Melanie Onn MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jun 2026 · High Street Regeneration and Unlawful Storefronts · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is being very gracious with his time. Is he aware that in Dudley there is a very tenacious trading standards officer who has managed to secure 40 closure orders in recent years, which far exceeds any other local authority? Does the hon. Member agree that tools and powers are available but it takes the will to use them?

• 23 Jun 2026 · Fly-tipping: Residential Areas · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of fly-tipping in residential areas and associated impacts. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and to see so many colleagues here to participate in this important debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate and colleagues who supported my application. Fly-tipping is often discussed as an environmental or waste management issue and a question of local authority enforcement. It is, of course, all those things, but in communities such as mine and across the country, it is more fundamental. It is about pride, belonging and whether people feel good about the place they call home. Residents often tell me they are tired of seeing mattresses dumped in alleyways, household waste abandoned on street corners and green spaces treated as rubbish tips. Those are not isolated incidents; they become part of the everyday experience of a neighbourhood. The impact goes far beyond the physical waste itself. Surveys on environmental decay reveal that 86% of people living in heavily littered or fly-tipped neighbourhoods feel embarrassed by their area. It is terrible that people should feel that. That statistic ought to concern us all. Environmental degradation damages mental wellbeing, erodes civic pride and fuels a cycle of hopelessness that can leave residents feeling disconnected from the communities around them. People deserve to feel proud when they walk down their street, and to feel that their neighbourhood matters. When fly-tipping becomes commonplace it sends exactly the opposite message. It tells residents that standards are slipping, that nobody cares and that decline is somehow acceptable. Once that perception takes hold it can be incredibly difficult to reverse. We must also be honest about some of the pressures that have contributed to the problem. Across the country, councils have faced difficult decisions about waste services. Public waste disposal facilities have been reduced in some areas, opening hours have changed and restrictions have become more complicated. Residents frequently tell me that local tips can be difficult to use, with limitations on what can be taken, who can take it and how often visits can be made. None of that excuses criminal behaviour; those who dump waste illegally are responsible for their actions. But if we are serious about solving the problem, we need to understand all the factors that contribute to it.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Fly-tipping: Residential Areas · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for that response. I welcome the news about the tax checks and greater intervention of HMRC and the Organised Crime Task Force. Perhaps it would help to bring Louisa Rolfe into Parliament for a roundtable to discuss how police forces are co-ordinating on this matter across the country; there would be widespread interest, judging by the number of people who have contributed today. I am very grateful to colleagues for turning up and supporting this debate. I am keen to explore what the point about councils having the funds but not the will or the skills means in practice. Fundamentally, the issue is about an agreement between the people and the state. We pay our taxes with an expectation that services will be provided. The social contract is quite fragile at the moment and easily undermined. It is disappointing that so many of our fellow citizens are undermining it for the majority in the country. It is worth remembering that the social contract remains and continues; perhaps we should focus on the positives, given that so many people believe in it, reinforce it and give their time. I thank Members for their time and contributions. It was all incredibly thoughtful. I look forward to continuing discussions with the Minister. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the matter of fly-tipping in residential areas and associated impacts.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Road Surfaces (Maximum Noise Levels) · Hansard source

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  I appreciate that—thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Maybe we all need ear defenders in this place once in a while. We have clear rules and protections for prolonged noise exposure in many workplaces because we understand that repeated exposure can damage hearing and affect health, yet when it comes to people who drive for a living—delivery, heavy goods vehicle and logistics drivers—as well as road workers and those who use this route day in and day out, we still do not properly factor road surface noise into the basic fitness of the road itself. The outcomes of repeated and prolonged exposure to loud noise include tinnitus—a continuous tonal ringing in the ears—ranges of hearing loss or increased sensitivity to noise known as hyperacusis. The damage is almost always irreversible and cumulative. The HSE recommends that employers seek to mitigate noise exposure where possible—and if it is not possible, to provide ear protection. Of course, that is not possible inside a vehicle when all senses are required to be fully functioning to drive safely. With no mitigations that individuals or employers can take, the solution lies in the appropriate surfacing of the road. Clearly, the Government and National Highways recognise that these outdated concrete surfaces are not fit for purpose and have a range of other problems. Addressing the remaining concrete surface roads must not be allowed to slip down the priority list. Additionally, the experiences of hundreds of thousands of drivers using the A180 over the years should serve as a case study in all future road planning, to ensure that noise levels—not just for the surrounding area, but for the journey maker—are part of the assessment of suitability. The basic principle behind my Bill is very simple: road surfaces should be judged not only on whether they remain structurally passable, but on whether they are fit for modern use, which means safer, smoother and, yes, quieter. The Bill would create a framework for setting a maximum acceptable noise level for road surfaces. It would prevent the continued use of surfacing materials that breach that standard, and it would require existing roads that exceed it to be resurfaced. In doing so, it would finally put road noise where it belongs: at the heart of how we define a road that is fit for purpose. Communities that contribute so much to our economy through our ports, our energy sector and our industry should not have to put up with a road famous not for being a gateway for growth, but for the deafening racket it creates every time people drive on it. I say to all relevant stakeholders that I welcome the direction of travel and the investment already being made, but on the A180 and roads like it, there is still a long road ahead. I hope that the Government will work with National Highways, me and the affected communities to address the issues that this Bill aims to resolve, and to ensure that the roads that people depend on are not only open, but safe, modern and quiet enough to meet the standards that motorists deserve. I commend the Bill to the House. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Melanie Onn, Sarah Russell, Lee Pitcher, Martin Vickers and Jo Platt present the Bill. Melanie Onn accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 May , and to be printed (Bill 426 ).

• 21 Apr 2026 · Road Surfaces (Maximum Noise Levels) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the use of road surfacing materials which generate in-vehicle noise levels above a specified maximum; to require the resurfacing of existing roads which generate in-vehicle noise above that maximum; and for connected purposes. In Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, everybody knows the A180. It is the road that carries people to work, to school, to hospital appointments, to our courts and back home again. It is the road that all visitors, loved ones and hopeful away fans have to take on their way into our towns. It is a road of huge economic importance. It supports industry, freight and trade, and it connects our communities to the rest of the country. Sadly, this main artery that supports life in our town is known locally for an entirely different reason, and that is noise. It is not a minor irritation or a bit of background hum that drivers should simply learn to live with; it is a serious quality of life issue, a road safety issue, a public health concern and, increasingly, a question of whether we are prepared to accept outdated standards on roads that thousands of people rely on. The A180 opened in 1983 as an extension to the M180. At the time, it was described as the noisiest road in the United Kingdom; more than 40 years on, the same continues to be true—the problem has not gone away. Large sections of England’s strategic road network were built with concrete in the 1960s and 1970s, and according to National Highways there are about 400 miles of concrete roads on the network, which is about 4% of England’s motorways and major A roads. Those roads are now nearing the end of their working lives. National Highways has itself accepted that replacing them with modern road surfaces improves ride quality and reduces noise, and I welcome its concrete roads programme as a long-term plan to replace existing concrete roads with modern roads built to current standards. The A180 is exactly the kind of road that demonstrates why this programme must be delivered at top speed, and why noise must be treated as a core design standard, not an afterthought. For well over a decade, the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) and I have presented the A180’s issues to a variety of Transport Ministers. I believe they only truly understand those issues following a trip on the road itself. Indeed, through conversation, it often becomes apparent that those Ministers have been on the road—to go to the football at Blundell Park or to visit family—and they remember that road and recall the conversations they had, or at least tried to have, at the time about just how noisy it was. I am pleased that we are now beginning to see the fruits of our labours. I welcome the steps that Ministers have taken since the general election to address some of the issues. Last month, we saw the announcement of a £27 billion investment to fix England’s ageing roads, including full reconstruction of parts of the A180 and the M180. The works, funded through the road investment strategy 3 allocation round, will entail a full reconstruction of the A180 from Brocklesby interchange to Barnetby interchange. While that is long overdue and welcome as an intervention, the case of the A180 shows that investment alone is not enough unless noise is explicitly part of the standards we expect our roads to meet. In July 2025, following conversations I had had with National Highways to push this issue, a close proximity road surface noise survey was carried out on the A180 between Stallingborough and Grimsby. The survey found that tyre and road noise levels on the concrete sections were generally in the range of 106 to 108 dB. While this is an external road surface measurement rather than a measurement taken inside the vehicle—and I would encourage National Highways to carry out a comparable in-vehicle study—it gives us a very clear sense of what motorists are up against. To make that tangible, 106 to 108 dB is in the same broad range as very loud machinery, a nightclub or a chainsaw. In the United Kingdom, the Health and Safety Executive says that employers must assess risk at 80 dB and provide hearing protection at 85 dB, and that exposure above 87 dB must not be exceeded after hearing protection is taken into account. Drivers on the A180 are sitting for up to an hour a day in an enclosed environment with the equivalent of a pneumatic drill. It is so loud that people can no longer hear anything in the vehicle, causing them to unwittingly add to it by turning up their radio, or drivers and passengers having to shout to be heard despite sitting right next to each other. [ Interruption. ]