Something for the To Do Lists
A little lighthearted data analysis this week, but with a serious message or two attached.
It’s been a while since we did any data analysis here on The Green Edge. Which is a shame because, while we freely admit we’re not great experts at all this data mining stuff, we do like the occasional dabble with Tableau, to see what kind of pretty infotoons we might be able to conjure up. It appeals to the geek within us.
We particularly like a good map. So, after we chatted with the Electrical Contractors’ Association (ECA) recently about its Electrical Skills Index for our post last week, we couldn’t resist getting the BI toys out of the box to see what other snippets of understanding and insight we might be able to find.
After a bit of fiddling around (the real data freaks might refer to this as data wrangling) one thing that caught our attention was the extent to which some parts of England of most concern in ECA’s Index had changed hands at the last election, and which incoming MPs, among many other constituency priorities of course, might consider adding to their To Do lists an item called ‘Get more electrical apprentices here’.
As a reminder, here’s the Index of ‘red list’ of English constituencies that, before the 2024 election, the ECA assessed to have particularly acute shortages of qualified electricians; shortages which they then went on to say pose ‘a major challenge for the Labour Government’s mission-led agenda, from building 1.5 million new homes, to becoming a clean energy superpower’.
Image: TGE from data ECA
For the map above, ECA kindly provided us with part of the dataset they used to generate their map, and as a next step we began to merrily munge that with the General Election 2024 results, which are freely downloadable from the House of Commons Library. Happy days.
But then a slight problem popped up: we found that some of the constituency boundaries and names used by the ECA – bearing in mind its analysis was done before the election – had changed for 2024. For example, the fine old electorate of Sedgefield up there in County Durham is now redrawn as Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor, still containing Sedgefield itself but reflecting the two largest towns in the constituency and grabbing a few extra villages in the process from the clutches of City of Durham1 and Bishop Auckland. Something that may disappoint a certain former prime minister and MP there from 1983 to 2007, should he ever decide to ship the oars he’s regularly sticking in somewhere or other, to retire gracefully with a peerage. Somehow, Baron Newton Aycliffe just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Lord Sedgefield.
We didn’t lose any sleep over the changes though, since by and large the parliamentary tweaking seemed to us to be just that, tweaking. Also, since we don’t claim in any way to be data authorities, what with all that peer-reviewing and such, we always issue a health warning with any stuff we do of this nature. Take it with a pinch of salt – it’s often useful to get a feel what’s going on, but that’s as far as we suggest you go with it.
That said, here’s our side-by-side comparison of the ECA red-listed constituencies (on the left) with the 2024 results (on the right). Feel free to click on the image to rummage around the (unlisted) Tableau Public viz we used to create it:
Image: TGE from data ECA and HoC Library
So, what do we see? Well, perusing the pinks (Lab gain from Con), there’s obviously a reasonable sub-cohort of new Labour MPs that might like to think about adding ‘Get more electrical apprentices here’ to their To Do lists. And, looking at the North East in particular, perhaps there’s a good case for the new and returning Labour Members up there to put their heads together and look for opportunites across the constituency boundaries, in terms of things like Centres of Excellence or specialist academies or some such, to span the region and realise economies of scale.
The same is true, to an extent, of Lib Dem gains from Con (mustardy yellow). And – oh look! – everybody’s pal Mr. Farage has made it onto the map with a purple splodge down there in Clacton. Over to you on that one, then, Nigel.
What remains significant, though, is the big cluster of red splodges – in terms of the Index and Labour gains and holds – in London. This is something we’ve talked about a few times now with ECA, and as Andrew Eldred, ECA’s Chief Operating Officer, said to us all the way back in our post in September 2022, “the issue in London…is we've got very large numbers of people being sold the idea that going to college for a couple of years is going to give you a ticket to becoming an electrician. But very few of these are going to find their way ultimately into legitimate skilled employment.” A problem that still needs to be addressed systemically, it seems.
A final point (for now, at least) we noted was the number of Con holds (blue, obviously), with some well-known names still incumbent in red-index constituencies. James Cleverly in Braintree, Kemi Badenoch in North West Essex and Jeremy Hunt in Godalming and Ash, for instance. Presumably they’re all finding themselves able to get down to more actual constituency business now that their workloads are much lighter and the only thing that’s distracting them is who’s going to take over from Rishi when he shuffles off his leadership coil in November.
Anyway, on a roll by now, we thought we’d go a stage further and look at the new crop of high-flyers in the Starmer government. In particular, we were keen to see if any ministers in which The Green Edge has a particular interest - holding briefs that give more than a passing nod to sustainability, net zero, education and skills, and the like - are also sitting in red-index constituencies.
And we did indeed find a few. Again, click the image to browse the viz…
Ministers in ECA red-index constituencies. Image: TGE from data ECA / Hoc Library / TGE
We find some interesting names in there. Like Simon Lightwood MP in Wakefield and Rotherham, holding a brief that includes local transport decarbonisation (and therefore a fair chunk of electrification). Also Miatta Fahnbulleh MP in Peckham, whose remit includes domestic energy efficiency and demand reduction, and public sector decarbonisation. Lots of electricians needed for that, we have no doubt.
And look! There’s even Stephen Morgan MP in our own constituency of Portsmouth South. While Stephen’s appointment doesn’t include anything explicitly ‘green’, his brief does include looking after the use of data, digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in education. And we all know getting the young (and indeed the older) folk comfortable with those sorts of things are pretty important for a sustainable future. Something to chat over with Stephen at his next ‘Pint with your MP’ session, perhaps, whenever that might be.
Finishing this post on the subject of our MoI’s (Ministers of Interest) there’s a longer list than just the ones we’ve just mentioned, of course, and not all of them are coming from the Commons. There’s Chris Stark, for example, appointed by that great blower-in-the-wind2 Ed Milliband as his head of Mission Control at DESNZ. And Richard Pennycook, appointed in July as interim chair of Skills England, whose first report on its initial assessment of skills needs is, we hear, being published shortly. And others both within and without the great chambers of state.
We’re still putting our MoI list together. But for now, our work-in-progress is shown below, a closer look the subject for another post, perhaps.
Image: TGE
Including the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it village of Coxhoe, which was where Fraser was born and raised.
We recommend you do not click this link if you are of a nervous disposition.