Co-op fortnight began this week, so I was really pleased to lead a debate on how local government can promote co-ops and alternate businesses. Co-operatives are businesses that are owned and controlled by its members and which, if they make any profit, invest this back into their members and the community they serve. There are really good examples of these businesses in Hackney and our Labour and Co-op Mayor, Phil Glanville, is really pushing co-ops to be part of the economic solution to issues in Hackney.

The Public Accounts Committee published a report on decarbonising the power sector, which the Government wants to do by 2035. And yet only a quarter of our current energy generation is from solar, nuclear, or wind – so there’s a long way to go before the Government can meet this target. We’ve urged the Government to produce regular milestones and reports to Parliament about how it will achieve this target. See here to read the report in full and see here for a summary.

And I was pleased to be out and about in Hackney this week visiting Mandeville Primary School and Kingsmead Primary School. It was great to meet young people in person again after such a long time of not being able to and it was inspiring to see the tough questions they kept asking. It’s good to know that the future of Hackney is in safe hands.