Jessica Toale

Last November, the Children’s Minister and I visited St Joseph’s Catholic primary school in Poole. We were there because the school was one of the first to benefit from the roll-out of solar panels under GB Energy. We met members of the Eco club, who excitedly showed us how much energy the panels were generating and how much energy the school was consuming. We joined a classroom lesson and jogged on the spot with the kids to generate CO₂ and monitor the levels so that they could practically learn about heating, cooling and ventilation. We watched them design new energy efficiency and greening measures, and they told us with pride how the solar panels enabled them to give back to their community by supplying power to EV chargers in the car park. Children care deeply about protecting our natural environment and preserving it for future generations. They understand the need for bold action to do so better than some of the adults in this Chamber. Not only were the solar panels a valuable learning tool inspiring them, but the school was saving money—about £8,500 a year—enabling it to plough resources back into teaching. That speaks to something wider. For many people, the promise that hard work delivers security, home ownership and a decent quality of life increasingly feels out of reach. That frustration is real, and we see that acutely on energy. Local residents and businesses in Bournemouth West tell me that heating their homes, fuelling their cars and sustaining their energy costs is becoming increasingly unaffordable. Families are tired of living at the mercy of global energy shocks that they cannot control. Every instance of international instability is felt in food bills, household bills and the anxiety that families feel when sitting around their kitchen table at the end of the month. That is why I am proud of the number of measures that we have taken as a Government. We have measures in the Budget to bring down bills by £150, the energy price cap, action on heating oil, a warm homes plan, which is bringing the biggest ever public investment in homes, and record investment in clean, home-grown power. We have the energy independence Bill—a cornerstone measure in the King’s Speech—to accelerate investment in clean, home-grown energy, strengthen consumer protections and bring down bills over the long term. Let me make a point clearly to Members on the Front Bench: towns such as Bournemouth and Poole stand ready to help to deliver that transition. It is an immense source of pride for me to represent a constituency that is full to the brim of extraordinary talent, creativity and innovation. We have outstanding colleges and universities and skilled workers. A great example of that is Bournemouth & Poole college’s green energy centre, which is building the skilled workforce of the future. We have natural assets on our coastline and communities eager for investment. There are huge opportunities through the Dorset clean energy super cluster, which is based in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton). The transition to clean energy must not simply happen to places such as Bournemouth and Poole; it must include them. Creating a new generation of skilled workers and the opportunity for well-paid jobs in areas that have for too long been overlooked for investment is about making an economy that works again for people who feel like it has stopped working for them.