Co-operatives, Mutuals, and Friendly Societies Bill (HL Bill 106)
13 Mar 2023
“The bill would permit ministers to submit draft regulations for parliamentary approval enabling cooperatives, mutual insurers and friendly societies to adopt legal restrictions to ensure their assets could only be used for specified purposes. The option for such bodies to implement statutory ‘asset locks’ is intended to help reduce financial incentives for them to demutualise. At present, these entities can adopt voluntary restrictions on the use of surplus funds, but these are non-statutory and may be overturned. Regulations made under the bill would be subject to the affirmative procedure, meaning both Houses of Parliament would need to consent before the regulations could become law.”
