The government’s commitment to make mutual ownership a key part of the
way our public services are delivered is a massive opportunity. Just
as the Co-operative Party provided many important reforms for previous
Labour Governments, we see Tessa Jowell’s announcement as a perfect
response to the challenges of giving people a real say and delivering
the best possible services for them and their communities. In
contrast to the shallow and deceptive opportunism of the Tories on
public services, this announcement and the many co-operative
initiatives introduced by the government since 1997 show that Labour
and the Co-operative party are the only true guardians of mutuality.
Michael Stephenson, general secretary of the Co-operative party

Collective ownership has always been an important part of the Labour vision, but at this time of economic and democratic fracture there’s seldom been a better opportunity – or a more urgent need – to refocus our public institutions so they may benefit everyone they are built to serve. By refocusing on mutual ownership and collective stakeholdings in our services, Labour can seize that moment to disperse control, to empower citizens and to secure and democratise our proudest heritage – and our future.
Alex Smith, editor of Labour List

There is clearly a public appetite to look again at the way businesses and our public services operate. The shocking extent of the risk taking in our banking system and its impact on the wider economy are proof enough that we need change. The mutual movement grew out of ordinary men and women banding together in the face of high food prices and a failure of the market to provide the services they need. Today, those ethics of working together, achieving a just and fair price and responding to community needs are need more than ever. This is a welcome announcement by the government but it isn’t just about John Lewis and the corporate sector. I want to see greater support for local credit unions, an advance of community ownership in the energy and transport sectors, and more co-operative housing.
Andrew Pakes, chair of SERA

In a sense, mutualism is a lost strand in Labour’s thinking that we need to rediscover. It combines security, ownership, citizenship, and quality. It is utterly decentralised and responsive. It can be incentivised and promoted by the state but is non-statist. Done in the right way, mutualism and cooperative ownership offer us new ways to think about political economy on the left. Tessa Jowell has provoked this discussion. It is now for the rest of us to respond in imaginative ways as we continue to focus on new means of achieving a fairer society – of which cooperative ownership is most definitely one.
Anthony Painter, writer and commentator

Is there a public appetite for a major push on mutualism? As a general idea, I suspect it may well be rather abstract. Hence all of the references to the John Lewis model in providing one popular symbol of employee ownership of a successful commercial business. And mutualism in public services may make more concrete sense in a local context, if it can be seen to mean a different type of involvement in local schools or SureStart centres.Jowell could well strike a public chord too by lamenting the loss of the old building societies. That will have popular resonance. Yet demutualization was driven not simply by impersonal market forces – but by the decision of the owners of the assets to cash them in.
Sunder Katwala, general secretary of the Fabian Society

In biology, mutualism is an interaction between two organisms, where each individual increases their likelihood of survival. Seed dispersal and pollination are two examples. Similarly, in economic theory, mutualism works by bringing together the competing demands of owners who want to maximise profit and employees who want better terms and conditions. Under mutualism, the employees become the owners and incentives are combined. Tessa Jowell’s intervention is a good start but the government must look seriously at encouraging mutualism as a model not just for public services but for many parts of the private sector including lending and energy provision. The John Lewis partnership is often held up for its cooperative corporate governance but it is a travesty that this is all that advocates have to hold up. Meanwhile, despite Tony Blair’s talk of creating a ‘stakeholder society’ the last decade has seen a wave of demutualisations which resulted in short term shareholder value but a breakdown in socially inclusive forms of lending.
Will Straw, editor of Left Foot Forward