Clean Energy Superpower Mission

Andrew Pakes Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman nods his head. I will be honest with him: we are not going to give community veto. The last Government did not give it either. There are nationally significant projects that the Government have to make decisions on. Obviously, we have to take into account the views of local communities, but the whole point of decision making on the nationally significant infrastructure programme is that we look at the needs of the nation as well. That is why community benefit is important. If we ask local communities to host clean energy infrastructure, sometimes they will not want it, or sometimes a minority will not want it—I am not making presumptions in this case—and then we should ensure that those communities benefit from it.

[Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State and his team to the Chamber. It is a privilege to make my first contribution in this House on such an ambitious plan. It is ambitious not just on net zero, the climate crisis and energy security, but on jobs and opportunities for young people in places such as mine. In my constituency, Peterborough college is already building a green technology centre to develop new green apprenticeships, and we have plans for a clean energy transition centre. Will the Secretary of State put on record his commitment to working with trade unions, communities, colleges and others, so that we can move from blue-collar to green-collar apprenticeships, and give young people an opportunity to succeed in life as we meet our climate and energy needs?

[Edward Miliband]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. He raises the important question of how we ensure—this issue will be familiar to Members across the House—that we not only have the capacity to generate jobs in clean energy but can meet the skills needs of the country in order to fill them. This is frankly something on which we need to do a lot better as a country. My Department—I will talk about this in the next few weeks—will take on more of a function around looking at the skills needs of the clean energy economy, working with the Department for Education on how we meet them. He raises a crucial point in that context.