Andrew George

I thank the Minister for his reply. He has described the impact that the storm has had on our communities. As he rightly says, west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly took the brunt of the storm, but it nevertheless had a devastating effect throughout Cornwall, south-west England and beyond. Nursing home patients were evacuated with haste, homes were without power for many days, and thousands of vulnerable people were isolated—indeed, they still are. Many residents in my constituency have observed that if this same level of destruction, service outage and loss of life had happened in London and the home counties, the national media would have given it headline billing for days and the Government would have declared a national emergency. Frontline workers have been amazing and communities have come together incredibly well, but in spite of the Minister’s optimism, I have discovered that utility company reports of figures for reconnected homes are unreliable. I have also discovered that our society is more reliant on these utilities and services, and less resilient. Many places affected by these outages have not been able to communicate because all power, broadband and mobile signal had been cut. Higher authorities decided to turn off the analogue signal some time ago, and that has meant that people in vulnerable positions have not been able to communicate their vulnerability. That is a serious matter, particularly for people who are traumatised and isolated. Service providers have told people to phone or follow advice on their website or just click the app. How can they do that if they are completely cut off? I must therefore ask the Minister: why have the Government not considered or viewed this as a national emergency? What additional support will the Government provide beyond the compensation that utility providers are obliged to provide? Will the Government review the Bellwin funding formula, which seems designed not to help neither very small authorities, such as the Isles of Scilly, nor very large ones, such as Cornwall? Finally, will the Government agree to review the resilience of systems that provide a means of communicating in such circumstances?