Camborne, Redruth & Hayle Labour The Labour Party in Camborne & Redruth Constituency
On a visit to Cornwall yesterday, Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, confirmed that, due to its diverse range of natural resources, Cornwall will be at the epicentre of the UK’s transformation to a fossil-fuel free future.
Along with Labour Parliamentary candidates Perran Moon (Camborne, Redruth & Hayle) and Jayne Kirkham (Truro & Falmouth), Miliband was visiting a number of Cornwall’s businesses heavily involved with renewables including Kensa Group and Geothermal Engineering Ltd, at United Downs near Redruth and A&P in Falmouth.
Cornwall is ideally placed to take advantage of the opportunities of demands for energy security and critical minerals, with natural resources including onshore wind, offshore wind, geothermal, solar, tidal, tin and lithium. On the visit Miliband was also keen to emphasise the importance that GB Energy, Labour’s publicly owned energy company, would play in supporting Cornwall’s renewables industry.
Miliband said: “Cornwall has an incredibly bright future in renewables for good jobs and lower bills but we’ve got to make sure that the people of Cornwall have a government that matches their ambition for Cornwall, and that’s what a Labour government would do.”
Moon said:
“As someone with experience of working in the renewable energy sector, I know how transformational our renewable energy and critical minerals businesses could be for Cornwall. But we need a government that will unleash their potential and create thousands of well-paid, high skilled Cornish jobs. With a change of political leadership, we have the right conditions and resources to turn Cornwall into a Celtic tiger and become a truly powerful industrial heartland once again. It was very exciting to see Ed Miliband committing to helping us grasp this potential, as a key part of a new Labour government.”
Kirkham said:
“It was so good to welcome Ed Miliband to Cornwall yesterday and show him the great potential there is here to be at the heart of the drive for carbon-free power by 2030 and how it could benefit Cornwall through the creation of high quality, well-paid jobs.
The port of Falmouth will be key for the future of floating offshore wind in the Celtic Sea and Ed recognised that and how investment will be needed here. He talked about a new Labour government working in partnership with Cornwall to use Labour’s new public energy company, GB Energy, and our new £1.8 billion Ports’ Fund to trigger that investment and support growth here. Falmouth, and Cornwall more widely, will benefit hugely from a Labour government keen to get behind us and unlock our potential.”