Dame Meg Hillier

There we go: a stretch target for the Chancellor to sign up every civil servant in his Department to a credit union. I am sure that he is listening closely to that suggestion. I do not want to segue too much from the subject, but many years ago I tried to establish a mutual in Government and there was a limited understanding of what that meant. I am proud that we now have a co-operatives champion in my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes)—a Labour and Co-operative MP—who has access to all areas and can go in and challenge, shake up and educate parts of Whitehall about the benefits of mutuals. To finish on financial inclusion, the financial inclusion strategy is a good first step, but we said that the Government cannot rely solely on voluntary action from financial services to drive financial inclusion. We have made our comments clear in our report, and I hope that we will continue that dialogue with the Government to ensure that financial inclusion is a real thing. There has been some talk about access to capital markets in the banking sector, but there is a particular issue for building societies too. It is interesting how very few failures and repossessions there are with some building societies. I was talking recently to the chief executive of Skipton Building Society, whose default rate is very low—in fact, a number of those are people who have voluntarily given up their mortgage. That means the building society’s repossession rate is even lower, yet it has to capitalise to a very high degree to ensure that it is covering any potential losses. I think there is a real opportunity there. As was raised earlier, changes to credit unions are necessary and overdue. We have seen some of the measures for co-ops and mutuals in government get stuck, whether with the Law Commission or somewhere in the depths of Whitehall. We now have an agenda in government to double the size of the co-operative sector. We are seeing a strong building society sector and a mutual sector in finance. We have an opportunity to get credit unions on a stable footing. This is the opportunity to ensure that we get those things in place so that they are embedded and we make sure that the sector works and delivers. If it is about growth in every postcode, those are the organisations that reach every postcode, that are from the grassroots up and that can make this Financial Services and Markets Bill much more relevant to the people on the ground. It is not that the City of London is not relevant to me in my constituency and to a number of us who neighbour it, but for people in other parts of the country, Whitehall and the City seem like a long way away. Having co-ops and mutuals written in is important. I hope that the Economic Secretary will respond to some of those points when she sums up.