Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Debate between David Baines and Caroline Nokes

Friday 26th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I am delighted to be able to make my maiden speech as the Member of Parliament for St Helens North during this important debate. Before my election to this place, I was the leader of St Helens borough council and the Liverpool city region lead member for net zero, so this debate is on a subject that I care deeply about, and one that I hope to contribute to in the years ahead. If the House will indulge me briefly, we are at the end of the school year in England, so speaking also as a former teacher, I put on record my thanks and respect for teachers, teaching assistants and all school staff. I know the challenges they have to overcome, how hard they have to work, and the difference they make as a result. I hope that they all have a very well-earned break in the coming weeks and that, if they are not already by a pool, they are very soon.

I congratulate all new Members who have made their first contributions in this place so far. The previous maiden speech was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Alan Gemmell); with his constituency’s connection to Elvis and his own piano lessons, I hope he will be joining the new parliamentary rock band, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) is keen to get set up. If they need a roadie, I am available. All the maiden speeches so far have set a very high bar, and it is great to be a Member of a Parliament that looks and sounds like the country that we represent. It is diverse, and it is strong as a result. I also thank all parliamentary staff who have worked so hard in recent weeks, helping me and all of us to find our way around.

I pay tribute to my predecessor, Conor McGinn. He served St Helens North and the country with dedication, helping to secure significant funding for our town centres and delivering Helen’s law and equal marriage in Northern Ireland. There are many people on both sides of the House who worked with him and will miss seeing him around the place, and I know they will join me in wishing him, his wife Kate, and their children the very best.

It is the honour of my working life to be elected to serve St Helens North as its Member of Parliament. I grew up in the constituency, in the former mining village of Haydock—a person from Haydock is known locally as a Yicker, and I am fairly certain that I am the first Yicker elected to this place. I grew up there in the 1980s, raised by my mum and dad, who themselves grew up in Blackbrook and Parr. Growing up at that time in St Helens, I could not help but be aware of politics. Decisions taken in this place by the then Conservative Government deeply affected my community and the people in it, and not for the better. I had to wait until I was 17 to experience a Government who demonstrated that they cared about communities like mine and people like me.

My own children are now 11 and seven, and as their dad I am relieved for them that they will grow up under a Labour Government who are passionate about improving life for them and their generation, creating opportunities, and rebuilding Britain brick by brick. I thank the voters of St Helens North for giving me the opportunity to serve, to be part of that change, and hopefully to prove that government and politics can be a force for good. I owe a huge amount of thanks to my family, especially my mum and dad, and above all my wife Helen and my two children. Members in all parts of the House will know that you cannot do this job and do it well without the support of your family, and that is certainly true in my case.

My home of St Helens North is made up of historic, distinctive villages around and including the towns of St Helens and Newton-le-Willows. The industrial revolution and all the advances made by our country in the 1800s and beyond simply would not have happened without the toil and ingenuity of working people in the communities that I am now proud to represent. From the railways to chemicals and canals, from coal to glass and farming, it was the people of my constituency and many other similar areas across the north of England who built and shaped the 20th century.

My constituency and the wider borough of St Helens are now home to thousands of businesses, from multinational brands to innovative and hard-working small and medium-sized companies. We are also home to Parkside in Newton-le-Willows, a former colliery site that—thanks to the hard work of previous MPs, the Labour council, our partner Langtree, and the city region—is now being regenerated and developed into one of the most significant employment and investment sites in the north-west of England, with huge potential for rail freight and advanced manufacturing. We need to make sure that young people have the skills and opportunities to access the jobs that this development and others will create in the years to come. This week’s announcements about Skills England are therefore extremely welcome.

My constituency is also a hotbed of sport. Boxing, darts and numerous amateur clubs thrive in St Helens North. We are home to Haydock Park racecourse, the world’s oldest open rugby club at Liverpool St Helens, which was founded in 1857, fantastic cricket and football clubs, and St Helens rugby league club—three-time rugby league world champions. Although the ground is technically in St Helens South and Whiston, it does live in the hearts and souls of many people in St Helens North, including mine.

We are also home to a magnificent and hard-working charity and voluntary sector. Our churches and community groups work all year round to support the most vulnerable, and this, to me, is what lies at the heart of what I love most about my home and the people I share it with. I had the responsibility of leading the local council through the pandemic, working hand in hand with many fantastic local organisations, as well as public and private sector partners. The kindness and strength that my community showed during those times was overwhelming, as it was, I know, in most of the country. At the start of the pandemic, we set up a campaign called St Helens Together to co-ordinate support, and I am proud to say that that ethos is still with us, as we work to collaborate on tackling the challenges we face. In my role as MP, I am excited to continue supporting that work and the many fantastic people and organisations involved.

Once proudly Lancastrian, and to many of us still exactly that, my constituency, and the wider borough, is now also a leading member of the Liverpool city region, working to deliver the jobs, transport, skills and clean energy that St Helens North and the region needs—which brings me to the subject of this morning’s debate. As I mentioned at the start of my remarks, I was the Liverpool city region lead for net zero before my election to this place, and I had the privilege of being involved in projects such as HyNet, and Mersey Tidal, which has the potential to power 1 million homes and create thousands of high-skilled jobs, and in St Helens we are delivering Glass Futures, which is a world-leading project that will decarbonise the global glass industry—no small boast.

Our metro mayor, Steve Rotheram, and local leaders, including our new St Helens Borough Council leader, Anthony Burns, are ambitious for what we can achieve. Just as we led the world in the first industrial revolution, so we can lead it in the green industrial revolution. The threat of climate change is real, and it is urgent, but the mission to tackle it and the journey to net zero, if done in the right way, can also be an opportunity for new jobs, new investment, new skills and new opportunities for workers and for businesses—growing our local and regional economy and at the same time protecting our energy security in a volatile world. Great British Energy is just one vital and exciting part of Labour’s broader agenda for government, and it is why I was proud to vote for the measures in the King’s Speech.

Since those votes earlier this week, there has rightly been a lot of attention on child poverty, and, as someone who has been concerned about this for almost all my working life, and who has tried to raise the issue for years, I am delighted that it is finally being talked about. The previous Labour Government lifted children out of poverty, and I have no doubt that this Government will too. But, if we are going to lift children and their families out of poverty, it has to be a whole-Government approach. Everything is connected to everything else.

We need the child poverty strategy, and action to follow it urgently, but we also need economic stability and a strong focus on inclusive growth. We need Great British Energy and affordable energy. We need new social and genuinely affordable homes. We need new jobs and the new deal for working people. We need investment in our town centres and high streets, investment in public services and the staff who provide them, and high aspirations for every single child, starting with a properly funded, properly resourced, broad education. Those are the manifesto commitments I supported this week.

It will not surprise anyone to hear that, as a former teacher, I am a firm believer that there is no greater tool for social mobility or personal fulfilment than education, and I am evidence of it. I was a shy and quiet working-class kid at school, and it was not until I went to sixth-form college, and particularly university, that I eventually gained the confidence to believe in myself and stand up in front of others and speak—and I would never have dreamed that I would be doing it here in this place.

I would not be here today if it had not been for that experience of higher education, and I think we should resist at all costs any of the growing arguments that some degrees and time spent learning are worthless, or that too many young people are doing degrees. What I suspect some of those behind such claims mean is, “too many of the wrong people”. Well, if it is good enough for the children of the wealthy, it is good enough for working-class kids like me and those to come.

All children deserve those opportunities, including those with special educational needs. There is a crisis right now in the system, which is leaving too many children and their families waiting far too long for assessment, and then, when they are assessed, they too often do not get the support they need, despite the best efforts of their schools and school staff. Whether they are children in mainstream education with dyslexia or autism, or children in special schools with more complex needs, every child deserves to be able to access a full and vibrant curriculum with adequate support and adjustments to help them achieve their best. The parents of these children are every bit as ambitious for them as any other parent, just as parents of state-school pupils are equally ambitious as those who can afford private schools. All they ask, like any parent or any child, is for a fair chance.

I am encouraged to hear our new Government talking about these issues already, and about the challenges that our schools, pupils and their families face. I intend to do all I can to help deliver the change that they, and we, all need. If young people are to access the jobs of today and tomorrow—in AI and life sciences, clean energy and more—we must be focused on opening every possible door, not closing them.

In conclusion, we have been sent to this place with a mandate to change the country and to change lives for the better. There is a huge amount to do, but Labour’s plans for the country are ambitious and, most importantly, deliverable. For as long as I am in this place, I will do all I can to help give all our children and young people the tools and opportunity to reach their potential, and to ensure that the benefits of the change we will bring are felt by people in St Helens North, as well as the country as a whole.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Alison Bennett to make her maiden speech.