English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Perran Moon and Siân Berry

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

I am troubled by this concept. In my constituency, which is one of the most deprived in the United Kingdom, we have an opportunity to invest in a vast range of renewable energy to mine again critical minerals that will accelerate the transition away from fossil fuel use in order to transition to an economy based on green energy. I would like the hon. Lady to clarify this, but I think she is suggesting that that kind of growth is not acceptable in some way, and that we cannot have good-quality green growth that supports jobs in areas of extreme poverty and deprivation and deals with the challenges of international imports from areas of the world that do not share our values.

[Siân Berry]

That is a good question. Where there are opportunities to develop new industries and new jobs and create new economic activity, my new schedule enables local communities such as those in Cornwall to set inclusive economy indicators. In the examples given, that might mean that those new industries are owned and managed by the local people and the local community, rather than through outside investment from extractive industries that will take the profits elsewhere. Those are things for the local community to decide under the new schedule.

I will just finish the quote from the report by the New Economics Foundation and its allies:

“At a time of eroding trust in politics, this is a major problem for combined authorities elected to make the economy work better for people .”

My new clause and new schedule will help authorities to become more purposeful about developing their own unique economies and economic opportunities in a way that truly builds a better economy that serves local people, and not just more production and profits that can be extracted away from them without improving everyday lives. It will bring more people more inclusively into the local economies that we want to develop.

I will not press my proposals to a vote today, but I hope that the Minister has listened and will recognise that the current Government proposals could create the wrong incentives and the wrong measures of progress, and might risk producing the wrong outcomes for the people who live in the areas that will be governed by these economic plans. I also hope that she will make improvements similar to my proposals before the next stage of this Bill.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Perran Moon and Siân Berry

Committee stage
Thursday 16th October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Siân Berry]

I take the hon. Member’s intervention in good spirit. I will talk about the ability of a standing citizens assembly not simply to react—even voting, at the end of a mayor’s term, is a reactive act—but to consider and make proposals. Mechanisms for getting ground-up proposals from the local community are lacking in the Bill.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

For clarification, when the mayor is not meeting one of the 80 parish and town councils, they would be meeting a citizens assembly. Can the hon. Lady give an example of any precedent, anywhere, of a mayor meeting with and reporting to a citizens assembly, or is this a new proposal?

[Siân Berry]

The hon. Member asks about the mayor meeting the citizens assembly, which misunderstands what a citizens assembly does. It does not ever have to see the mayor if it does not want to. It is there, in its own right, to consider things. I will explain more about how they work in a moment—