Blair McDougall

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are having a wider conversation at the moment about how enterprise education in general should go through people’s experience in school, and the co-operative and social interest models should be part of that. The co-operative development unit in MHCLG is helping to develop guidance and partnering with local authorities to see how we can improve access and advice. On community ownership, we are committed to communities and we are going further than ever to ensure that they have powers to take advantage of the assets that they value. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) asked specifically about the community ownership of power. He will be aware that the local power plan announced by colleagues in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is designed to address the barriers to community energy ownership and is backed by £1 billion to fund those local projects. At the beginning of the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) asked whether the Government are willing to back local areas in taking control of the things that they value and that are important to them. I hope some of the measures that I have set out show that the Government’s answer is a resounding yes.