Doubling: A Party Political Perspective

At the 2025 Future Co-ops Conference – titled ‘The Trouble with Double’ – attendees gathered at Central Co-op’s Business Support Centre in Lichfield to discuss the governments’s commitment to “doubling the co-op and mutual economy”. Those working on the frontline of co-op development want to know how this will happen in practice. What is being measured? Who is going to make this doubling happen? And how will it be resourced?

The conference kicked off with a panel discussion featuring speakers from across the Co-operative Party, plus questions and debate from a very engaged audience.

Our chair, Rebecca Harvey from Co-operative News invited panellists Baggy Shanker MP, Cllr Sue Woodward, and Stewart Holroyd, Director of Student Co-op Homes and a member of the Co-op Party, to explore what doubling the co-op economy means on a regional, city and local level.

Watch a recording of the panel and Q&A here.

Brilliant weekend of inspiring co-operation. Best event to start the UN International Year of Co-operatives #IYC2025

JOHN BOYLE

Imagining the Future, Learning from the Past

Opening the morning session on Day 2, Jo White, CEO of Co-op Futures, highlighted the disparities in the growth of co-ops compared to alternative business models. While employee-owned businesses benefit from tax breaks and saw a boom in 2023, and the number of CICs grew by 7000 in 2024, co-ops are still lagging behind.

Co-op business advisor Alex Bird provided an international perspective, based on his wide-ranging 2024 report for Plaid Cymru. Pete Westall, Chief Values Officer at Midcounties Co-op talked about the role of ‘soft’ influence in shaping perceptions of co-ops in more traditional spaces.

The one thing that really impressed me this time was the free-ranging discussions around the room conducted politely without any moderation needed. It’s always pretty good in our movement, but this time people seemed determined to answer their own collective questions and come to a consensus answer. Grounds for real optimism. What we need now, is to get the politicians to understand. That will be the hard part.

ALEX BIRD

Workshops – Outcomes & Proposed Actions

The conference featured a series of practical workshops, to explore and agree on outcomes and asks across four different areas and we’ve presented these below. Rebecca Harvey has written a longer form report from the conference for Co-op News which can be found here.

Take a look at our round up of the previous Future Co-ops Conference #FC2C – From Crisis to Co-op.