Speaker awarded Blue Peter badge as part of ‘save the planet’ programme

A presentation to Parliament of ideas for saving the planet by winners of the Blue Peter Earthshot competition was hailed ‘genuinely exciting’ by the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle spoke out after five young people, aged five to 15 years old explained their plans to stop pollution, reduce waste, save coral reefs, grow more trees, and show when carbon dioxide is present in the air.

The youngers were filmed explaining the thinking behind their proposals and took questions from Mr Speaker and cross-party members of the Commons’ environmental committee.

The group had already visited HRH The Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle, where they were awarded certificates for their ideas.

Sir Lindsay, who received a coveted Blue Peter badge for his involvement in the broadcast, said: ‘I was absolutely thrilled to meet the Blue Peter Earthshot competition winners and to hear their imaginative and innovative ideas to help protect the planet.

‘The thought that had gone into their ideas, and the enthusiasm with which they discussed them with us was genuinely exciting.’

The Earthshot Prize is a global environmental prize and platform, founded by Prince William in 2020, designed to discover, accelerate and scale ground-breaking solutions to repair and regenerate the planet.

The five winners were:

• Marni, aged 8 from London, came up with an idea for family forests where a tree is planted for every person in the UK.
• Mia, aged 8 from North Yorkshire, wants to stop factory pollution and global warming with an idea to help clean polluted water using algae ponds.
• Llewyn, aged 9 from Glasgow, had an idea to invent compostable glasses which allow people to see how much carbon dioxide is in the air and encourage them to make steps to prevent pollution.
• Ruby, aged 10 from Devon, entered with an idea to reduce waste with solar powered vans to give people access to refill services.
• Annie, aged 12 from Milton Keynes, had an idea to help save coral reefs by supplying them with nutrients and calcium with ‘ocean bursts’, an idea which came from bath bombs.

Almost 2,000 entries were submitted to Blue Peter from children across the UK. The ideas were celebrated on Blue Peter (5pm, Friday 7 February, CBBC and BBC iPlayer). Blue Peter is a BBC Studios Kids & Family Production for CBBC.