Tessa Munt MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 19 Nov 2025 · Myalgic Encephalomyelitis · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree, and I thank the hon. Gentleman. The second area where I would urge the Government to go further is support for people with severe and very severe ME. It is estimated that around one in four people with ME are severely affected. ME is perhaps the only condition where the sicker someone becomes, the less care they receive from the NHS. The recent prevention of future deaths report focused on the tragic case of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, describing NHS care for severe ME as “non-existent”. In my work on this issue, I have collaborated closely with #ThereForME, a campaign founded by two women, Karen and Emma, who are carers to partners with very severe ME. It can be difficult to comprehend the depth of suffering that ME can bring in its most extreme forms. With his permission, Karen has shared details with me about of her husband James’s day-to-day life. Before developing ME, James, in his 30s, lived a full life and was a civil servant. Today he is completely bed-bound and spends 99% of his day alone in a dark room, unable to tolerate any noise, light or stimulation. He is hardly able to communicate and is so sensitive to touch that, despite his suffering, his wife Karen is unable to give him a hug or hold his hand. Despite an acute level of need, James is receiving next to no care from the NHS. Karen tells me that her biggest fear is that he deteriorates to the point of needing lifesaving care. She cannot feel confident that the NHS will provide it.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Myalgic Encephalomyelitis · Hansard source

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  Probably most of us have constituents in exactly the same situation. In just over a year, two prevention of future deaths reports have been issued related to severe ME. I have already referred to one of them, regarding the case of Maeve Boothby O’Neill; the other was on the case of Sarah Lewis. Neither report has yet resulted in satisfactory action. The risk of death, specifically from malnutrition, is real and ongoing. Earlier today I spoke with Dr Binita Kane, a private sector clinician with a special interest in ME and long covid. She told me about the case of a 25-year-old woman, a medical student, who developed severe ME after a viral infection in 2018. The young woman has been in an acute NHS hospital for 17 months with nutritional failure and has deteriorated to the point that palliative care is being instituted. Her family is being prepared for the worst—it is dreadful. She has been disadvantaged not because of the individual clinical decisions, but because she suffers from a condition for which there is no safe or established service model. There have been multiple missed opportunities to prevent her condition progressing to this stage. Sadly, that young woman is not alone. I have heard of many other cases today, and before today. What is being done to help patients like her? In the foreword to the final delivery plan, the Minister stated that “tragically avoidable deaths of people with ME/CFS, in England…must become never events.” However, the plan does not clearly set out what actions the Department will take to guarantee patient safety. No one is being held to account. The plan committed the DHSC and NHS England to “explore whether a specialised service should be prescribed by the Secretary of State for Health for very severe ME/CFS”. I hope that the Secretary of State will do the right thing and commission that service, but it is frankly astonishing that the option of leaving this group of patients without specialist NHS care, as they are now, is even on the table. I ask the Minister to clarify what progress has been made in commissioning such a service. That is not to mention that developing a new service from the ground up is, at best, a medium-term solution. It may take years. It is astonishing that no interim solution has been proposed to ensure that patients with very severe ME, whose lives are at risk right now across the country, do not become tomorrow’s mortality statistics. How many more preventable deaths will it take? I ask the Minister to commit to work with groups such as #ThereForME to rectify the situation immediately, for example by convening a national advisory group to advise in these cases and by undertaking a full review of the lessons learned from ME deaths. Will the Minister clarify what data is being collected to better understand the number of those with ME who are affected by life-threatening complications? The third area on which I would like to see the Government do much more is accelerating ME research. I spoke earlier about the need for investment in research and improving healthcare. For many patients, biomedical research represents their best hope of regaining their former life, yet the condition has historically received very low levels of research funding from the UK Government. Based on parliamentary answers and official announcements, I estimate that around £10 million has been invested in ME research over the past 12 years. To put that figure into context, on the current numbers that is about 60p per person living with ME per year. Four times as much was spent on a helicopter for the former Prime Minister as has been spent on ME. We spent £125 million—12 times as much—on a bat tunnel for HS2. We spent £10 billion—about 1,000 times as much—on personal protective equipment that turned out to be unusable. Money talks, and the record of the past decade makes it clear to people with ME that their collective futures have been valued by successive Governments at astonishingly little.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Myalgic Encephalomyelitis · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more. For far too long, patients have been dismissed, and that care element is incredibly important, because it affects so many people. In July, the Department of Health and Social Care published the final delivery plan for ME, a cross-Government strategy aiming to improve attitudes, bolster research and better lives. It included some positive steps: new small grants for research into repurposed medications, and the development of a new service specification for mild and moderate ME. However, overall, the consensus of the charities and patient advocates I have spoken to is clear: the delivery plan falls far short of what was needed.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Myalgic Encephalomyelitis · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Mundell, but I have little to say. I am delighted to hear what the Minister had to say, and I will be holding her feet to the fire. I wish to continue this campaign, and I will work with others on it. One of the things I omitted to say at the beginning was that I am a member of the APPG on ME. I should have declared that, so I seek your forgiveness for not having said so. I am delighted by a number of the things that the Minister has been able to say. I thank everyone who contributed to the debate—I should probably have asked for a two or three-hour debate. In particular, I point to a phrase of the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), about digging for treasure, I think. It is so moving to have heard so many important stories of people who are suffering. We really have to do something about this.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Myalgic Encephalomyelitis · Hansard source

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  I agree. In fact, we do not just need specialists; we also need training for GPs and other healthcare workers. I will highlight four areas in which we need to see much more from the Government going forward. Given the gravity of the situation, I would appreciate it if the Minister could arrange for written responses to a number of my points. The first area is funding. If the delivery plan felt threadbare, that is because no substantive new funding was attached to it. Before the plan was published, all 72 Lib Dem MPs signed a letter expressing our concerns about the anticipated lack of funding, which of course came to pass. To put it bluntly, what patients need is transformed NHS care and a step change in research. Neither is likely to happen without investing some money. The case for investment is clear. I urge the Minister to see this not as a sunk cost, but as an investment in a group of people who are desperate to contribute to society. We know that one in five working-age adults are out of the workforce, many because of health problems, yet remarkably there was no modelling of the demography of those living with ME for the delivery plan exercise, and neither the Department of Health and Social Care nor the Department for Work and Pensions has an estimate of what the neglect of people with ME is costing our economy. I would like to look at some of the figures. The most recent estimate of the economic impact of ME was for 2014-15—10 years ago—and was carried out by 20/20health. The cost was then calculated at £3.3 billion annually, based on only 260,000 people living with ME. With many more affected following the pandemic and a decade of inflation, that cost will now be much higher. Even the most conservative estimate of current numbers living with ME, excluding cases linked to long covid, puts them at 404,000 patients. Does the Minister accept, using that conservative estimate and adjusting for inflation, the annual economic impact of ME today is likely to be at least £7 billion? If those living with ME-like symptoms following covid are included, we could be approaching an annual cost of £20 billion. Surely it is time for the Government properly to cost the impact of a condition that affects so many, rather than brush it under the carpet, and to invest accordingly.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Myalgic Encephalomyelitis · Hansard source

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  It is not only untenable, but completely absurd. In September 2024, on World Patient Safety Day, over 200 healthcare workers were so concerned about NHS care for ME, and particularly care for severe and very severe ME, that they wrote a letter to the Health Secretary calling for immediate action to save lives. That letter was sent 14 months ago. I am sorry to say that very little has changed since, and they did not receive a response.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Some of my constituents have had valuable property stolen from their homes during viewings, and have come to discover that the so-called potential buyers or tenants were not who they purported to be. Estate agents usually check the financial readiness and capacity of potential buyers and tenants, but can we have a debate on the need for estate agents to verify the names and addresses of the people they introduce to new properties, regardless of whether they will be accompanied to a viewing by the agent, so we can stop this brass-necked daylight robbery?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I welcome this statement. I have always been opposed to diverting taxpayers’ money to police and crime commissioners and their offices, and away from officers who can fight rural crime in our area. I have a couple of concerns. First, what will happen if a police force area like mine is split between two mayors? Secondly, could the Minister write to me to confirm the number of police officers that Avon and Somerset force might expect to employ, and to say whether this will happen by the end of the decade? Rumour has it that the previous police and crime commissioner had 28 or 29 staff, which is a lot of money.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Nolan Principles · Hansard source

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  It is absolutely apparent from looking at the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which is known as the Hillsborough law, that it will create enormous pressure on any number of bodies, particularly the employment tribunal, which I understand has tens of thousands of cases waiting. I could list any number of others, but I shall not do so now. I hope I will have an opportunity to explain that in my planned meeting with the Minister, but it is crucial that people have someone independent to go to so that they do not end up in the employment tribunal, where they will be roundly trashed and lose not only their reputation, but their way of earning a living.

• 11 Nov 2025 · Prisoner Releases in Error · Hansard source

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  The day before Prime Minister’s questions last week, we spent hours discussing the Public Office (Accountability) Bill. Bearing in mind that there has been such a crash in public trust and confidence, has the Lord Chancellor considered that it might have been better to have referred to the fact that he knew there was a mistaken release of a prisoner in the offing? He might not have been able to give the details, but to restore public trust and confidence, and in light of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, might it not have been better to have said something, and to have held over that decision and said he would come back to the House later with more detail?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Sudan: Government Support · Hansard source

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  Returning to the conference, is the Minister absolutely certain that all the actors in the region were part of the conference? There has been reference to the United Arab Emirates, and there are other actors in that region who did not seem to be on the list of people she mentioned who might have been here in April.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Sudan: Government Support · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way, on that point?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Sudan: Government Support · Hansard source

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• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I sought to pick up on the Minister’s and Prime Minister’s intention of ensuring that the Bill is as strong as it can be. The Bill should cover contractors in the private sector as well as the public sector, as was mentioned, if it is to have real teeth and ensure that wrongdoing is fully investigated and that wrongdoers are brought to account. Will the Minister meet me and whistleblowers to explore the scope of this Bill?

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  May I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and particularly to my role as vice-chair of WhistleblowersUK, a not-for-profit organisation? The Bill places new obligations of transparency and frankness on public authorities and officials, leaving them nowhere to hide from public scrutiny of their actions. I absolutely applaud those aims. We have been offered the opportunity to strengthen the Bill, and I have a contribution to make that stems from more than a decade of listening to whistleblowers. The UK has no proper law on whistleblowing or for protecting whistleblowers. Section 43B of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which was introduced by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, gives a measure of protection from detriments to workers and employees who make what are termed “public interest disclosures”. However, that provision treats such detriments as essentially employment matters; it does not once use the words “whistleblowing” or “whistleblower” and does not extend beyond workers and employees. It is highly technical, puts all sorts of barriers and difficulties in the way of workers and employees who make public interest disclosures, focuses exclusively on the employment context, and rarely—if ever—leads to any wider investigation of the substantive matters about which the worker or employee makes a disclosure. The Public Office (Accountability) Bill misses an opportunity: it could and should have recognised the important role played by whistleblowers in ensuring accountability. The whistleblower is, or should be, the best friend of every chief executive officer, every board, and every Minister. Whistleblowers want to see an end to crime, corruption and cover-up; they do not want to be fired for raising their concerns. Almost everyone will recognise the major scandals in which whistleblowers have reported what was happening again and again but have not been believed or, worse, have been invited or forced to leave their role. The case against whistleblowers is all about protection of reputation and the imbalance of power, and I recognise entirely what the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) said. Explicit recognition was given to the role of whistleblowers in the ten-minute rule Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) on 9 July 2025, with the support of the Hillsborough victims. Clauses 2, 5(1) and 9 in that Bill would have been of huge significance in advancing the protection of whistleblowers. For the first time in legislation, the Bill gave explicit recognition to whistleblowing—a word which had hitherto not featured in the legislative lexicon. The ten-minute rule Bill sought to extend the concept of public interest disclosures beyond employment law; it would have extended whistleblower protection to all who blow the whistle, many of whom will be outside the scope of employment law. If that Bill had proceeded, whistleblowing as a legal concept would have broken out of the confines of employment law. Clause 9 of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill requires public authorities to publish codes of ethics. It would be easy for the Government to take into their Bill the provision from the earlier Bill requiring public authority codes of ethics to recognise the need to protect whistleblowers. It is deeply disappointing and unfortunate that it does not, and I ask the Minister to address that point and amend the Bill in her mission to strengthen it. If that were to happen, it would be a start, but further reform would still be needed. First, the provision would apply only when the potential wrongdoer was a public authority within the scope of the Bill. Secondly, such protection as would be given would arise only indirectly through the existence of a code of ethics. Thirdly, the Bill would lack teeth to deal with breaches of the code of ethics. Fourthly, there would still be no mechanism for investigating and following up the wrongdoing that a whistleblower might have uncovered. There remains an urgent need to set up the office of the whistleblower, and to extend the Bill’s scope to include contractors in the private sector—

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I welcome this Bill. Will the Prime Minister reassure me and my constituents that organisations that are contractors for public authorities and public bodies will also be covered the provisions of the Bill? It is important that where responsibilities are deferred to other bodies, they too are captured by the clauses in this Bill.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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• 30 Oct 2025 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can the Minister confirm that people will not have to wait and that those 10,573 registrations are only part of it, when we recognise that there are 30,000 victims?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  The Minister will see my pile of papers, which I hope are criticisms that I never have to raise again. I welcome his statement and the work being done, particularly by Sir Brian Langstaff and others. I also welcome his intention to listen to and work with the infected blood community. This scandal remains the worst treatment disaster in the history of our national health service, and it is a source of shame for successive Governments and for the health service. We have heard from our constituents, who have been let down by medical professionals and the NHS. In many cases, they were victims of deliberate malpractice and cover-up. All those warnings about unsafe blood were ignored and officials failed to inform patients. In many cases, those patients paid, or are still paying, with their lives. An estimated 30,000 victims suffered, and that suffering was compounded by the further injustice of having to wait decades for compensation. As of my latest data, I understand that six times as many people have died waiting for justice as have benefited from this scheme. I hope the Minister can update me with a slightly more accurate figure. Payments to date have been made at an infuriatingly glacial pace. I would like to ask the Minister about the timelines for delivering compensation. Can he reaffirm that all eligible victims—all 30,000—will receive compensation by 2029? Will he confirm that the consultation he will undertake will not delay in any way or affect the speed at which the payments are being made? More specifically, I have challenged him before about the 916 victims of the special category mechanism. Are they in a different state from the advice given in August last year? Have things changed completely from the situation in February this year, when the rules changed? I just want to check something that I am not entirely clear about. With the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, the current approach was that people could not apply for compensation, and you are now saying that they can and that they will not have to wait—

• 30 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My constituent John appealed his business rate demand 13 months ago as the rateable value on his office is incorrect. He tells me that the business rate appeal is taking between a year and 18 months. Will the Leader of the House ask the relevant Minister to improve the check and challenge system to support businesses through what can be a real barrier to survival, let alone the growth that the Government desire?

• 29 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to put it on the record that there has unfortunately been a blip on today’s version of the Sentencing Bill’s amendment paper. While I did put my name to several new clauses, I did not put my name to amendments 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34 or 35.

• 29 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I would like to draw attention to two cases in my constituency, one of which I have spoken about before in this place, in which a lady called Lorraine lost her life. It involved somebody who was driving, possibly while looking at their mobile phone, and again, that person did not go to prison. It is tragic that my hon. Friend’s new clause has to set out things that to most of us would seem absolutely natural. Someone should not have to be told to stop, to report, and to phone the police—to do all those things. I think this new clause is necessary, but it is a terrible shame that we live in a world where people do not think that is the right way to behave.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Lasting Power of Attorney · Hansard source

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  I understood that someone could execute a power of attorney only if they had capacity, so if there had been a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, that would not have been possible. Am I incorrect?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Regulation and Inspection of Funeral Services · Hansard source

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• 27 Oct 2025 · Regulation and Inspection of Funeral Services · Hansard source

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