Perran Moon MP: speeches

Speeches

• 26 Nov 2024 · Electricity Grid Upgrades · Hansard source

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  It is interesting to hear the hon. Member talk about delays and the issues with floating offshore wind. Does he agree that we should look at why we have such delays? After 14 years of Conservative Government, one might have thought that many of the challenges would already have been dealt with. Does he acknowledge that many of the current issues are because of a lack of action over the last 14 years?

• 21 Nov 2024 · Transport Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  6. What steps she is taking to improve transport infrastructure.

• 21 Nov 2024 · Transport Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  I associate myself with the comments about Lord Prescott. Public access to electric vehicle charging infrastructure is vital to encourage motorists to switch away from petrol and diesel vehicles, but the roll-out process is reliant on dedicated and experienced local authority resources, funding for which is due to run out next year. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss measures to avoid local authorities becoming bottlenecks in the roll-out of publicly accessible EV charging infrastructure?

• 12 Nov 2024 · NHS Dentistry: South-west · Hansard source

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  I entirely accept the points that have been made about Devon and Somerset. In Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, we have some of the most deprived areas in the country. I have met people who have chosen to access dental care privately at the expense of heating their homes or eating food. This is where we are today: we are in a dental emergency across the south-west, and in Cornwall, the situation is now critical. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we cannot wait any longer for emergency dental care across the south-west?

• 12 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  As Ministers know, the European powerhouse of critical minerals is Cornwall, including its vast quantities of lithium, essential for our transition away from fossil fuels. Will the Ministers agree with the industry’s call for a target of 50,000 tonnes of lithium?

• 6 Nov 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  This is a truly landmark Budget, not only for its glass ceiling smashing—I sincerely hope that the girls and young women in my constituency will be inspired to see the first female Chancellor for England after 800 years—but because it provides the basis for a clean break from the race to the bottom, trickle-down economic drivel, riddled with vested interests, to which the Conservatives have subjected the country for the past 14 years, with austerity, recession, dodgy personal protective equipment contracts and economic collapse. The public should never forgive and never forget what the Conservatives have done to our country. This Budget marks an end to using public finances and the British people as guinea pigs in an economic experiment that sent interest rates and mortgage rates soaring and living standards plummeting and saw families gripped in the vice-like clutch of the Conservatives’ cost of living crisis. When I listened to the response of the former Leader of the Opposition—it is hard to keep up—it was crystal clear to me that the born-to-rule Conservatives simply have not understood that they are not ruling any more. I only wanted to hear one word from the former Leader of the Opposition: sorry. That word never came. As someone with over 30 years of private sector experience, I am getting a bit bored of the trope that no one on this side of the House has any private sector experience—

• 6 Nov 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman asks about the Government Front Bench. I appreciate that a large proportion of Conservative MPs now serve on the Front Bench; that begs a question about the quality of the people left behind. On the one hand the Budget places desperately needed money in the hands of the lowest-paid workers, where it will be spent locally, and on the other hand it heralds a new era of much-needed infrastructure investment—the kind that will stimulate growth in the economy and thousands of new jobs across the country, based on a coherent industrial strategy. It sets us on a course to rebuild depleted public services and lays the foundations for the pillars of a decade of economic and social renewal. The Budget recognises the importance of the shared prosperity fund, which the Conservatives wanted to scrap to pay for their hare-brained national service plan —a decision that would have been devastating for the people of Cornwall, as well as for many other communities around the UK. The Budget places British workers at its heart—those same British workers who rejected the failed economic experiments of the Conservatives, along with the chaos, infighting and fiscal incompetence. They voted decisively for stability and security—a sea change from the previous 14 years. They voted for change; this Budget delivers it.

• 5 Nov 2024 · NHS Dentistry: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member think it indicative of the state of politics today that, although Members from both sides of the House are here, not a single one of the culprits—those responsible for the shameful state of dentistry across the UK, not least in my constituency—is here to listen to her very important speech?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I have more than 30 years of business experience, so the Conservative party’s claims that there is no business experience on the Government Benches carries about as much weight as their industrial strategy. Can the Minister confirm that prior to the election there were extensive consultations with business experts, which I bet the Conservative party wished they had done over the past 14 years.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Except Cornwall.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend about China. Does she agree with me that we should be looking at domestic production of critical minerals such as tin, lithium, tungsten and manganese? In Cornwall we have plenty, and we are very hopeful that the Bill will support the opportunities that they offer.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  The Conservatives are generally adamant that there very are few Labour Members with any business experience, so having spent more than 30 years in business—latterly in electric vehicle charging infrastructure—I was reassured to learn while listening to the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) that there is at least one Conservative who is not a renewable-energy Luddite, and I am glad to see him back in his place. I wish that the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) would spend a bit of time understanding a little more about geothermal energy, which does not require the wind to blow or the sun to shine. I was honoured to be part of the Committee considering the Great British Energy Bill, a core plank of this Government’s policy programme whose benefits will be felt in every corner of the UK, including my own constituency of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), for their diligent work on and defence of this transformational Bill. Let me also put on record my thanks not just to my right hon. and hon. Friends who sat on the Committee, but to other Members on both sides of the House who contributed to it. I will refer to the amendments. In Committee we heard from experts and stakeholders, and we extensively debated the issues, from oversight to community benefit. Opposition Members who were on the Committee know that, because they were there. As I said when I made my maiden speech on Second Reading, my focus will be on using the opportunities of this Bill to unleash the Cornish Celtic tiger. Renewable energy—onshore wind, offshore wind, geothermal, tidal and solar—and critical minerals such as tin, lithium, tungsten and manganese are fundamental for our transition away from fossil fuels. There is no silver bullet; we need a mix of renewable energy, which will form part of our policy going forward. That is what GB Energy will give us the opportunity to do. There are few areas of the UK where there is a greater distillation of renewable energy and critical mineral opportunities than in Cornwall. I refer to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) about human rights and the opportunity to produce domestically an awful lot of the energy and the critical minerals that we currently import from places such as China, Indonesia, Australia and South America. As a result, there are extremely high expectations in Cornwall for local jobs in industries that support community initiatives and domestic supply chains in one of the most deprived areas of northern Europe. Given the distillation of raw materials and natural resources in Cornwall, the fact that the new Centre for Critical Minerals, which will accelerate the move towards a green economy, opened very recently in Cornwall, and the fact that Exeter University, which has a campus in Penryn, has the largest number of top-100 climate scientists in the world, it will not come as a surprise to the Minister that I ask him to consider opening a satellite office for Great British Energy in Cornwall. They may not want it in Aberdeen, but we want it in Cornwall. I support the Bill as it is. We discussed the amendments in Committee, and I look forward to the opportunities that this Bill will bring to the people of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle.

• 24 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Critical minerals are essential to our transition away from fossil fuels. Virtually 100% of the UK’s critical minerals need to be imported from places as far flung as South America, the Congo, China and Australasia. Despite that, there are vast deposits of tin, lithium, manganese and tungsten here in the UK. That is a truly damning indictment of the “race to the bottom” economics of the Conservative party. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate in Government time on domestic critical mineral production?

• 23 Oct 2024 · Independent Water Commission · Hansard source

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  Sewage polluting Cornish beaches such as those in my constituency—specifically, St Agnes, where Surfers Against Sewage has its head office, Perranporth and Portreath—is yet another Conservative scandal that has damaged our economy and society for years, and that a Labour Government will now have to clear up. Does the Minister agree that as well as the economic damage, the damage to the mental health of those of us who cannot regularly use the sea should not be underestimated? Will the commission consider the mental health benefits as part of its work?

• 23 Oct 2024 · Holiday and Second Homes Regulation: Cornwall and Isles of Scilly · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 23 Oct 2024 · Holiday and Second Homes Regulation: Cornwall and Isles of Scilly · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that the issue of second homes and holiday homes in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is not uniformly faced across the entire south-west, and that the role of the local authority in dealing with this issue, if they have the powers to do so, is absolutely key?

• 23 Oct 2024 · Holiday and Second Homes Regulation: Cornwall and Isles of Scilly · Hansard source

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  In the hon. Member’s discussions with the public, private and voluntary sectors, is there any higher imperative across the whole of Cornwall than dealing with the issue of holiday and second homes? In my experience, there is no higher priority than grasping the challenges we are facing, which impact not just coastal areas, but towns in the middle of Cornwall, because people move from the coast to inland towns.

• 22 Oct 2024 · Renewable Energy: Cornwall · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that the time to act in Cornwall is right now? We have the US State Department, which is very interested in our renewable opportunities, and representatives from France coming to Cornwall. It would be a crying shame if our Government did not use the advantages available to make Cornwall a renewable energies cluster.

• 22 Oct 2024 · Renewable Energy: Cornwall · Hansard source

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  Looking at Cornwall, we have mentioned floating offshore wind, onshore wind, geothermal, tidal, solar, lithium, tin and manganese. Can the Minister name anywhere else in the UK where there is such a distillation of critical minerals and renewable energy opportunities? I am very excited by what she said about the cluster concept. Would not Cornwall be an ideal place to be an official cluster for renewables and critical minerals?

• 21 Oct 2024 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 15 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Under national minority status—well, the right hon. Gentleman can draw his own conclusion.

• 15 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that the people of Cornwall are ready, willing and able to take any renewable energy opportunities we possibly can?

• 15 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am interested in the right hon. Gentleman’s premise. If Scotland is granted this amendment, surely the Welsh and the Cornish—in Cornwall we have onshore wind, offshore wind, geothermal, tidal, solar, tin and lithium, which are all critical to the UK’s move away from fossil fuels—will demand the same thing. The point is that it is GB Energy, not “Scotland Energy”.

• 10 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Conservative party in government—I do not know whether opinion has changed—had little regard for private businesses. On Tuesday, however, we clearly heard expert witnesses from private businesses consistently testify that one of the Bill’s key benefits is that it is not overly and unnecessarily prescriptive, so it allows the scope to develop the strategic priorities that focus on ensuring that we get this right. The amendment is completely unnecessary, because it is yet another example of being overly prescriptive, which is not what businesses asked for on Tuesday.