May saw the announcement of the start of the General Election campaign and the dissolution of Parliament. We now look back to see what parliamentarians got up to on their Fellowship Programmes during this last month of the 2019-2024 Parliament.

On 8 May, Lord Hampton began his IPT Fellowship with a briefing with the ADS Group to discuss the range of organisations they represent and their priority initiatives such as strengthening defence exports, the Defence Growth Partnership and SME support.

On 10 May, Chris Clarkson MP visited Go Ahead at their Crawley Bus Depot to see their hydrogen powered bus fleet. The visit began with a boardroom discussion explaining the work they are doing to get this fleet up and running. Then, a tour of the site showed how hydrogen would be stored safely and how the buses would be refueled. It concluded with a journey on one of their hydrogen buses. Meanwhile, Peter Gibson MP visited 3M at their manufacturing facility in Newton Aycliffe. Through a tour of the site Peter got to see firsthand the manufacturing process and techniques they use to produce their products here.

On 12 May, Matt Vickers MP completed his IPT Fellowship on the future of retail with a visit to Heathrow Airport to discuss the airport’s retail challenges and opportunities, most notably the challenge of bringing retail activity at the airport back to pre-covid levels.

Lord Sandhurst began his IPT Fellowship on Renewable Energy with a briefing from OEUK on 14 May in Parliament. Through this meeting he got to understand the role of OEUK as representative body for the offshore energy sector and the role that this sector will play in achieving more renewable energy production. Later that day, Baroness Whitaker met with representatives from Wave Piston in Parliament. She got to hear about their projects and progress in developing technology that can produce electricity through wave power and hear about their plans for the future to scale this up.

On 21 May, Stephen McPartland MP completed two IPT Fellowship visits. His first stop was to the law firm Shoosmiths, followed by a visit to the technology company Cisco, both in the City of London. AI, technology and preventing cybercrime were common themes from both visits, themes that are particularly relevant as Stephen conducts the McPartland Review into Cybersecurity.

Then, on 23 May Baroness Sheehan continued her IPT Fellowship on Energy with a briefing with Siemens Energy in Parliament. This meeting centered around the topics of hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisiation and storage, seeing the role that both will play in the energy transition and within the renewable energy mix. She also got to hear about the work Siemens Energy are doing and the role they play within their sector.

IPT Fellowships in May concluded with Baroness Whitaker visiting Mocean Energy and the FloWave test facility in Edinburgh on 29 May. She met with their managing director to discuss the story of Mocean Energy and the work they are doing to develop wave energy technology. A tour of the FloWave test facility allowed her to see the process in which new and existing wave energy technology is tested to see its efficiency levels and output.

We would like to thank all the businesses for their involvement in the IPT Fellowship Programme during this month and throughout this Parliament. Also, we wish to thank all the Parliamentarians who have undertaken an IPT Fellowship and hope they found the experience valuable and informative.