Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Jarvis and Perran Moon

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I absolutely will. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to spend quite a lot of time with the hon. Gentleman in his beautiful constituency, and to meet his local council colleagues as well as many other stakeholders. I agree with the points he has made. I think the response overall was an effective one, but I am working with Ministers across the Government to ensure that we learn all the lessons from Storm Goretti, and I am keen to work with him and other Members in that endeavour.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

My constituency of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle is 624th out of 650 constituencies for resilience in mobile communications. It cannot be right that a constituency such as mine is exposed in the way that it was during Storm Goretti, meaning that villages such as Mawnan Smith were completely cut off. Does the Minister agree that we need to review those constituencies where mobile communications are inadequate at the moment?

[Dan Jarvis]

I was pleased to meet my hon. Friend at the Eden Project on Friday of last week, along with local leaders, to discuss these matters. I agree with his points and I give him an absolute commitment that we will work closely with Government colleagues, local authorities and other stakeholders to ensure that, where there are lessons that need to be learned from this storm, we will learn them.

Storm Goretti

Debate between Dan Jarvis and Perran Moon

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for the points that he has raised. He is right to recognise the efforts of all those involved in the operations to support local residents and to restore power where it has been lost. I think it worth pointing out that while normal people will hunker down in these very difficult conditions, we should collectively pay tribute to those who do not that, but go out and brave the elements in order to restore power and provide support for residents who need it.

The shadow Minister made some good points about the importance of looking carefully at these matters and ensuring that Governments are properly prepared for future incidents. I have looked carefully at the response to Storm Arwen a number of years ago, and I think that the Government can learn a fair amount from that particular response. I will ensure through the Cabinet Office, working with colleagues across Government, that we look very carefully at the response to this recent storm and ensure that we are drawing lessons from it so that, as a country, we can be as resilient and as well prepared as we can be for the future challenges that we will undoubtedly face.

The shadow Minister specifically raised the issue of telecoms. While I know he will understand that telecoms equipment is usually highly resilient and major outages are extremely rare, most telecoms equipment relies on a power supply, which of course can be disrupted by severe weather. On the rare occasion that the sector does experience an outage, there are statutory obligations on telecoms providers to maintain the availability of services and report significant outages to Ofcom. However, in general terms, I give the shadow Minister an absolute assurance of the seriousness with which we take these matters. We will look very carefully at the response and ensure that we draw all the right lessons from it.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

Meur ras, Madam Deputy Speaker. Jutting out into the Atlantic, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly have often found themselves on the frontline of nationally significant weather events. As my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) mentioned, the predictions are that storms like Goretti will become more and more frequent. This is a reality that I am not convinced has been taken seriously enough by consecutive Governments.

The response from the people of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly before, during and after Storm Goretti has been nothing short of remarkable, but can I urge the Minister to please commit to a comprehensive cross-departmental review of the resilience of essential Cornish and Scillonian infrastructure, communications and priority list support?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for the good and reasonable point he has made. I reiterate the point I made earlier to the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) about the Government’s commitment to Cornwall. I absolutely recognise that Cornwall, like many other coastal communities, can feel geographically isolated and a very long way from the centre. The Government understand that, as do I as the Minister for resilience.

My hon. Friend made good points about looking in the round at the resilience of Cornwall specifically. Let me give him an assurance that I am very happy to continue the conversation with him and other colleagues. I will look carefully at the detail of the point he has made and, as I say, I am happy to discuss it further with him.