Co-op Party Live: Policy – Co-op Growth

Co-op Party Live: Policy

Co-op Growth

We want to build a fairer, greener, more democratic economy by growing the number of co-ops in every sector. But this won’t happen by accident – we need to keep making the case for co-ops and their role in our economy.  Research shows that employee-owned firms have been far outstripping conventional businesses in a range of metrics: whether that’s productivity, worker wages, profitability, or job security. At 2022 ’s Co-op Party Annual Conference in Leeds, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged to double the size of the UK’s co-operative economy, and set out plans for a national wealth fund to give the public a stake in investment.

The Co-op Party wants to build a fairer, greener, more democratic economy by growing the number of co-ops in every sector but this will only happen if we keep making the case for co-ops and their role in our economy. It’s not easy to set up a new business and the Co-operative Party’s focus this year is to influence a future Labour and Co-operative Government on how to provide the finance and tools to go about this.  To growing the co-op sector we need to:

• Provide local support – Every community should have access to practical advice and support on how to start and grow co-operative businesses.
• Break down legal barriers – the law is written with more traditional, privately-owned businesses in mind – which often creates unexpected challenges for co-ops. It can take minutes to start a limited company but months to start a co-operative: we need to break down the barriers and extra legislative hurdles that co-ops face, in order to supercharge their growth.
• Give access to finance – those same barriers can make it difficult for co-ops to access finance: we need to make it easier for co-op start-ups to access the capital investment they need to thrive.

Join us on Zoom to hear more about our commitment to double the size of the co-operative sector.

Speakers include Andrew O’Brien (Demos), Glenn Bowen (Cwmpas – formerly Wales Co-op Centre) and Sarah Longlands (CLES).