A GOVERNMENT minister has finally visited Cornwall over a week after Storm Goretti wreaked havoc across the Duchy.

There has been criticism over the ensuing days about a lack of Government presence in Cornwall as people pick up the pieces, with St Ives’ Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George claiming that if London and the Home Counties had received a similar level of destruction and power loss a national emergency would have been declared.

At Goretti’s height there were 55,000 houses without power – 121,000 customers, according to the National Grid – and 16,000 homes without water across the Duchy while thousands of trees have been uprooted. One man lost his life when a tree fell on his caravan near Helston.

Today (Friday, January 16), Labour’s Security Minister Dan Jarvis visited the Duchy to meet and thank teams who’ve been responding to Storm Goretti. He faced a barrage of questions in Parliament on Tuesday about the Government’s response to the effects of the storm in Cornwall.

We spoke to him at the Eden Project and asked whether a major incident should have been declared in Cornwall during and after the storm, and whether a Government representative should have visited sooner.

He said: “I think the response was right. We looked very carefully at the severe disruption that we knew that the storm was going to inflict.

“In the main, given the severity of the storm, I think this was a good response. But I’m here today to have the conversation to learn more about what’s happened and to make sure that people here in Cornwall understand that the Government stands with them, and we’ll do everything we possibly can to support them as we work through the next phase of the recovery.”

He added: “There’s always a judgement about when to come and visit as a minister. I think there’s a real risk that ministers can actually get in the way if you come too early.

“So I wanted to take the opportunity to come and have a meaningful conversation with local stakeholders, and to thank people for the incredible work that they’ve done over the past week or so, and also to have a conversation about what more we can be doing in Government.

“I think my prime responsibility was to make sure that from a national government perspective, the response was proportionate and appropriate. I think there has actually been a very effective response both from national government, from the local council, from the Local Resilience Forum and from the people who mucked in to make a real difference here.

“Of course, there will always be lessons to learn and of course we will want to look very carefully at whether things could have been done differently. But in the main, given the severity of the storm, I think this was a good response.”

Mr Jarvis’ visit came a day after a member of Cornwall Council’s ruling administration said that declaring a major incident wouldn’t have affected the multi-agency response to the incident.

Cllr Thalia Marrington, Liberal Democrat cabinet member for community safety and public health, told a meeting of the council’s community wellbeing scrutiny committee: “The decision not to declare a major incident the morning after the storm was taken in line with established guidance.

“The multi-agency response was already fully in place, national mutual aid had been mobilised by the utility providers and response arrangements were operated at the scale required.

“A major incident declaration would not in itself have changed any statutory responsibilities or provided access to the Bellwin Funding [a UK government emergency financial assistance scheme that reimburses local authorities for immediate, uninsurable costs incurred responding to major disasters like storms].”

Cllr Marrington said a formal multi-agency debrief will take place next week, which “will look carefully at what worked well, where improvements can be made, including issues around infrastructure, resilience and dependency on utilities”.