Being a Labour and Co-operative parliamentary candidate in Cornwall, I have a vested interest in energy security and Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan.

Cornwall is one of those places where the raw materials – wind, solar, tidal, critical minerals and geothermal energy – are plentiful, but the National Grid is weak. It pretty much peters out at Indian Queens leaving businesses in West Cornwall struggling for connection.

This Government has a history of putting price above everything else – our infrastructure; our long-term security; our own industries. For example, our rollout of offshore wind turbines is happening quickly but we are outsourcing our wind power to be owned and built abroad and selling it off to the highest bidder rather than investing in it and using the contracts so that developers are obliged to use and foster local suppliers.

Another example is our push to switch to electric cars by 2030 without building up our own domestic electric vehicle or battery production capabilities. Relying on places like China for the fundamentals makes us vulnerable in so many ways as well as falling foul to the Conservatives’ defective Brexit deal.

Last week I went to an event on the future of Cornish mining. We have a unique, natural supply of critical minerals in our granite: lithium, tin and tungsten. These are crucial if we are to make batteries in the UK and for our electric car industry, and there are companies in Cornwall who have plans to extract them in cleaner ways than in China, the Far East and South America.  The companies have investment, but they need copious clean electric power to carry out the processes. The woeful state of our national electricity grid, our laborious planning process and the lack of skilled workforce is hampering them. We need to get on and tackle these obstacles. Labour would reform the planning process so that new onshore wind power can restart. We will devolve skills training and reform the  apprenticeship levy. We will commit to fossil-free electricity by 2030, and we will unlock investment in infrastructure and renewables using the new GB Energy Company and Wealth Fund.

Cornwall should be the beating heart of the new Green Industrial Revolution.  We need a government that has the foresight to plan, invest and build for our future.