Newspaper column 28 July - A busy week in Parliament

Parliament has now risen for Summer Recess, which means I will be spending the summer weeks working in our constituency.

I will again be running a village roadshow of constituency advice surgeries and look forward to meeting people across my patch over the coming weeks, more details of this to follow in future columns.

The final week in Parliament before Recess was a really busy one.

On Monday I hosted an event to boost climate-friendly critical mineral extraction in Cornwall.

This event was a fantastic opportunity to launch the Critical Mineral Association’s new paper, which makes a compelling case for building a green economy with responsibly sourced critical minerals. It was great to hear widespread agreement that as the world races ahead to secure critical minerals, the UK must lead the way towards securing responsible critical mineral supply chains.

Cornwall is playing a central role in developing this industry, with a long and successful mining history and a rich mineral endowment. It offers investment opportunities to explore and extract many commodities required to manufacture clean energy.

It is brilliant to see local companies embracing new technologies that allow more efficient extraction of critical raw material. Cornish Lithium, based in Penryn, is pioneering the low carbon extraction of lithium from hard rock and from geothermal waters in Cornwall.

This was very timely as Friday saw the launch of the Government’s Critical Mineral Strategy, with Cornwall heavily featured.

On Tuesday I asked health Minister Magie Maggie Throup MP to assure me that the Government will take action to increase the maternity workforce to deliver safer maternity care.

I recently chaired a joint All-Party group meeting for maternity and baby loss. We heard from bereaved parents and Donna Ockenden about the issues with providing safe and effective care for women and babies, and it was clear that we must get to the heart of the present staffing crisis.

I was pleased to hear the Minister confirm that the Government has invested £200million into maternity staffing following the Ockenden review and that the Women’s Health Strategy will be published shortly to deliver safer maternity care.

I also attended a meeting with parliamentary colleagues and Tim Pick, the Government's Offshore Wind Champion.

We discussed the enabling actions needed to unlock the potential of floating offshore wind in the Celtic Sea.  In October 2021, the Government announced that up to £160 million would be made available for investment in port and manufacturing developments to support the deployment of floating offshore wind.

In light of the Celtic Sea's requirements and ambitions for floating offshore wind, we discussed the need to allocate investment to ports around the Celtic Sea region, which would deliver significant economic opportunities for the South west.

I look forward to continuing to work with the Government to highlight the opportunities for floating offshore wind in Cornwall.

Ahead of Cornwall Council’s Cabinet  on Wednesday, I wrote to them, requesting full devolution of Pendennis Headland, and Ships and Castles, to Falmouth Town Council.

It is vital that we protect the future of the headland and I have worked closely with Falmouth Town Council and Pendennis Leisure CIC on this.

I was pleased to see the Cabinet listen to the arguments made and allow Falmouth Town Council an additional six months to come up with a plan for the site – I will continue to work with all concerned to achieve this.

On my return from Parliament, the first order of business was an event with Deputy ambassador of Ukraine to the UK, Taras Krykun, and Heritage Minister Nigel Huddleston, joining Ukrainian refugees from Ukrainian cities including Kharkov, Kyiv and Lviv to mark the special confirmation of Grade two listed status for a Second World War-era Ukrainian Cross in Cornwall.

The cross represents Britain’s solidarity with the Ukrainian people and it was brilliant to see this firmly on display.

 

Finally on Friday I had the pleasure of welcoming Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency, Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, to Falmouth Docks.

 

We heard from A&P Falmouth about their vision for floating off-shore wind in the Celtic Sea, following the UK Government’s £160 million cash injection to kick-start new large scale floating wind ports and factories in the UK.

 

We also spoke about post-Brexit opportunities and what these will mean for Cornwall.

 

A really busy and varied week and I now look forward to working in Cornwall, for you, over the summer.

 

As ever, if you need my assistance with anything then my team and I are here to help. Please get in touch with me by email at Cherilyn.mackrory.mp@parliament.uk , or by telephone on 01872 229698. My regular constituency advice surgeries are held in a covid-safe environment at my office, so please do get in touch should you wish to meet me about any matters that I can be of assistance with.