I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the comparative brevity of her remarks, and for her willingness to commit her Minister of State to meeting representatives of the Co-op movement and, more importantly, to meeting them directly herself. I strongly support new clause 7, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) for the way in which she spoke to it. I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I briefly touch on the reasons for tabling new clauses 4, 5 and 6, which are tabled in my name and those of a series of hon. Friends on this side of the House.
The new clauses relate to the interests of credit unions, housing co-operatives and energy co-operatives in Northern Ireland. Perhaps I should say at the outset that the largest number of bank branch closures has taken place since the political settlement in Northern Ireland broke down. The two eventualities are not directly related, but the need for a response to the situation clearly exists. Organisations such as credit unions and financial co-operatives have the potential to fill some of the gaps that those bank branch closures have caused. There are no major international banks headquartered in Northern Ireland, and the distance between the decisions that those international banks take and what happens in the communities of Northern Ireland is getting greater and greater.
The only banks that have a Northern Ireland perspective are the credit unions there, and they surely deserve more attention from the civil service in Northern Ireland than they are currently getting. The Secretary of State might not have direct powers in this regard, but she and the Minister of State will be people of considerable influence with the civil servants who do have powers under this legislation, and I hope that she will be willing to lobby on behalf of credit unions in Northern Ireland for a significant share of the financial inclusion pot that the Treasury has set aside. It is currently unallocated and amounts to some £55 million.
I also hope that Ministers will be willing to consider what they can do about the number of people taking on individual voluntary arrangements, causing debts to credit unions not to be paid. This is causing considerable problems for the credit unions. I would also like them to look at issues relating to the funding for energy co-operatives, which is due to run out in April next year, and at the lack of funding and access to land for housing co-operatives. I am grateful to Ministers for their willingness to meet representatives of the Co-operative movement, and on that note, I shall not press my new clauses to a Division.