Andrew Pakes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Oct 2024 · Israel: UNRWA Ban · Hansard source

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  Last night, I spoke to constituents who support the provision of medical aid directly into Gaza and the west bank. They were angry and heartbroken, because after each of the conversations I have had with them in the past year, the bombing and destruction have increased. I welcome the statements from the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend about the situation, but the vote in the Knesset risks making things worse—for aid, for the release of the hostages, for a two-state solution, and for the recognition of Palestine. What hope can right my hon. Friend give my constituents, the Palestinian people and the world community that this time it will be different?

• 28 Oct 2024 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  As the Foreign Secretary knows, this is a critical time for the middle east. I think the House speaks as one with a message of ending the violence, releasing the hostages and getting aid in. The humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinian people will only be made worse if the Israeli Government carry out their threat to effectively shut down UNRWA. Although I welcome the Government’s utter condemnation and rejection of those plans, what reassurances can he give my constituents and the House that the Government will not only talk tough in the region but take action to protect lives if the Israeli Government persist with those plans?

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

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  David Lowndes is a hero of ours in Peterborough. For 51 years, he has chronicled life in our city, as the snapper for the local paper. Just last weekend, in rain and shine, I met David taking photos at the Diwali festival and at the rededication of a war memorial. This year, his regular contract with the Peterborough Telegraph comes to an end. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating David on his contribution to our city and journalism, and will she ensure that we have time in this House to debate the value of good local journalists?

• 16 Oct 2024 · City and Town Centres: Regeneration · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) for starting the debate. This is an important debate, as the turnout today shows; so many of us, from both sides of the House, are concerned about our high streets. Few things are as symbolic of the broken nature of Britain as the decline of our high streets. Empty shops, fewer police officers, drugs and antisocial behaviour are just some of the issues that businesses and residents raise with me about my own city centre. In Peterborough, we are blessed with a heritage that many would be proud of: a world-class cathedral; a new town and development corporation legacy; an incredible museum and access to the arts and culture; and diversity that brings together world cultures in one city. Despite that inheritance, it has been a tough decade for all our high streets and the city centre. Despite the promises, we have not seen an increase in police. Drugs and antisocial behaviour remain a problem in too many areas. Under the last Government, Peterborough lost its John Lewis and M&S, and suffered incredible cuts to local government that have made all our lives harder. This debate goes to the heart of the question of what kind of community people want to live in—it is not just about city centres. We have had broken promises over the long-awaited regeneration of Lincoln Road in Peterborough, and we have seen wear and tear in our new town centres, like Bretton and Werrington. Regeneration matters so much because the raw ingredients for Peterborough are there, but they need leadership, action and investment. Peterborough cathedral’s Monsters of the Sea exhibition this year attracted over 30,000 visitors, so we know what can be done. Anglia Ruskin University Peterborough, our new university, is bringing new life to the city. A new business improvement district called Peterborough Positive, which is two years in, is establishing itself as a voice for local businesses and traders; I place on the record my thanks to Pep Cipriano, Sean Page and the BID team for their work. I also thank our Labour mayor, Dr Nik Johnson, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority, Network Rail and the council for their work on our new station regeneration programme. That project is welcome, but should have come much sooner. It is the first phase of regeneration of our city. The next phases will show the ambition of the Government, the council and the mayor, for a city with a new bus station that has accessibility at its heart, and a new indoor pool to replace the one shut by the previous council. I urge the Minister to ensure that in the Government’s plans for our high streets, we make it easier for cities like mine. We need a clear message to the council that it has a leading role to play in shaping our future, and action to help small businesses, shopkeepers and hospitality by tackling late payments, taking a tougher line against retail crime and reforming business rates. Most of all, we need a plan and vision, backed up by the investment and funding to turn our city around and create the jobs, community and prosperity we need.

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

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  The hon. Gentleman has forgotten to mention the onshore wind ban, which is really important. If he wants to celebrate his record, let us celebrate it in the full glare of light. Does he agree that one of our big challenges in this country is that we failed to make any progress on nuclear in the last 14 years? We talk about new jobs, but we are losing skilled engineering and nuclear jobs in this country today because they are going to other countries, because those countries are making the progress that we have failed to make.

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

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  I share huge empathy with the sentiments behind the amendment, but I believe that the answer to home insulation sits not in the Great British Energy Bill, but in the wider clean power and clean energy mission. I find it quite rich for Opposition Members, who used to be in government, to talk about supporting an emergency home insulation programme when they decimated the apprenticeship programme that delivered the workforce that could actually insulate our homes.

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

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for being kind to me in the first intervention that I have ever taken in this House, but I will stick to my point: that we could achieve so much more in this country. We would be having a fundamentally different conversation about insulation efficiency and renewable energy if we had not gone through the last 14 years, in which budgets were cut. There are young people in my constituency of Peterborough who could have contributed, by moving from blue-collar to green-collar jobs, if we had had a further education system that was functioning and could train them—if we had a home insulation system that had a workforce that could get out and deliver. Whatever we say in any resolution, motion or primary legislation in this place will not be enacted unless we have a people plan that delivers for it. That is why delivering on this issue should come in a different piece of legislation, even though I have huge empathy with the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire.

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

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  I want to join in the conversation about community energy, which I know is very important to the county that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire and I share. Lots of great initiatives are going on there. Having read the amendments and thought about them this morning, I am deeply encouraged by the comments that the Minister and Juergen Maier made in our session earlier in the week. I think I am the only Co-operative MP here— [ Interruption. ] I can see my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar indicating that she is one, too. As someone who has worked in the co-operative energy sector for much of my adult life, this is the first time in many years that I have seen a Government genuinely committed to community energy and working with the mutual sector to deliver that. I am proud of the work that the Co-operative party and the Labour party have done to bring forward GB Energy and work with the co-op sector. In recent weeks, as we have prepared for the Bill, I have met Central Co-op, Midcounties Co-op, Unity, Greater Manchester Community Renewables, and a range of agencies that are fully behind the Bill because they see the power of it. The scale of the Government’s ambition is clear. The Secretary of State himself has said that the local power plan will deliver the biggest expansion of community energy in history. It would also be remiss of us to consider the amendment without acknowledging the local power plan, which is part of GB Energy’s founding statement, which includes a clear commitment from the chair, Juergen Maier: “We will be investing in community-owned energy generation, reducing the pressures on the transmission grid while giving local people a stake in their transition to net zero.” The local power plan is also listed in GB Energy’s three initial priorities. Although I sympathise with, and support and wish to work with, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire on community energy in Cambridgeshire in the localities that we operate in—it is really important that we keep a focus on that—this is a Bill that will transform our energy. The co-op movement is behind it and communities are behind it. It is important that we drive the Bill forward, so that it enables the local power plan, rather than—as it is almost the festive season—treating it like a Christmas tree, which is what I worry some legislation can become like. There are so many baubles that we could put on this legislation, when we should let the majesty of the tree speak for itself. We should get on and pass it, by Christmas or in six months or however long it takes. Community energy is coming, and we do not need an amendment to tell us it is on its way.

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

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  The hon. Member sets great stock in saying what this Government might do. To give us context, can he tell us what his Government did? Did bills go up or down in his tenure as a Minister?

• 9 Oct 2024 · Film Industry · Hansard source

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  I welcome very much today’s statement and the move to increase the number of film studios. The independent sector has the ability not just to tell our diverse stories but to transform the workforce and create a more diverse one. I had the great privilege for much of my working career to represent freelancers in Bectu and to represent the creative industry unions. What message does my right hon. Friend have for Bectu, the Musicians’ Union and Equity, which do tremendous work in this area, as well as young people in my constituency looking to join the film industry, to tell them that this will create not just more jobs but a more diverse set of jobs in all parts of the country?

• 9 Oct 2024 · Skills England · Hansard source

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  Let me put on record that I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships. In preparation for your speech, I totted it up and it seemed that Skills England will be the fifth such national quango set up by Westminster since the Manpower Services Commission in 1973. The average tenure of a Skills Minister since 1997 has been 15 months—

• 9 Oct 2024 · Skills England · Hansard source

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  I apologise, Sir Christopher; this is my first such intervention in one of these debates. Since 1997, the average tenure for a Skills Minister has been 15 months—longer than Liz Truss’s, but shorter than a premier league manager’s. The average life of a skills quango such as Skills England has been only eight years, less time than most people spend in primary school. Does my hon. Friend agree that the only way that Skills England will be a success is if it is linked to industrial strategy, is tripartite and brings together employers and unions? That would mean that we would have a durable system and not a repeat of the failures of the past, which saw short-term interventions that have not delivered for working-class people.

• 9 Oct 2024 · Skills England · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister join me in congratulating my constituent Grace Gourlay, who two weeks ago won the Peterborough Telegraph advanced apprentice of the year award for her work at the end of her second year of a four-year course at Caterpillar in engine and test design? Does she agree that one of the big challenges for Skills England in reforming the growth and skills levy is to ensure that we reverse the decline in the number of young people entering apprenticeships in skilled areas? We must begin to reverse the 70% drop in young people taking up an apprenticeship course.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Most of my professional background has been in workforce development in supply chains, ensuring that we can deliver. Even though we have had the conversation about the flexibility and the broadness of the objectives, I think this is still an ambitious piece of legislation that the Government are putting forward. I am interested in your reflections on the objectives and the financial assistance, and whether you think that in the country we currently have the supply chain or the skills to deliver on this ambition, or whether the Bill itself in containing these powers will be a catalyst to deliver on that ambition. Josh Buckland: Ultimately, the question of supply chain is broader than this Bill. Great British Energy could absolutely play a role, especially if it is doing place-based investments or is particularly investing in certain projects. but there is a fundamental question for the Government, as they look to build out the supply chain, around what they are doing at a skills-based level, what they are doing at a technology development level and how they are giving greater clarity on the pipeline of projects over time, some of which might be invested in by Great British Energy and some of which might not. For me, supply chain and skills deployment is a matter of broader Government policy, which Great British Energy can support. As we stand here today, we do not necessarily have the right level of skilled capacity in the country to deliver all the ambitions that have been set out across infrastructure. It is important not just to look at the energy sector; a lot of the changes will require changes in the transport sector, the water sector and others, but that does not mean that we cannot have those skills if there is a broader framework to develop them, to train and to invest at scale in the supply chain. Great British Energy could play some role in that, but the broader policy framework and the Government’s ambitions more widely will dictate that to a greater degree.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q It is good to have you in, Andy. Do you think there should be anything in the Bill and its priorities on workforce development? Having worked in the sector alongside GMB colleagues, my experience is that lots of these new companies set up, but do not recognise trade unions and do not have the quality of work that we have seen previously in the power and industry sectors, particularly in renewables and others. Indeed, some of the renewables companies, despite being divisions of existing larger companies that do recognise unions, have set up without recognition. What do you think the role is of the Bill, or its strategic priorities, in ensuring we get the right terms and conditions for the new workforce, as we have for existing workforces? Andy Prendergast: That is a very good question. We have been really pleased to see that the role of trade unions is incorporated in the Bill, although we do need to flesh out exactly how that works. Your criticism of the renewables industry, particularly for members of the GMB, is absolutely critical. When people talk about our role in industry, what they are often talking about is the white-collar jobs—the ones in universities, getting the technology. They are not talking about the blue-collar jobs, which, at the moment, are the ones in the energy sector that are very well unionised, with good rates of pay and excellent terms and conditions, and which give the security that families and communities need for the long term. What really concerns us about the renewables industry so far is that it came with the promise of mass jobs that simply have not materialised. Alex Salmond promised 30,000 jobs in offshore wind; 10 years later, fewer than 10,000 have been delivered. Particularly when you are looking at maintenance jobs, you are talking about jobs that are subcontracted with terrible terms and conditions and that are anti-union. When we look at the success that places like America or Europe have had in renewables, trade unions are at the heart of that. What we have seen so far is a real willingness from the Government to work with both ourselves and employers. One of the bizarre things about it is that those coalitions really have an impact. One of the most surprising days in my job was attending a meeting here and being praised by a Tory MP, which I never thought would happen—it was one of those pinch-yourself moments. It was in relation to Hinkley Point: it was recognised that we had a huge role there in helping to develop the workforce and to manage the process of ensuring both that they benefited and that we got things done quickly and properly. If we get that right, this is an opportunity to bring not just jobs but good jobs. In a lot of the areas that we are talking about, we have this constant debate about “red wall” and about “post-industrial”. It is not that there are no jobs there; it is just that the jobs being brought in are not very good ones. They are not jobs that offer permanent contracts. They are not jobs that offer good pensions, sick pay or opportunities for advancement. They are zero-hours contracts—got here today, gone tomorrow—that give people very little pride. This is an opportunity to reverse that 40-year decline in our industrial base and do something positive about it.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you both for coming in. This Bill and GB Energy are a hugely exciting return to public steering, which we have not seen before for our energy system. One of our big challenges, before we even start building new systems, is the skills shortage we face, and the real challenge we have had in nuclear, renewables and other forms of energy production. I ask you both: how do you feel the Bill can stimulate and relate to the need to develop skills, deliver new jobs and ensure skills development in different regions of the country as well as in traditional areas? Mike Clancy: Andrew, you are absolutely right. There are various things that need to be brought together that the Bill itself probably needs to consider, in terms of the skills profile generally and other forms of generation that are within this space. There is going to be an office of nuclear jobs developed by the Secretary of State, and so on. Our view is that it comes down to the extent to which the Bill can specify that GB Energy should be an exemplar company, and that it sets objectives for its board in relation to not only its community engagement, but how it conducts its processes to ensure that the short-termism that sometimes emerges from the private sector form of energy ownership is not characterised by a public company, which should be an absolute champion in these areas. It comes down to governance and to the objectives and how they are set for a public company, and knitting them into the other parts of the skills landscape. That is why I also make the point—not in a usual trade union way, may I say—that we have to think about the labour markets in which GBE is going to play because they are very tight and very demanding, and there is a whole range of infrastructure that this country needs to invest in to deliver the growth mission. Mika Minio-Paluello: There is good practice to learn from other countries: from Ørsted, Statoil—now Equinor —and Statkraft. They took a proactive role and identified where they thought the country needed to be in 10 years —not just where they might need to be from a minimalist, reactive position, but where the country needed to be—and then how to invest for the long run in those skills.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you all for coming in. Could you tell us a bit more about how GB Energy might benefit from or support the ecosystem of innovation and research we have? We know the Bill is limited; we have had that discussion. I am interested in your thoughts on how what is in the Bill might stimulate the innovation and research that the three of you represent. Marc Hedin: I think we can reflect a little bit on the role of Great British Energy here. One of the areas for innovation is around investments in less mature technologies. It is one of the roles that was highlighted in the founding statement, published in July earlier this year. There is a role for that, but I would argue that there is also a possibility for dedicated schemes to deploy capital in less mature technologies. For instance, with regards to long-duration energy storage, we had a consultation earlier this year, generally welcomed by the industry, which looked into implementing a sort of capital flow regime to promote investment into long-duration energy storage. There is a role for GB Energy here, but there are also alternative routes that are potentially less capital-intensive. The second aspect, touched on earlier, is around supply chain. There is huge scope here for Great British Energy, where, out of all its potential roles, it may provide the best value for money. In GB, the domestic supply chain has not generally benefited that much from the high level of renewable build-out that we have seen in the past decade or so. There is a role for providing visibility to the supply chain, and implementing innovation into the supply chain more generally in the energy sector. Ravi Gurumurthy: If you think about different barriers to innovation, I think three stand out. One is co-ordination challenges; second is the provision of certain public goods, such as ports infrastructure, which are critical to investment; and third is risk appetite. I think GB Energy can potentially address all those in different ways. On the risk side, co-investing—particularly in the novel technologies that Marc mentioned—can accelerate that innovation. Secondly, on things such as ports infrastructure, having a body that is trying to do whatever it takes to solve some of the co-ordination issues and the dependencies on public inputs can drive that innovation. One other thing I would mention is that Government have a role, and have increasingly played a more co-ordinated role, in driving directed R&D through the net zero panel. I think Government can be better at that, if they are more informed, and one of the things I think GB Energy will do is to give a stronger insight into the constraints and opportunities in the market, and therefore potentially inform Government’s ability to drive innovation in a smarter way. Shaun Spiers: I obviously agree with all that. The really difficult thing about clean power by 2030 is the last 10% or 20%. It is clear that the market on its own, at the moment, will not provide that, and just adding renewables and grid will not provide it. What GB Energy provides is the potential to invest in things like pump hydropower, compressed air and new technologies that we are going to need. That is going to be essential to achieving the 2030 power decarbonisation.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Great British Energy Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  This is registered, but I have been told to say it out loud: I am a member of the GMB, which is appearing before us later, and before the election I was the deputy general secretary of Prospect, which is also speaking to us this morning.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Farming and Food Security · Hansard source

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  On the issue of stability, I remind my hon. Friend of the opening lines of Labour’s 2010 food and farming strategy: “We can’t carry on just as we are.” Farmers I have met in my constituency would make exactly the same claim now, given the record of the last Conservative Government, who scrapped Labour’s food plan in 2010. Does he agree that if we are to invest in food and farming, and to bring jobs and prosperity to rural and urban constituencies, we must back Labour’s new deal for farmers, invest in food and farming jobs, and put a real plan for food security back on the table?

• 7 Oct 2024 · Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, and I congratulate the trade unions, communities and campaigners that have campaigned for this for so long. His leadership stands in stark contrast with the asset-stripping of jobs, hopes and investment that we have seen in too many of our industrial heartlands. Does he agree that carbon capture is about not just net zero or boosting cluster areas, but boosting jobs, skills and futures in the supply chain in communities such as mine in Peterborough and across the country?

• 12 Sept 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Small businesses, coffee shops and traders are the lifeblood of constituencies such as mine in Peterborough and across the country. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the Federation of Small Businesses, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this Sunday? Will she also make time in the House for us to debate the amazing contribution made by the 5.5 million small business owners in this country?

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that the only shameful thing in this debate is the legacy that the Government were left? It forced the new Government— [ Interruption. ] The reality that 800,000 pensioners are not receiving pension credit is a shameful legacy. If Conservative Members wanted to show humility and learn from their party’s record in government, they would acknowledge that they are the ones who crashed the economy, left the NHS in a way that pensioners cannot get to see a doctor, and broke NHS dentistry. Does the Minister agree that it is our job to fix the economy so that we can keep on helping pensioners?

• 5 Sept 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Good public transport, especially buses, is important for so many things in my constituency and the country, from accessing a GP to visiting friends, getting to college and going to work. The Labour and Co-operative Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough has just launched a consultation on taking back control of our buses. Despite public support for better buses, the franchising model and enhanced partnership model is still bureaucratic and difficult for communities to engage with. Will the Leader of the House join me in welcoming our local consultation, and make time in the House for Members to debate further improvements so that communities can take control of our bus services?

• 2 Sept 2024 · Violent Disorder · Hansard source

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  I welcome the strong leadership that this Government and Home Secretary have shown. Even though Peterborough avoided the right-wing thuggery that many places saw earlier this summer, despite the best efforts of online misinformation and rumours, the events of the summer cast a long shadow on communities and constituencies like mine. I put on record my thanks to Peterborough’s Joint Mosques Council, Community First and Peterborough’s community group, as well as the police and council officers who worked around the clock to keep businesses and communities safe. Can the Home Secretary give confidence and comfort to communities like mine that, in the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to tackle extremism, Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred? This is not just about this summer; those problems have been rising over recent years and are at the source of the issue that we need to tackle.

• 30 Jul 2024 · Budget Responsibility Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to make my maiden speech while you are in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to follow such wonderful maiden speeches, particularly that of the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller); I pay tribute to her and to her mother. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West and Leigh (David Burton-Sampson), the first ever Labour Member for his constituency. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) for bowing out of the competition with Peterborough over which constituency is the most beautiful. I can think of no more important debate in which to make my maiden speech than one about securing our economic stability for my city and this country to flourish. As the gateway to the fens, the home of food and farming, Peterborough is willing to play its part in rebuilding our country. I am the fifth MP for Peterborough in seven years—we had three in 2019 alone—so I hope to bring to my tenure as a local MP the much-heralded stability that my party’s Front Benchers talk about. I pay tribute to my predecessors, who all cared deeply about our city and worked hard to be a voice for our needs on the national stage. It turns out that I have some illustrious predecessors. I feel I may be letting my constituents down: it is fitting, during the Olympics, to pay tribute to David Cecil, who entered Parliament having already won a gold medal at the 1928 Olympics. I look forward to talking about my egg-and-spoon race at school. I would also like to thank my immediate predecessor Paul Bristow and his staff for their incredible hard work looking after residents in need in our city. I am proud to be part of the largest intake of Co-operative MPs in Parliament’s history. Co-operative and community values run deep in Peterborough. I am the second Labour and Co-operative MP to serve our city; the first was Stanley Tiffany, who was elected in another significant change election in 1945. I note that Tiffany’s first question in the House, in August 1945, was to the then Minister of Health, Nye Bevan, on affordable and rural housing. The answer was that housing was a priority for the incoming Labour Government of 1945. Almost 80 years later, that challenge remains. I am pleased to see that affordable housing will be one of the priorities of the Labour Government coming into power in 2024. Tiffany’s roots were in the Peterborough and District Co-operative Society. I am incredibly proud to have been elected alongside Labour colleagues on a pledge to double the size of the co-operative economy—a pledge that Tiffany could be proud of. Just a few weeks ago, I met staff at the Co-op store in Eye in Peterborough to hear about the rise in shoplifting and the abuse that too many of them face. Abuse should never be part of the job. I put on record my thanks to the retail workers in Peterborough and around the country who serve us every day. I pledge to work tirelessly with my good friends in the co-operative movement, the trade unions and this House to give retail workers the dignity and protection at work that they need. We are also home to the wonderful English Mustard Growers co-operative, which was formed in 2009 to keep mustard production alive in the UK after the disastrous harvest of 2007. Many people here will know our crop as Colman’s mustard. Today, there are over 40 growing members, including our very own Michael Sly, who is based at Park Farm in Thorney. In Peterborough, we really do cut the mustard. Peterborough has welcomed people from across the country and the world for generations as a city, and even more so when we became a new town. I am one of those people who have chosen to make Peterborough my home. The new town promise of a decent home, a good job and a great place to live remains as important today as ever, but it is a promise that has frayed over the past 14 years. Peterborough is a working city with a rich history; we work hard, care for our community and love our country. We are deeply rooted in an industrial heritage of food, farming and engineering. We are home to a breathtaking cathedral, majestic mosques, and urban landscapes surrounded by the fens and poet John Clare’s country. We exemplify Clare’s words: “I found the poems in the fields and only wrote them down”. We are at the heart of sugar beet country and the home of British Sugar. We show how urban and rural can live successfully side by side. We have a rich history and a bright future for food and farming, and I thank the farming community and my good friends in the National Farmers Union for their advice and friendship. In my time in this House, I will always be a champion for food security and for growing more food in this country. We draw on our engineering heritage of Perkins Engines, Caterpillar and Peter Brotherhood, and can use that heritage to create new, high-skilled jobs and apprenticeships for the future. We are home to a new and growing university campus in the form of Anglia Ruskin University Peterborough, and to a new centre for green technology at Peterborough college, working to transition blue-collar opportunities to green-collar ones in hydrogen, electric vehicles and sustainable construction. We are also home to a rich diversity of communities, languages and traditions, from the Italians who arrived after the second world war to eastern Europeans and a large Kashmiri and Pakistani community. Visiting Azad Kashmir last year with friends from Peterborough remains a highlight of my life. The beauty of that land and of its people impress upon me the need to speak up on Kashmir in this House. However, we also face challenges. Nearly half the children in my constituency are growing up in poverty, and in some areas, that figure is even higher. For working-class parents such as mine, the promise was that by working hard, their children could get on. The greatest nobility I have known is working-class pride: the pride in good work, seeing your children succeed, and the ability to get on in life. That social contract has been broken, and we are all the poorer for it. I put on record my love and gratitude to my parents for instilling that pride in me and for pushing me to do more. I believe they are watching me on telly today, unless I am up against Tom Daley in the diving. I also thank the trade union movement I have grown up in and been part of for my whole life for giving me the skills, opportunities and confidence to stand for election, and now to stand in this House making this speech. Over the past few years, I have had the immense privilege to serve as deputy general secretary of Prospect and Bectu, and to serve internationally as one of the trade union delegates to the OECD’s AI expert panel, adding my voice on international issues. The trade union movement makes Britain a better place: every day, the contributions of thousands of workplace volunteers keep people safe at work, help people get on at work, and add to our economic wealth. I am proud to be union made. I will finish with this point: one of the things that drove me to stand for election this time was the sad passing of my brother in 2016. Richard’s sudden passing from an accident followed by sepsis was tragic, but it also brought home to me that my family were only able to get through it with the help and care of NHS staff, who looked after my brother and my family. Sepsis is something this House has learned more about recently due to the bravery of the former Member for South Thanet, who I pay tribute to. The NHS and our public servants are the best of us, and I give this commitment in the House today: that I will use whatever time I have in this place to champion the NHS, but also to champion awareness of the dangers and terrors of sepsis and what it does to people and their families. Peterborough stands ready to play our part in rebuilding our country. We have drive, dedication and purpose, and with a Government on our side, we look forward to driving opportunities in Peterborough and around the country.