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Meeting of the Parliament 10 March 2011

10 Mar 2011 · S3 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Fenwick Weavers Society

Harvie, Christopher SNP Mid Scotland and Fife Watch on SPTV

Congratulations to Willie Coffey on securing this members’ business debate and speaking so eloquently about the success of that pioneer, the Fenwick Weavers Society.

In what will be my last speech to the Parliament, I wish to offer some strategic ideas for today’s co-operative movement. The Fenwick weavers were not just followed by Robert Owen and his New Lanark experiments; in the early 19th century—around 1810—the Rev Henry Duncan of Ruthwell set up what became the Trustee Savings Bank, which was the financial pendant to the rise of the Scottish consumer co-operatives that handled up to 25 per cent of retail in some areas. Since then, the co-op movement has had its challenges. In recent years, the Co-operative Wholesale Society only just survived an attempt to make it private in 1997 by the 30-year-old city whizz kid Andrew Regan. That occupied the courts for a fairly long period, but after that trauma recovery began.

The Trustee Savings Bank was less fortunate, as it was swallowed by Lloyds in 1995 at the beginning of that mutual-into-bank mania that ended in tears, particularly for the Scottish banks HBOS and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Those are now the virtual possessions of the United Kingdom Government, although in no way do they behave like mutual institutions. When I leave the Parliament, I will go through a transition in my finances, not least by moving my savings—not a spectacular amount, but I love them dearly—from HBOS to the Co-operative Bank, the expansion of which is needed. We were told by Lord Adair Turner that HBOS went out in 2007-08 with an investment spree that turned his Financial Services Authority white-faced with horror. The biggest of the state-owned banks, the Royal Bank of Scotland, has just paid its boss, Stephen Hester, a £7.8 million bonus. Surely it is time to change to a bank that is owned by its members.

There is a slight problem because, as we have been reminded, the co-op movement has its own political party, which is affiliated to the Labour Party, yet in Scotland the radical cause is spread across several parties that have broadly similar social commitments to mutuality. I make a plea for common action that extends across political parties, trade unions and community groups and is aimed at creating a powerful mutual banking, insurance and house finance system. Perhaps the best honest broker in such a reorganisation might be the overall well-respected Scottish Trades Union Congress.

I come from a family with a long co-op tradition. My grandfather, George Steven Harvie, was bailie of Motherwell and chair of the Dalziel Co-operative Society. He obviously exercised some sort of co-op prerogative by marrying Christine Notman, who was a co-op milliner. She was my grandmother. My grandfather was a Lloyd George liberal in his politics, but he voted Labour to support his friend the Rev James Barr, who was, interestingly, the first member of Parliament to move for outright dominion status for Scotland—not just home rule but, in effect, independence.

We need a new Henry Duncan and new versions of the Fenwick Weavers Society. By giving up on the Hesters and the Goodwins, we can come out on the right side of the balance sheet. In yesterday’s Financial Times, my friend Professor John Kay alluded to Hester’s famous slight on those people whom he said wanted to go back to Hovis banking. Professor Kay said that that desire is not nostalgic and that people want healthy wholemeal bread and healthy wholemeal banking rather than fast bucks. So forward, friends, to the great ideal of another colleague of mine, the Glasgow novelist Alasdair Gray, and enrol me for my divvy in his Scottish co-operative wholesale republic.

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