Peter Hunt

Who is Peter Hunt?

Peter Hunt is a British Labour Party politician and co-operative activist and thinker. He was until March 2008 General Secretary of the Co-operative Party and is as of 2008 chief executive of the think tank Mutuo.

Educated at Comprehensive School in Leicester and at Brunel University, Hunt worked in housing and IT before joining the Co-operative Party staff in 1994, working as regional organiser for the South of England. In 1998, Hunt was appointed General Secretary of the Party.

The Co-operative Party had arguably been in a long decline and Hunt's immediate priority was to secure the position and finances of the Party and its relationship with the new Labour government. He also rejuvenated the Party's policy making and broadened its scope. He relaunched the Party's magazine, New Mutualism, and started a series of policy pamphlets under the same name. One of these, New Mutualism - a Golden Goal? inspired the creation of Supporters Direct and a new generation of mutual organisations - football supporters' trusts. Another, New Mutualism - the Third Way by Peter Kellner, was a key piece of thinking in the early 'Third Way' phase of New Labour.

Hunt launched Mutuo in 2000 as a think tank for the wider mutual sector, attracting support from building societies, friendly societies and mutual insurers. Mutuo took on much of the policy publishing, with many publications by leading thinkers and politicians in the field. Making Healthcare Mutual, co-written by Hunt, Hazel Blears and Cliff Mills, called for a locally accountable NHS and underpinned the only successful amendment to the Act on foundation hospitals.