Extreme Climate and Weather Events: National Resilience

Debate between Jayne Kirkham and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am a Cornish MP, and we are a people on the edge. With sea on three sides and cut off from England by a river and a precarious train line, we have become used to being at the centre of a world that is a long way from everyone else. That has made us resilient, independent and proud. But being at the edge of the country has meant that we are often at the sharp edge of climate change. We are closer to its effects, and the weather often hits us slap in the face, even on a normal day.

We know that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, and 2025 was the warmest year on record. Four of the five warmest years since 1884 have occurred in the past five years, and the record for the highest UK annual mean temperature has been broken six times since 2000. Last year, the Met Office warned that the likelihood of experiencing temperatures above 40° is now 20 times greater than it was in just the 1960s. In the summer, hosepipe bans are now common, and we had one in Cornwall, despite our copious rainfall, that went on for months and into the autumn of 2023. This winter was also the duchy’s wettest since records began in 1836. Cardinham had 55 consecutive wet days, and we were battered by three storms in quick succession: Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing forward the debate. She is right to refer to the terrible weather we have had. Before Christmas, I think we had 43 days in Northern Ireland when there was no sunshine. Flooding incidents are not just happening in her constituency; they are also happening across Northern Ireland, in Fermanagh, Down and Armagh. Defences and embankments are under strain, and some areas remain vulnerable despite ongoing monitoring and mitigation. Some watercourses, such as the Newry canal and the Shimna river, have even burst their banks in times of extreme storms and rainfall. Does she agree that we must prioritise investment in river embankments and flood defences and ensure that high-risk areas receive immediate attention—the very thing that she and all of us in this Chamber want?

[Jayne Kirkham]

I agree with the hon. Member. We must prioritise flooding, which is becoming more and more of a risk. Every week when I get on the train—which has often been a bus—from Cornwall to London, I see what looks like a lake or sea, but it is in fact the Somerset levels submerged under floodwater.

Military Helicopters: Blood Cancers

Debate between Jayne Kirkham and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jayne Kirkham]

I agree absolutely. The health of our serving personnel is and always must be paramount. I will move on to previous cases shortly.

I know of 180 cases with solicitors of crew working on military helicopters who have contracted cancers, many like those of the two people I mentioned. They worked on the Sea King particularly, but also the Westland Wessex, the Puma, and the CH-47 Chinook. Many of the crew affected were in touch with each other, as there seemed too many of them, and the cancers too rare, to be pure coincidence.

Last July, a report was written by the Independent Medical Expert Group on medical and scientific aspects of the armed forces compensation scheme, and was published in November last year. There was a section at the end on the potential link between exhaust fumes such as benzene from helicopters and blood cancers such as multiple myeloma. The findings were that the evidence and data available did not meet their threshold to establish a causal link between Sea King helicopter exhaust fumes or benzene and multiple myeloma, leiomyosarcoma, and soft tissue sarcomas.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for introducing this debate. In the short time that she has been in the House, she has made a real name for herself as an assiduous MP, and I wish her well in her efforts. I concur with her comments. For us in Northern Ireland, helicopters were a part of life for getting troops in, and the police in and out. Numerous cases have been settled out of court for aircrew who developed rare cancers after being exposed to helicopter exhaust fumes. Given that certain types of blood cancer can take 10 to 20 years to manifest themselves, does the hon. Lady agree that steps should be taken to encourage those who served in specific aircraft types to seek screening and early intervention to provide better outcomes?

With your indulgence, Sir Jeremy, on the question I asked earlier, there is a specific case of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland. Those who did undercover work carried battery packs on their backs by their kidneys. Of a patrol of 12 policemen who did undercover work, 11 are dead. There is a big case to answer for all that happened in relation to helicopters and service in Northern Ireland.

[Jayne Kirkham]

I thank the hon. Member. He is correct that some cancers can take a long time to manifest. Personnel, veterans and those around them in their communities have to be aware that this could show itself much later in their lives.

Solicitors for some of the personnel point to an RAF Institute of Health report dated March 1999. Although it did not establish a causal link, it contained recommendations to reduce crews’ exposure to exhaust fumes. I understand that modifications to the aircraft to do that were not made, although they did take place on some other countries’ military helicopters.

Six cases in this country, including Zach’s, have so far been settled, and compensation paid by the Ministry of Defence without admission of liability. The Sea Kings were taken out of UK military service in 2018, and the Westland Wessex in 2003. Pumas and Chinooks are still in service, although the older aircraft have recently been retired. Sea Kings, however, are still in service in the private sector, and in military use in other countries. Three were donated by the UK to Ukraine in 2023. The MOD started testing exhaust emissions from military aircraft this February and has started the process of checking the records of personnel and veterans, to assemble data about how many have subsequently developed cancer. That will provide crucial data about who and how many people may have been affected.

Renewable Energy: Cornwall

Debate between Jayne Kirkham and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the development of renewable energy in Cornwall.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. To achieve net zero by 2030, Britain needs Cornwall. If I get anything across in the next 15 minutes, I want everyone in this room to leave with full knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, the vast and unique scale of the opportunity in Cornwall for a large-scale, thriving renewable energy sector that creates skilled jobs, brings social value to local people and generates clean energy, helping us to meet that 2030 target. It is a challenge that will require both hands to grasp, but that does not faze the people of Cornwall, who have known a rich industrial past and do not need convincing of the positives of a new industrial future.

Our riches are plentiful and unique. They are buried under our rock, under the waves that surround our 400 miles of coast, in our harsh, whistling south-westerly winds and from our come-and-go solar rays. Harnessing those riches has not always been easy, but if industrialism literally runs through the Cornish landscape, in the tin-rich veins that pass through our granite, resourcefulness runs through the blood of the Cornish. Our geography and landscape are unique and fundamental to our potential. We are surrounded on three sides by the sea, in particular the Celtic sea, which has a great water depth—Falmouth is the third deepest harbour in the world. We are sitting on globally significant mineral deposits, and our granite holds the heat of geothermal energy.

Around 37% of Cornwall’s electricity is currently generated from renewable sources, and the renewable sector already exists here: it is cutting-edge, thriving and leads the way nationally and internationally. But it is nowhere near the scale that we need to make the most of the opportunities that exist.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing forward this debate. As she has outlined, it is clear that we need Cornwall to achieve net zero. But it is also worth remembering that the Secretary of State said in the Chamber that this is an object for every part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Many other constituencies need to contribute as well. The hon. Lady puts forward Cornwall; will she also remember other parts of the United Kingdom?

[Jayne Kirkham]

The hon. Gentleman is quite correct. My point is that Cornwall has some catching up to do with other parts of the country, but I am aware that other parts of the UK are in the same situation.

The Secretaries of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and for the Department for Business and Trade visited my constituency and that of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon), earlier this year, and met businesses with solutions in the marine, geo, tidal and wind spheres. The breadth of the innovation in Cornwall is huge. However, the sector needs investment along with the ambition and determination, and a long-term strategy from Government to make that vision a reality.

Under the previous Government, there was a de facto ban on onshore wind. Of planning applications for onshore wind turbines over 150 kW in Cornwall since January 2015, only one was successful in planning and has since become operational. I am very pleased that one of the first things this Government did was to end that ban on onshore wind. Community energy projects did not receive much support from the previous Government either. The rural community energy fund was only open from 2019 to 2022, and there were no new funding sources for urban community energy projects after that, except from local government.