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Vol. 712 Friday No. 106 10 July 2009 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (HANSARD) HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICIAL REPORT ORDER OF BUSINESS Arrangement of Business Announcement Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies and Credit Unions Bill Second Reading Autism Bill Second Reading Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Bill Second Reading Driving Instruction (Suspension and Exemption Powers) Bill Second Reading Written Answers For column numbers see back page £3·50 Lords wishing to be supplied with these Daily Reports should give notice to this effect to the Printed Paper Office. The bound volumes also will be sent to those Peers who similarly notify their wish to receive them. No proofs of Daily Reports are provided. 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Single copies: Commons, £105; Lords, £40. Standing orders will be accepted. THE INDEX to each Bound Volume of House of Commons Debates is published separately at £9·00 and can be supplied to standing order. WEEKLY INFORMATION BULLETIN, compiled by the House of Commons, gives details of past and forthcoming business, the work of Committees and general information on legislation, etc. Single copies: £1·50. Annual subscription: £53·50. All prices are inclusive of postage. © Parliamentary Copyright House of Lords 2009, this publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Parliamentary Click-Use Licence, available online through the Office of Public Sector Information website at www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/ 877 Arrangement of Business[10 JULY 2009] Community Benefit/Credit Unions Bill 878 Lord Goodlad: My Lords, I think that I probably House of Lords speak for all members of your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution in thanking the noble Friday, 10 July 2009. Baroness the Leader of the House for what she has said and for her unvarying courtesy. I hope and believe 10 am that we will have adequate time to consider the matter. Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Exeter. Co-operative and Community Benefit Arrangement of Business Societies and Credit Unions Bill Announcement Second Reading 10.05 am 10.08 am The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Baroness Moved by Lord Tomlinson: Royall of Blaisdon): My Lords, before we begin proceedings on the four Private Members’ Bills today That the Bill be read a second time. it may be helpful if I say a few words about how we intend to proceed with the Committee stage of the Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, I beg to move that this Parliamentary Standards Bill. Bill be now read a second time. During the Second Reading debate I received a very This Bill arose as a Private Member’s Bill in another clear message about the concerns that many noble place introduced by my right honourable friend Lords hold about the Bill and about the timescale on Mr Malcolm Wicks. Supporters of the Bill when it which the Government intend to proceed. I have reflected was published included honourable and right honourable on the debate and the strong views expressed about Members from all the three main parties in the other the Bill and it is my intention today to table amendments place and the Bill passed through all its stages without to the Bill which I hope will address those concerns. amendment. As soon as the amendments are tabled I will write to Following an extensive Treasury consultation entitled, all noble Lords who took part in that debate explaining Review of the GB Cooperative and Credit Union Legislation, those amendments, and I will make copies of my letter a number of reforms were agreed which could be available in the Library of the House and the Printed effected using a legislative reform order; for example, Paper Office. reforms regarding the minimum age for membership On the timescale, I undertook to discuss the of and becoming an officer of an industrial and provident arrangements with the usual channels to see whether society; the modification of rules concerning share more time could be made available. If proceedings in capital; the flexibility for such societies to choose their Committee are not completed at the end of business own year end; facilitating easier dissolution of societies on Tuesday 14 July, further time will be made available and other such reforms. However, the legislative reform as first business after Oral Questions on Thursday order can deal only with deregulatory issues. The Bill 16 July. I take the views of this House very seriously deals in legislative form with the issues arising from and I have listened. I hope that the House will welcome the consultation which could not be regarded as what I propose. deregulatory and therefore could not be included in a legislative reform order. Thus the Bill completes the Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, I am very response to the public consultation. grateful for that statement which is helpful and useful I wish to set the subject matter of the legislation in for all Members of the House. Bearing in mind the a slightly broader context before I deal with its specific difficulties that I understand are occurring with mail provision. The ideals and principles of co-operation delivery, particularly this weekend, could electronic and mutuality are well entrenched in our economic means be used to send the message to noble Lords? and social history. Very few people do not know Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, that is an something about Robert Owen and the New Lanark excellent idea. I will certainly do my utmost to ensure mill experiments, or the Rochdale pioneers, or are that all Members who have electronic facilities receive unaware of the writings of Sidney and Beatrice Webb. the letter and the attachments by electronic means. Those lessons of early co-operation and mutuality are well enshrined in our social and economic history and Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, I am most grateful show the early significance of such co-operation and to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, but if mutuality. Today we are at the end of a period of she is doing that she could ensure, with an extra click decline as regards the significance of co-operation. We of the button, that the message goes to all Members, are now in an era of resurgence—a renaissance—of not simply to those who took part in the Second co-operation and mutuality. Mutual building societies, Reading debate. bastions of financial stability, were demutualised, a handful of shares and a few hundred pounds being the Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I have bribe which people accepted to demutualise them. absolutely no problem with that, an extra click of the They gained an immediate small windfall in their mouse is exactly what I will do. However, I know that pockets at the expense of generations of financial some Members of the House are not electronically stability. We all know what happened to those who equipped. I am afraid that I cannot write to all Members pursued the course of greed in order to demutualise but I will certainly e-mail all Members. those building societies. It was almost an act of 879 Community Benefit/Credit Unions Bill[LORDS] Community Benefit/Credit Unions Bill 880 [LORD TOMLINSON] Clause 2 changes the name of the Industrial and financial vandalism. If anybody quarrels with that, I Provident Societies Act 1965 and goes a long way suggest that they would quarrel only with the word towards removing from the statute book the rather “almost”. outdated term “industrial and provident societies”. Today, the resurgence of co-operatives and mutuals Clause 3 is somewhat more complicated, but is reflects consumers who are looking for an ethical simple in its objective. It applies the Company Directors alternative to banks, which have significantly failed us, Disqualification Act 1986 to officers of industrial and and the Co-operative Bank and the Britannia Building provident societies, as it applies to officers of companies, Society illustrate an admirable way forward when we building societies and friendly societies. Under the see this planned merger creating a new £70 billion current law, officers of industrial and provident societies bank—a new super mutual. who have mismanaged their society cannot be disqualified. Major developments are also to be found in the Clause 3 makes such disqualification possible. retail sector. The Co-operative Retail Society now has Clause 4 gives the Treasury powers to apply to a unified management structure and more than 2,000 industrial and provident societies, with appropriate stores. The Co-operative Group has acquired Somerfield, modification, company law on investigation of companies, and the combined operation has something approaching company names, and dissolution and restoration to an 8 per cent share. I could go on, but I will not detain the register.