Tessa Munt MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

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

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  King Lifting Ltd is a west country firm that operates mostly mobile cranes across the UK. The company holds a Home Office licence for sponsorship, but cannot employ the heavy crane operators it needs. The work is not for everyone because it involves long stays away from home working on major infrastructure projects, such as wind farms, High Speed 2 and our nuclear sites. Operators qualify as individuals not through the company and must also be experienced. Every time King Lifting advertises, it gets dozens of applicants, almost all from abroad, and the company trains and tests heavy crane operators to meet the UK’s high standards. Please may we have a debate on adding crane operators to the UK immigration skilled workers eligible occupations list?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Listed Places of Worship Scheme · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) on calling this debate and I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings), Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) and Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) on the points they have made.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Listed Places of Worship Scheme · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend, and I add Tiverton and Minehead to my list. First, let me quote one of the people who wrote to me. They said: “It’s such a great scheme because the volunteers who raise money for church repairs find it such hard work making multiple lengthy applications for grants with usually little to show in return. This VAT relief once you have raised the funds is the one thing that is certain and takes the edge of all the effort”. I recognise that in 2024 this scheme already gave 5,000 listed places of worship the benefit of returning up to £42 million from the Government to congregations across the country. That £42 million is a fixed annual pot, and there are, I understand, over 7,000 applications. I will briefly indulge in talking about my own constituency, which I know the Minister has visited on occasion. I have had numerous communications with people, mainly from churches, but also, significantly, from Wells cathedral, where I saw Jethro Tull play a few years ago. The variety of activities is enormous. My partner and I should probably declare an interest; my partner played table tennis in Christ church at Theale last week. Holy Trinity church in Blackford has carols with vast slugs of wine provided to the whole congregation, St Cuthbert’s at Wells has a crib festival and St John the Baptist in Axbridge hosts the annual community awards presentation. There are others such as the Holy Trinity church in Burrington and St Mary Magdalene church in Wookey Hole. All of those places have Remembrance Sunday services where we recall the duty that people have paid to this country. My local church, St Mary’s in Wedmore, runs “The Clash of the Choirs”, which is now world famous, I have to say, and sounds sedate, but is actually a joyous celebration of all sorts of singing, school choirs, folk, handbells and a unique clap-o-meter. There are also the city of Wells almshouses, which are home to some of our more vulnerable elderly citizens. The chapel of St Saviour is benefiting at this moment from works that are being carried out under this scheme. One of the things I would like the Minister to consider is the conditions that are required for people to claim under this scheme, in which the VAT refund is dependent on having work commissioned, carried out and paid for against a VAT invoice of £1,000 or more—as I understand it—and only then can the church submit a claim. One of my concerns is that if this scheme is to be reduced, or stopped and wound up, then I ask the Minister for great understanding and for transition arrangements for those churches and chapels that already have works in train. It is quite difficult for people to get that work done, particularly when a number of my communities have been suffering from flooding and various other things, meaning that the number of available contractors has also been reduced. I will not carry on in too much detail, but I was very pleased to receive a letter from the Secretary of State that recognised that, “Listed places of worship hold great cultural and historical significance, representing some of the nation’s finest heritage.” I am grateful that the Minister and Secretary of State recognise that, and I would ask for some tolerance and kindness in continuing this scheme, which is so important to our various communities.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Many of us will remember the devastation that the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001 caused in rural England. I am pleased that the Government have restricted commercial imports of susceptible animals and personal imports of animal products. However, I was reminded yesterday by James, a farmer in my area, that last time, our high biosecurity standards saw the dipping of vehicles and footwear. Can we have a debate focusing on the movement of people and vehicles into the UK from affected areas—whether by road, rail, ferry or air—to prevent transmission of the virus, and particularly the installing of large notices at airports for incoming and transit passengers to declare such products?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I refer the House to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and particularly to the fact that I am a director of WhistleblowersUK, a not-for-profit organisation. I am the last remaining MP of the seven Members of the House of Commons who originally called on Theresa May to hold an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. My experiences are also on the record. I therefore particularly welcome the acceptance of Professor Alexis Jay’s recommendations and Baroness Louise Casey’s rapid review into child sexual exploitation. May I, however, draw the Home Secretary’s attention to my concern about police investigations? She has referred to the matter of the National Police Chiefs’ Council and to reopening cases, but I am concerned about people marking their own homework and we know that there is an institutional resistance to being found lacking and to deep scrutiny. One of the primary whistleblowers with whom I was involved has waited years for the truth to out, and senior police officers have threatened to sue her. It would appear that complaints can only be made about junior officers who are called and investigated, and that there is no ability to complain about senior officers. I ask the Home Secretary to look at the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Independent Office for Police Conduct reports, whether they have been published or not—particularly where they have not been published—and where there have been threats, as I understand it, from the police to sue members of those organisations about their findings. It is incredibly serious that we have organisations such as the IPCC and the IOPC—