Extreme Climate and Weather Events: National Resilience

Debate between Jayne Kirkham and Martin Wrigley

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jayne Kirkham]

Yes, a great deal of work will have to be done in future, because this will not get better; it will get worse.

Businesses that rely on electricity and broadband are paralysed by outages during extreme weather events, and hospitals risk losing power or water. Heavy rainfall has even led to overflowing septic tanks and sewage spilling out on to streets in Cornwall, creating serious risks to public health. So much of Cornwall’s economy depends on our coast. When beaches, cafés, coastal roads and car parks are under managed realignment in the new shoreline management plan epoch, coastal places will lose their staple industries, and entire communities face existential threats from rising sea levels and coastal erosion. A lot of work is being done across Government, particularly on the water industry and flooding preparedness, which I welcome, but we need to protect communities from the inevitable march of climate change and act with greater urgency.

The urgency of the situation was obvious when Storm Goretti struck Cornwall on 8 and 9 January 2026. It triggered a rare Met Office red warning, with gusts of around 120 mph, and inflicted severe damage on our homes and infrastructure. We lost over 1,000 trees, 121,000 customers lost power, and thousands lost access to clean water. Roads were blocked, communities cut off, and schools, care homes and hospitals faced unprecedented strain.

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this really important debate to the Chamber. Does she agree that the railway is a key part of the infrastructure and communications she is talking about, and we must focus on getting the final phase of the Dawlish rail resilience programme completed, along with the other measures? Dawlish and Teignmouth saw massive damage in these storms, with Teignmouth pier washing up on Dawlish beach and Dawlish beach itself being destroyed. Does she agree that the railway going down would be disastrous for Cornwall?

[Jayne Kirkham]

The hon. Member feels my pain. Yes, of course we need a strategic plan for our rail in the south-west. That is fundamental, and I will come on to it later.

Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Jayne Kirkham and Martin Wrigley

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

Q Thank you for coming today. The Co-op is a vital element of many of the communities in my area in south Devon. It is a mainstay of many communities. In the Bill I am interested in the jump between the small business rates and the large business rates based on a rateable value of £51,000. Is that an issue for you in terms of deterring expansion and improvement of stores, or is that not something that you worry about?

Paul Gerrard: As I think I said in an answer to an earlier question, it is one of the factors that we will bear in mind. I do not think it would necessarily be the deciding factor to either open or keep open a store. There will be other things that we would take into account, such as crime or a change in demographic and footfall. It is a factor, but I am not sure that it is the determining factor.

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

Q Hello, Mr Gerrard. Thank you for coming today. I am a Labour and Co-operative MP, so I am pleased to hear that you think the Bill will be good for the Co-operative Group. My first question is about the limit. You say that it will probably help you overall. Perhaps this is hard for you to answer, but for retail as a group, do you think that it is set at the right level?

Secondly, you said that the Bill may have positive effects for your smaller stores, in that you may be able to employ more people, and I wonder whether you can expand on that. The Co-operative shops in Truro and Falmouth are having issues at the moment with theft and violence against shop workers, which is not good, and the BID is providing support. Would the Bill give you the leeway to employ more people, even security people?

Paul Gerrard: I will start at the beginning, and hopefully cover all the questions. This is good for the Co-op Group as a whole. There are ups and downs, because 8% of our estate would not benefit—indeed, it may cost us—but overall it is a good thing. As well as being a director of the Co-op Group, I am a board member at Co-operatives UK, which is the apex body, and this is good for the co-operative movement. That is the first point.

At present, the rate system does not incentivise improvement or growth. There is a link to your question here: for example, if we put in CCTV to keep our colleagues safe, our rates bill goes up. If we put in air conditioning, not just for food safety but to reduce the ambient temperature and so the amount of refrigeration we need, our rates bill goes up. The rate system should incentivise growth. The structure—the two rates for under £500,000 and under £51,000—does incentivise investment and growth, and for us that would mean more shops and employing more people, but I am not sure the way the reliefs work does that. As I understand it, the improvements relief has to do with the shell of the shop, so putting in CCTV or a coffee machine will result in an increase in rates. So that structure definitely incentivises growth, but there are details about whether the system as a whole does.

The Co-op has been very loud on the issue of crime, and I have been to this place a number of times to give evidence about it. We very much welcome the rates proposals. It is self-evident that the changes the Chancellor made on national insurance contributions will cost us money, but we understand the choices that were made. What got a bit lost was what the Government announced on crime: a £5 million investment in Pegasus, 13,000 officers and the stand-alone offence. That will impact us: crime costs us £120 million a year and costs the sector £3 billion a year, so if we can make any kind of dent in that, we will get the leeway that you talked about.

Seeing these things in the round is important. On crime, it is about colleagues and security—we have doubled the money we spend on security—but it is principally about the way businesses and the police work. If businesses and the police work well, we can begin to tackle crime. The work that Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman, at North Wales police, has done in the past year on behalf of all police forces has been important, and we are beginning to see a much-improved police response.