Donor of the Week: The Co-operative Group
Author: Jack Maizels
Published on Aug 10, 2012
Our Donor of the Week series aims to shed some light on the people, companies and organisations who are funding our political parties. Each week, we’ll look at the chosen donor’s political involvement, their donation history and any controversy associated with their actions, and question whether this really is the best system for financing our politics.
Who they are:
- The Co-operative Group is the UK’s largest mutual business group, owned by its 6 million members and controlled indirectly through elected regional committees and its independent corporate members
- Their services include supermarkets, travel agencies and retail bank the Co-operative Bank, which was established in 1872 by the Co-op Group and has 342 branches in the UK, not including those recently bought from Lloyds TSB
Political Involvement:
- The Co-operative Party was established in 1917 as the political arm of the Co-operative Group
- Whilst it is a separately registered party, all Co-operative Party election candidates are jointly nominated as Co-operative/Labour following an agreement made in 1926
- There are currently 29 Co-operative/Labour MPs in the House of Commons, including Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, as well as 15 members of the House of Lords
Donations:
- Since party funding records began, their donations to the Co-operative Party have been generally increasing, from £228,893.25 in 2001 to £809,000 in 2011
- The Group have donated to Labour as well, giving as much as £89,356 in 2004 and £50,000 in the first quarter of 2012
- However, the Co-operative Party also donate to Labour, giving an average of over £100,000 a year between 2001 and 2011
- Labour is also one of the organisations, and only political party, to benefit from indirect donations from the Co-operative Bank credit card schemes, which has so far raised over £2m for the Party
Controversy:
- In July 2012, the Co-operative Bank won a bid to purchase 632 Lloyds TSB branches for £350m upfront and up to £400m over the following 15 years, based on performance
- The Bank’s successful bid will more than double their number of UK branches and will give an extra 7% of the current account market
- Under the deal, Lloyds will provide £1.5bn worth of capital for the branches, representing a loss of at least £750m
- Suspicions were raised over a potential conflict of interest as the Co-op now stands to benefit from the last Labour government’s 2008 bailout of Lloyds, who are still 40% owned by the taxpayer
- In 2006, the Daily Telegraph reported that the Co-op Bank had extended Labour’s loan overdraft to £11m under Tony Blair’s leadership, whilst criticising the Bank’s reluctance to discuss the nature of its relationship with Labour
Notes:
- Date of the donation is the date the donation was accepted by the party
- Analysis refers to donations to main party, individual MPs, MEPs, local parties and affiliated groups, cash donations and non-cash donations
- Electoral Commission Donation Reports have only been available since 2001, and analysis does not consider any donations made before this point
- Variations of the same name e.g. Joe Bloggs, Mr Joe Bloggs, Sir J Bloggs, etc are all collated as the same donor
- Donations from companies that have moved address, changed name or have several subdivisions all making donations are also collated as the same donor, as are all previous forms of the same Trade Unions