Great British Energy Bill

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 5th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison), whose experience and passion will be of great benefit to both his constituents and his local hospital, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran), who will be a very worthy successor to those suffragettes.

It is a real honour and a privilege to be standing here as the MP for Truro and Falmouth. I arrived in Cornwall quite by accident nearly 20 years ago, having been swept off my feet by a naval pilot who tempted me away from life as a London trade union lawyer, with images of beaches and sunsets. He flew search and rescue helicopters at Culdrose naval station. Unfortunately, as is often the case, our military marriage was short, and I was left as a single mum with a small son. But I chose to stay and bring him up in Cornwall, and it is very much our home. Becoming a single parent was sudden and difficult, but I was fortunate. I benefited from the opportunities offered by the last Labour Government and was able to get back on my feet. I retrained and took a job as a teaching assistant working in a local secondary school for seven years, first in special educational needs and later as an unqualified teacher, which shows the journey that education has been on.

I pay tribute to my predecessor, Cherilyn Mackrory. She served in a number of roles in this place; she showed her passion for the environment in her work on the Environmental Audit Committee and as chair of the ocean conservation all-party parliamentary group. She also drew on her own personal experience to help others. She did a huge amount to shape the women’s health strategy and maternity safety awareness, and was integral in introducing the new pregnancy loss certificate. Both Cherilyn and her predecessor, Sarah Newton, worked to secure a new women and children’s unit at Treliske hospital in Truro, one of the previous Government’s 40 new hospitals or units. It is desperately needed and a long time coming. I had my son in the existing unit nearly 19 years ago, and the building was not fit for purpose then. I really want to ensure its speedy completion.

Truro and Falmouth has existed as a constituency only since 2010. It sits in the middle of the Duchy of Cornwall, spreading from Falmouth on the south coast to Crantock on the north coast. Falmouth is my home, and where I have sat as a councillor for the past six years. It is a vibrant and welcoming town enveloped by the ocean. Falmouth has played its part in the history of Great Britain. In the late 1600s, the town was appointed the Royal Mail packet station, receiving and sending mail and messages all around the globe, making Falmouth —for 150 years at least—the information superhighway of the British empire.

However, Falmouth is more than its seafaring past. We still have two splendid castles, Pendennis and St Mawes, protecting the entrance to the Carrick Roads, but the constituency is also the site of Falmouth University, built on the legacy of the famous art school that is still found on Woodlane, but now anchored across the border in the state-of-the-art Tremough campus in Penryn, which it shares with the University of Exeter. The area brims with creatives, scientists and engineers—whom Dawn French, the university’s chancellor, described as “enterprising dreamers”.

If we follow the River Fal upwards, we reach Truro, Cornwall’s capital and only city, with its impressive cathedral and award-winning theatre Hall for Cornwall. It has Lys Kernow, the home of Cornwall Council, as well as Treliske, the acute hospital. The constituency also has a large rural element, with an array of beautiful villages and areas such as the Roseland peninsula, where farming and fishing are still vital industries.

When researching for this speech, I was struck by the words in the maiden speech of one of Cornwall’s most well known and loved Members of Parliament, David Penhaligon. Exactly 50 years ago in this House, he referred to an economy that relies on tourism, traffic conditions in the summer months that strangle much of the industry that keeps the place going for the rest of the year, tremendous pressure on hospital services, sewage problems, pressure on housing, the problem of summer lets and the lowest average wage in Britain. I am pleased that the measures in this Government’s programme—a real living wage, the water Bill, devolution and renters rights—will help to address some of those issues, but it is shocking that many of the issues that he mentioned then are, sadly, still very much in evidence today, half a century on. For a place on the edge of the map, Cornwall is too often at the edge of our thoughts in this place. Like Penhaligon, I believe that Cornwall, with its proud and independent heritage, deserves better.

Turning to the topic of this debate, there is so much to be excited by. As well as Cornwall’s potential for onshore wind, we have 20% of Europe’s requirement for critical minerals and geothermal energy beneath our feet, buried in our granite. We only have to look at a horizon dotted with the ruins of engine houses to know that the people of Cornwall are more than happy to dig for their treasure. Falmouth is a town with its face turned to the sea. The port still has a very busy harbour and docks, which have businesses servicing both military and commercial ships, as well as hosting cruise and leisure vessels. But there is potential for so much more, and the port of Falmouth is poised to take advantages of a new generation of offshore wind production in the Celtic sea. With the support of the new energy company GB Energy, the £1.8 billion ports fund and investment in the skills training we so desperately need, our young people will be able to grasp with both hands the well-paid jobs of the future, while securing our own home-grown energy and facing down the challenge of climate change—a challenge that is so important to a place like Cornwall, which stares the impacts of the changing climate in the face every day. We were the first large rural authority to declare a climate emergency and the 2030 net zero target. Now, we will play our part in getting the country to meet a similarly ambitious target. Falmouth’s time truly has come again as part of the Government’s mission to become a clean energy superpower.

Truro and Falmouth is the most magical place to live. It well and truly hooked me and my small family, and has become part of me. My journey, despite its ups and downs, has been a charmed and happy one. Truro and Falmouth has given so much to me, and it is overflowing with promise and brilliant, independent-minded enterprising dreamers. I am determined to serve my home as well as it has served me. A bright future lies ahead for it.