Rishi Sunak brands allegations of southern favouritism 'unhelpful' as thousands in dark after Arwen

Rishi Sunak has defended the Government's response to Storm Arwen, branding allegations of southern favouritism 'unhelpful'.

While on a visit to Yarm, the Richmond MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer said "people are working incredibly hard" to bring power back to the thousands cut off by the storm.

As of Thursday 2 December, 229,000 out of 240,000 homes affected have had power restored - leaving 11,000 still in the dark.

Many of those have been without power for six nights.

  • Watch Rishi Sunak respond to criticism over the Government's Storm Arwen response.

Asked why he was visiting Yarm rather than areas worst affected by the outages, Mr Sunak said: "For everyone who is without power, of course my sympathies to them.

"I know it's been incredibly tough and I can imagine how anxious, worrying and quite frankly angry people will be.

"What I'd say to them is the Government, people on the ground, the energy companies are working as quickly as they can to restore power to everyone.

Mr Sunak went on to say he understands full coverage should "be done by the end of the week".

This comes after accusations that the Government has not done enough to intervene.

Grahame Morris, Labour MP Easington, labelled the response from Number 10 "lamentable" and said the Government did "nothing to prepare".

Former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said people in the north "feel forgotten" and urged the Government to deploy the army to help bring power back.

Speaking to ITV News Tyne Tees, Mr Sunak denied claims more would have been done to bring back power had Storm Arwen hit the south.

"I don't think that's right and I don't think it's helpful," he said.

"Actually people are working incredibly hard and what you've seen is people coming together to help the North East - whether it's the Red Cross, whether it's the mutual assistance from companies who have sent extra staff and personnel to help with these grid outages.

Watch our latest report on power outages in the wake of Storm Arwen by Kris Jepson:

Storm Arwen: Thousands still without power in North East and North Yorkshire