Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Alan Gemmell Excerpts

Friday 26th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alan Gemmell (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this debate on energy policy—a subject of great importance to my constituents and people across the UK. I congratulate you on your recent election.

I pay tribute to other hon. Members who have taken an early opportunity to give their maiden speeches, including the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool). It is the first time I have followed someone on the road to canonisation—[Laughter.] I would also like to thank my colleagues from Scotland who are speaking today, including my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), and to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) about how good it is to hear so many Scottish voices on this side of the House.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister said that this Government will be one of service, and it is an honour to speak in the Chamber as the Member for Central Ayrshire—the place where I was born and raised, and where I live. It is a privilege to be in Parliament and in government, and to be here in the service of the community where I grew up.

I pay tribute to my predecessor, Dr Philippa Whitford, who was a popular and assiduous local MP, whose public service included a much celebrated career as a consultant breast cancer surgeon. I also pay tribute to two previous Labour MPs, Sandra Osborne and Sir Brian Donohoe. Sandra is known as a champion of women’s rights, and a campaigner against poverty and for peace in the middle east. Brian is better known to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as the chairman of the Members’ pension fund. He uses his voluminous knowledge to good effect but, having spoken to him at some length this weekend, I do not recommend individual consultations at this time.

I also thank my husband. The spouses and families of politicians sacrifice a lot for our careers. Damien has been at my side around the world, and I am grateful to him for his support.

Many hon. Members have spoken of their constituency’s beauty, while inviting other Members to visit. I do not feel the need to make that invitation, as I was happy to see Members from this place, the other place and the Scottish Parliament in Troon last weekend for the final days of the Open. They were there not just for one of the best coastlines in Scotland, great seafood and wonderful pubs and hotels, but to see a world-class golfing competition that sold more than 250,000 tickets and will deliver more than £200 million to the local and Scottish economies.

Central Ayrshire is blessed with great towns and villages, and people who work daily for our communities. Earlier this month, I met the Friends of the Broadway Prestwick, who are working tirelessly to raise millions of pounds to bring a 1930s cinema in the heart of the town back to life. Their passion and commitment is inspiring. I visited the Troon lifeboat station and was told that from 1871 to today, 668 lives have been saved by its brave volunteers.

In Irvine, each year the Marymass festival, also known as Murmuss, sees tens of thousands of people come to enjoy our parade, the crowning of the queen and teams of people trying to climb the greasy pole. If new Members need help in that area, I am happy to invite the winning team of this year’s competition in the autumn. Marymass includes horseracing on Irvine moor, at which my dad has been known to commentate. On the same moor in 1887, Keir Hardie gave his first recorded political speech in which he emphasised the need for working class representation in Parliament.

Much of Central Ayrshire has a connection with Robert Burns, Scotland’s national bard. Burns lived in Irvine for a time and co-founded the Bachelors’ Club in the village of Tarbolton. Lochlea, in Craigie, is one of Scotland’s newest distilleries and is on land that Burns once farmed. It will be for my hon. Friends the Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Lillian Jones) and for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Elaine Stewart) to tell more about the man and the myth.

I might remind the House of a prominent American who also made a visit to the constituency. On 3 March 1960, Sergeant Elvis Presley spent a precious two hours in Prestwick airport. I think we can say that the rest was history for that man’s career after some time spent on our precious soil. If hon. Members are looking at me today, they may see a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on here too.

Prestwick is today a centre of the Scottish aerospace sector, with big ambitions. I was delighted to welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business and Trade to meet GE Caledonian during the election campaign to hear about the tens of millions of pounds of investment it has already secured. NATS in Prestwick —helpfully not the Nats from the Opposition Benches, but the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services—employs 600 highly skilled people at its centre and ensures that the 2.5 million flights to and from the UK each year arrive and depart safely.

Spirit, one of the UK’s largest aerospace manufacturers, announced recently that its Prestwick operations, with over 1,200 people, would be better served by a third-party owner, following an acquisition by Boeing. I have had assurances from the company that Prestwick is an integral part of its Airbus supply chain and will continue to be a key supplier to Airbus under any new owner. Aviation is critical to UK and Scottish GDP, and we should all be proud that it is an industry where the UK leads. I am proud that so much of it is in Central Ayrshire, where there is the potential to do much, much more.

I come from an ordinary working-class family from my constituency. My mum progressed from working in a factory to representing people at mental health tribunals as a lay advocate. My dad lost his job in the ’80s and became a council binman—a job he was proud of. With great teachers and support, I have had incredible opportunities, including a life-changing chance to study piano at the junior school of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, and latterly being the UK’s trade commissioner in south Asia, working with brilliant British, Indian and Bangladeshi colleagues to bring some tens of thousands of jobs to the UK and billions of pounds of investment. With the Scotch Whisky Association, I helped secure a 50% reduction in tariffs on Scotch in the state of Maharashtra. I was delighted to find out that Ardagh Glass in Irvine makes much of the glass that the Scotch whisky market exports around the world.

But on returning to my community to stand as their MP, I was shocked. Far too many people were struggling, including the woman in Springside who said she turned off her freezer and cried every night from hunger, the man in Girdle Toll who said that he spent much of his life savings on knee surgery rather than waiting in agony, and the family in Troon who have been waiting two decades to access social housing and have given up hope. Grandparents and parents were asking from where their children’s jobs would come.

I blame failed policies and failed politicians for this poverty and lack of opportunity. That is why I was proud to campaign for a Labour Government led by my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister to deliver jobs and bring down bills with GB Energy, increase funding to our NHS and schools, and ensure that the lives of working people across the whole country improve. From sport and culture to trade and enterprise, this Government will turn struggle into hope and hard work into real opportunity.

I have seen the difference that having opportunities makes. I was particularly happy this week to address a group of young people from north Ayrshire who had been inspired by Parliament’s Education Centre and by the chance to stand as an MP in this place—I just hope that not too many of them will do it soon. I thought that representing the UK around the world was the best job I could have had, but representing the families of Central Ayrshire will be the privilege of my life.