

The power of 28 original pioneers organising against the odds. And today, still a living breathing force for economic good and social justice.

The Rochdale principles still stand tall in the world:

• democratic control with one member one vote;
• open membership;
• pure unadulterated goods properly weighed &measured;
• profits divided fairly;
• profits to educational purposes;
• religious tolerance;
• Cooperation among other coops at home and abroad, genuine social solidarity.

I am proud those principles have also inspired the Government in which I serve.

A clear manifesto commitment at the last general election to double the size of the co-operative and mutual sector, now being implemented in government. A record number of Labour & Co-operative MPs.

The reason I’m proud to be a Co-operative Parliamentarian is precisely because it’s only through government that you can create better conditions for co-ops and mutuals to thrive.

And in 2024, we now have a Labour Government that has Co-operative Party members right at its heart, shaping policy as never before.

43 MPs, 5 metro mayors, 1,500 councillors, we have government ministers in key roles.

The co-ops and mutual business council has been created – a new forum for collaboration between the UK Government and the co-operative and mutual sectors.

Why does this matter?

It matters because it is about ambition. If this is the co-operative moment, we also need co-operative ambition.

It is not the role of government to build co-operative enterprise, but it is the role of co-operative politicians to make sure government isn’t a block on growth.

I am honoured to be here with two heroes of our movement – Shirine and Kevin.

We need to create the conditions in which mutuals can flourish. Where communities can come together and start-up their own ventures.

This is a partnership between the movement and government.

For too many of my younger years, the co-operative movement was about consolidation and mergers. The UK agenda is about mutual growth. That is why the business council is so important.

Following the government’s announced commitment to work with co-operatives and mutuals to double the size of the sector, the question now really comes down to where that growth is going to come from?

From food retail to farming, to financial services in banking, savings and insurance, to housing, healthcare, energy, professional services and a wide range of community-based organisations, co-operatives and mutuals will represent customers, producers and employees in whatever way serves their mutual purpose.

The co-op council brings together our big mutual players to help set out ideas and plans for growth.

Just as we now have a government with an industrial strategy, the council will help advise on a national mutual strategy. We are already seeing some of that ambition coming through.

The Co-operative Bank in mutual hands, after being taken back by the Coventry Building Society. Nationwide has just brought Virgin Bank adding more customers to the sector.

This is not just about economic growth. We are overseeing the “biggest expansion in support for community energy in history”, in Ed Miliband’s words.

We worked with Government to put community energy on the face of the GBE Bill. It’s fine having wind farms, but too often community benefit is a football pitch here or there. We want community ownership bringing a regular income to local communities.

The community right to buy was included in the Government’s English Devolution White Paper.

The Treasury is ⁠writing to regulators asking how they’re supporting coops.

The Business Council has just published its first paper for the Treasury, on supporting credit unions.

After the Spending Review, 350 more communities will now get the resources they need to take of control funding to improve parks, youth facilities, swimming pools and libraries.

Most of all, the co-operative movement is about people – individuals coming together to do great things.

Great things to benefit their community, to improve their high street, to build a better life for their families and neighbours.

Local, national and international agenda.

The original Rochdale principle of co-operation among co-operatives, that sense of international solidarity is really significant in this UN International Year of the Cooperatives.