Co-ops are a great British invention UK Prime Minister David Cameron
Rochdale Pioneers
In this International Year of Co-operatives, it gives me great pleasure to introduce this global survey from the Conservative Co-operative Movement.
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o-ops are a great British invention, one that has spread out across the world over more than two centuries. They flourish in financial services, in football, in social work and healthcare, in housing and retail. There are an estimated 1.4 million co-operatives across the globe, with nearly a billion members. Some three billion people rely on co-ops for their livelihood. These are extraordinary facts and figures. In the UK there are some 5,450 independent co-operative businesses. Together they have a combined turnover of more than ÂŁ33 billion. They employ 236,000 people and are owned by 12.8 million people, more than one in five of the UK population. It is especially telling that British co-ops have outperformed the UK economy as a whole over the past four years, growing by 21% since the start of the credit crunch in 2008.
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GLOBAL TO LOCAL
And the Rochdale Principles mean that all these member-owned businesses abide by business practices that treat staff and customers fairly. I sometimes worry that, in the UK at least, co-ops are a hidden secret. Too many people do not know about co-ops, and mis-understand their distinctive ethos. The same goes for many professional advisers who could be assisting entrepreneurs to turn businesses into co-ops, and many banks that could be helping local community groups to set up co-operatives. That is why we, the coalition, have decided to introduce a new Co-operatives Bill. At present, co-ops are governed by a mosaic of 17 different pieces of legislation that were laid down over nearly 50 years. Little wonder many people are unclear about the co-operative business model. The new Bill will level the playing field and will, I hope, encourage more people to set up local co-operatives, or join their existing ones. So I congratulate the Conservative Co-operative Movement on this publication, which follows their excellent Co-ops In The Big Society last year. Co-ops are not the province of any political party: they are our common inheritance. ď Ž
the conservative co-operative movement