Extreme Climate and Weather Events: National Resilience

Noah Law Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jayne Kirkham]

As my hon. Friend’s constituency is next to mine, he will know that we have exactly the same problems in Truro and Falmouth, and I will move on to that next.

I have had wash-up meetings across my constituency since the storm, and we have been talking to Ministers. I welcome the suggestion that Cornwall could serve as a pilot area for emergency storm resilience measures, some of which I will talk about now.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

There has been a huge amount of progress towards what a good devolution settlement for Cornwall should look like, but it is also increasingly evident since Storm Goretti that part of that deal has to be infrastructure resilience. I really welcome the idea that we pilot some of these storm resilience measures, but will my hon. Friend join me in asking the Minister to speak with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and work to get the investment needed to underpin that?

[Jayne Kirkham]

Yes, I agree.

One of the most profound lessons that we must learn from Storm Goretti is to increase communications infrastructure, particularly in rural areas. Many of our constituents were left without power or broadband in areas that have weak or no mobile phone signal, so they struggled to get help. Although we are frequently told by the four network providers that they have 99% 4G coverage, that does not ring true to anyone in Cornwall, where we struggle to get a signal on a regular basis.