Tessa Munt MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 29 Apr 2025 · Recycling of Tyres · Hansard source

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  Yes, indeed; I shall come to that shortly. The previous Government talked a great deal about the circular economy, had their own circular economy strategy and brought forward consultations on a number of measures to close certain loopholes that created an opening for waste crime. Sadly, despite multiple commitments to taking action, not enough was actually implemented. This Minister knows that it is not sufficient to talk about the circular economy; she and her team need to take action to deliver the changes that have been talked about for far too long.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Recycling of Tyres · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Recycling of Tyres · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister also meet Henry Hodge, who is part of Black-Ram Recycling and one of the people who informed me about this particular problem with tyres? That is in the constituency just next door, so it is an easy trip.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Recycling of Tyres · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of recycling end-of-life tyres. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. The Government have placed the circular economy at the heart of their agenda. The circular economy taskforce has been established and is expected to report back later this year. Adopting a focus on the circular economy means changing the way we think about so-called waste. We need to see things currently perceived as waste as a resource—a resource with an economic value that can be recovered and contribute to the economic growth that this Government so seriously seek. We also need to implement policies designed to maximise the economic value from these resources.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Recycling of Tyres · Hansard source

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  We need to tell people when it is doing this stuff.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Recycling of Tyres · Hansard source

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  It is really helpful of the Minister to ask people to contact Crimestoppers, but I wonder whether the Department can do more to demonstrate how it is prosecuting people who break the law. Enforcement is incredibly important—

• 29 Apr 2025 · Household Energy Efficiency · Hansard source

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  7. What steps he is taking to help improve the energy efficiency of homes.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Household Energy Efficiency · Hansard source

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  I recognise that there are very good schemes for those on lower incomes and that heating homes is really important. For many older properties and properties in conservation areas, as fast as we heat the homes, the heat just goes out the windows. In my area, where there are lots of older homes and homes in conservation areas, it is near impossible to get permission to apply double or triple glazing. Can the Secretary of State sort out this tension between having warm homes and older homes, particularly when he is trying so hard to ensure that homes meet the C grade rating for energy performance certificates by 2030? This needs to be sorted out with planning departments.

• 22 Apr 2025 · Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Legal Aid: Domestic Abuse) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  I welcome the broad outline of what the Minister is describing in this draft order. I just wanted to highlight that particular case, which is very distressing for the constituent concerned.

• 22 Apr 2025 · Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Legal Aid: Domestic Abuse) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  Although this is a slightly different situation, I want to clarify what the Home Office’s response would be to the case of one of my constituents. She came into the UK with her partner and sought leave to remain. He was arrested four times for domestic abuse, and she alerted the Home Office to the fact that it had happened on two different occasions by literally sending in the film. Can the Minister elucidate a little how my constituent registered that information with the Home Office and it still granted that man leave to remain in the UK? He has now of course vanished off the face of the earth.

• 8 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In July 2023, my constituent Alison claimed a refund of overpaid tax that was mistakenly paid twice. In February 2024, she was told that her claim would be assessed by 20 March, in July 2024 she was told that it would be by 22 October, and in December she was told that she could not have a date but that the department had definitely received her claim 16 months previously. She has heard nothing since. Will the Chancellor agree to meet me to discuss this very vexed situation for someone who has very little money, given that this claim is nearly 21 months delayed?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Tackling Child Sexual Abuse · Hansard source

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  My blood is boiling as I listen to the stuff coming from Conservative Members. If they had read the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, they would recognise that there are hundreds of thousands of people alive today—people just like me, white girls—who suffered at the hands of white men who have got clean away with it, because nothing was done for so long. I welcome today’s statement. I think it is absolutely brilliant, and I am very glad to hear that it is the start of a plan, not the finish. Of course, this is not rocket science. I recognise the value of mandatory reporting and the importance of criminalising those who obstruct reporting by individuals, but could we step that down a little bit, and say that those who coerce people into not reporting, or gently discourage them from doing so, should also be criminalised? As the Minister knows, I have been working on an amendment to clause 45 of the Crime and Policing Bill that would cover religious institutions and faith-based organisations. There should no longer be a convention of absolute confidentiality for those who take confession in a religious setting; there is a conflict and a tension there. We need to make sure in some way that it is made explicit that no one should be excluded from mandatory reporting.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. The Home Office states that it takes fraud in visa applications seriously, but I know of a case involving a man who came here on a spousal visa, was then arrested four times for domestic abuse, and left the family home in October ’23. All this is backed up by police reports and social worker documentation. In his spousal visa application of March last year, he claimed that he was still living with my constituent in the family home. She has reported this twice to the Home Office—

• 27 Mar 2025 · Passenger Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State will know about the planned engineering works between Didcot Parkway and Swindon and in the Paddington area, which will cause significant disruption between London and Bristol and in south Wales this Sunday and next Sunday. Disruption on major routes causes massive chaos on the rural routes that are accessed via Bristol and further to the south-west. Then there is the closure of the M4 between Bath and Bristol, which means that there will be no buses between Swindon and Bristol on those days. The alerts about longer and busier journeys and train cancellations and delays advise us to travel the day before or the day after. That does not seem adequate. Will the Secretary of State please pull the rail, bus and road bodies together to avoid clashes such as this, particularly when we face six years of further disruption as a result of High Speed 2 works, which will not benefit the south-west in the slightest?

• 27 Mar 2025 · Passenger Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  20. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of passenger rail performance.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Will the Leader of the House ask her colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care for a statement explaining the rationale behind a decision last month to alter the eligibility criteria for additional compensation in the infected blood compensation scheme? The special category mechanism was replaced with the severe health condition award, which means that the group of 916 people with hepatitis C, including some of my constituents, have been singled out and are now prevented from receiving the supplementary compensation they expected, and desperately need because they are so unwell.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Veterinary Products in Waterways · Hansard source

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  Could the Minister just clarify whether that group will consider the benefits of using natural remedies, or a combination of natural remedies, and of ensuring that people are fully aware of the benefits of that, and that that will be in some way quantified, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) mentioned during her speech.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Veterinary Products in Waterways · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 20 Mar 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I recognise your request for brevity, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I offer my condolences and say how much I identify with the maxim “turn up at the finishing line”, having stood eight times to get here and having been successful twice. Given the countless families in my part of Somerset who have adopted or are special guardians to children and young people, many of whom are living with significant challenges and trauma stemming from their treatment in early life, the adoption and special guardianship support fund is a lifeline for essential therapeutic support. I have written to the Minister, and I understand that applications for therapy that started this financial year can carry on into the next one, but there is no news yet on the future of funding, leaving many families in limbo. Can we have a debate to enlighten us on when the Government will make an announcement on the fund, and how they propose to support adoptive families to ensure that they can access therapeutic support when it is needed?

• 20 Mar 2025 · British Sign Language Week · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for securing the debate. I am sorry that my British Sign Language is incredibly rusty, having learned it 30 years ago and not having practised diligently. I want to pick up on what she said about access to learning British Sign Language. Having worked in a council as a lead member for children, families and education, it was evident that growing numbers of young people have speech, language and communications difficulties. If we can capture British Sign Language as a valid language for everybody, and teach our nursery nurses, early learning teachers and teachers right the way through our schools, that will be so much better. As I understand it, British Sign Language can be taken up to a level 6 national vocational qualification, so there is no reason why every child in this country cannot have a second language, even if it is not one of the traditional languages that we would normally recognise in the academic system.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Farming · Hansard source

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  First, I should declare that my partner is a conservation farmer in Somerset. Having been Parliamentary Private Secretary to Vince Cable, the then Business Secretary who set up the Groceries Code Adjudicator, I recall his frustrations that the then Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to grant the adjudicator the power she needed. Does my hon. Friend agree that the adjudicator will never be able to exercise meaningful control over the big supermarkets, which fund its operations through a levy, if the cost of a single investigation is greater than its annual budget? May I ask the Minister through my hon. Friend to remedy this decade-old wrong?

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

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  My constituent Jennifer, an American citizen, came here in 2018 on a spousal visa, which was renewed in 2022. She applied for indefinite leave to remain in May last year. The Government website says: “you’ll usually be told whether your application has been successful within 6 months.” It has been 10 months. Jennifer’s now expired visa has given her employer concerns about her right to work, and that financial uncertainty is exacerbated by the fact that she cannot be added to the couple’s mortgage, which affects the works they need to do on their home. Jennifer has tried and I have tried, so I wonder whether the Leader of the House could try to raise this case with her colleagues in the Home Office to see what has happened, get it sorted and reduce the stress that this delay is causing Jennifer and her family.

• 13 Mar 2025 · NHS England Update · Hansard source

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  I really welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, and I am particularly keen that he looks at the multiple layers of sign-off and the bureaucracy that sometimes forgets patients are at the other end of it. Hospitals in England have had to rely on charitable fundraising to buy some of the most cutting-edge radiotherapy machines because of NHS England’s policies and bureaucracy. This year, highly advanced machines such as the CyberKnife, which have treated thousands of NHS cancer patients over the past 10 years, will need upgrading, but NHS England is refusing to include them in this year’s funding because they were all bought by charities. The Secretary of State talked about giving people the tools to do the job. Could he change that policy, so that our hospitals do not have to continue relying on charities for the latest technology?

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State greatly for giving way. I recognise what clauses 45 to 54 say about the mandatory duty in England to report child sexual abuse, and I wonder if I might draw her attention to the fact that there are exceptions dating back to 1603, under canon law, for confessions relating to treason. There is also precedent in section 38B of the Terrorism Act 2000, relating to terrorism, which covers faith leaders. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we might help the various churches, faith leaders and volunteers in England to make sure that they mandatorily report when they come across this stuff in confession?

• 3 Mar 2025 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for everything he has done over the last few days—it has been admirable. Will he endeavour to ensure that we prioritise military spending on outcomes rather than, strictly, the amount of money that is spent? The rush to avoid criticism of underspending often means that cost-effectiveness can be lost. Should not the defence and international aid budgets be viewed as a rolling average over several years rather than annually, to avoid the accounting gymnastics that might otherwise happen every March?