Cornwall MPs question government’s lack of response to storm

Cornwall has been treated differently to other parts of the country as the government failed to call a national emergency following a severe storm which left parts of the county without power and water supplies, local MPs have said.

Thousands of homes in the county have been struggling without electricity days after Storm Goretti and about 3,000 homes were left without water for four days.

A man in his 50s was found dead in Helston after a tree fell on to a caravan he was in during the storm.

MPs from Cornwall questioned the government in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, Andrew George asked why the government did not call a Cobra emergency meeting.

He said: “Many residents in my constituency observed that if this same level of destruction, service outrage, loss of life had happened in London and the home counties, they believed the national media would have given it high headline billing for days and the government would have declared a national emergency.”

Cabinet Office Minister Dan Jarvis offered “categorical assurance” that the government cared just as much about people in Cornwall as it did about others around the country.

Jarvis also defended the decision not to call a Cobra emergency meeting – which if enacted would have seen senior government officials meet to discuss and respond to a national emergency.

He said: “In truth, Cobra tends to sit when there is concern about the nature of the response.

“We took the decision last week that because we thought that the response was being conducted in an effective way, there wasn’t a requirement to bring ministers together.”

Anna Gelderd, Labour member for south east Cornwall, asked if the government would work with utility companies to “prioritise vulnerable households” to ensure faster restoration times during severe weather events.

She said: “With an ageing population, south east Cornwall has many vulnerable residents who rely on consistent power and water.

“The extended outages during Storm Goretti left families in unmanageable conditions and storms will only likely increase if we don’t tackle climate change.”

Jarvis said there were 193 customers still without power on Tuesday – including 82 considered vulnerable – but said those homes still disconnected were receiving support including hot food, clothing and batteries for medical devices.

He added that reconnecting some customers could be challenging as some might need individual repairs to their homes first.

The storm caused hundreds of trees to uproot and fall on properties – a 79-year-old woman from Callestick, near Truro, said about 50 giant leylandii trees on her land had been completely uprooted and called for financial support.

Several graves were also disturbed after trees were uprooted at a cemetery near Mousehole, with one resident describing the scene as “heartbreaking for the relatives”.

Labour MP Perran Moon suggested successive governments had failed to make sure resilience plans were good enough and urged the government to “commit to a comprehensive cross-departmental review of the resilience of essential Cornish and and Scillonian infrastructure, communications and priority list support”, to which Jarvis said he was “happy to discuss it further”.

Jayne Kirkham, Labour MP for Truro and Falmouth, said the storm had left people “completely cut off” from contacting each other due to technology issues and asked for that to be “taken into account for future backup with communications”, such as the use of satellite.

Jarvis said the government would look carefully at the telecoms issue.