Tessa Munt MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Sept 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  As the Leader of the House knows, it is World Suicide Prevention Day. Suicide is the leading cause of death among under-35s. After nearly 30 years, Papyrus, the national youth suicide prevention charity, went into administration two days ago. Its HopeLine, a 24/7 crisis service, ceased with immediate effect. One of my constituents is absolutely terrified about their young adult child returning to university without Papyrus’s support, on which they were entirely reliant. Does the Leader of the House agree with me that this charity’s collapse is catastrophic for younger people? Will he speak to his colleagues about crisis support for young people and young adults immediately?

• 3 Sept 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Like others, one of my constituents inherited responsibility for a retirement property on the death of the resident. It has been on the market since 2022, incurring annual costs of about £14,000. It has a falling sale value, and there is ground rent, service charges, council tax and an exit fee. The landlord forbids subletting, even though it is renting out its own properties on the same site, and there is an over-55 residency restriction, so neither the beneficiaries nor their adult children, who are struggling to get on to the property ladder, can live in the property. Would the Leader of the House ask his ministerial colleagues to look at the protections for families trapped by retirement housing leases, including the cost elements I referred to—the huge service charges on empty properties and empty-home council tax—and age restrictions on occupancy?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Local Authorities: Aluminium Recycling · Hansard source

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  No, Kent county council has probably done absolutely nothing. In a moment, I will give my hon. Friend an example of where a council has changed hands—control changed hands and the council did a really brilliant job. There is money to be had and, when councils are up against it trying to provide for adult social care, children’s social care and, frankly, every flipping pothole, it is amazing that they do not get on and tune into this. County councils are not alone in that income discrepancy. It happens in unitary authorities, too: South Gloucestershire council made £500,000 and one of my own councils, North Somerset, made £400,000, but North Lincolnshire made absolutely nothing. Doncaster city council made £300,000, but Coventry city council and Leicester city council made nothing. Another interesting example is that the Labour-led Nottingham city council made an impressive £300,000 from the sale of its aluminium, but the Reform-led Nottinghamshire county council, which serves three times the population of the city itself, made absolutely nothing. Something went awry there. According to the Local Government Association, aluminium cans are worth some £54 million per year to English councils. If the responses I have received to my FOI questions are anything to go by, that seems to be a sizeable underestimate. I therefore want to return to this question of commercial sensitivity. I understand that contracts between councils and waste management companies can contain some commercially sensitive terms and information; however, surely how much income a council earns from the sale of recyclable materials collected from its residents is a matter of public interest and should not be hidden behind exemptions. Residents who sort their recycling every week are entitled to know where it is going, if for no other reason than it encourages them to keep recycling and to recycle more. Secrecy does not help anyone in this arena. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 rightly provides exemptions for genuinely commercially sensitive information, but I trust that the Minister will agree that income from aluminium recycling is hardly a trade secret. It should be a matter of public record. Both councils in the Minister’s constituency replied to my freedom of information requests by stating that they could not identify income from aluminium. However, Hull city council informed its own scrutiny committee that aluminium cans are worth £900 to £1,000 a tonne and that it takes 80% of that value, and East Riding of Yorkshire council told its committee that revenue was £1.6 million. Does the Minister accept that councils that publish this information for a council committee meeting should be more transparent with their residents and the public? Can she assure me that she will offer guidance to ensure that councils always release such information? The Local Government Association’s “wealth from waste” review says that councils across the country receive only around 28% of the total financial value of the materials that they recycle. Waste management companies retain the remaining 72%. That disparity cannot be right. Some councils have refused to accept that financial imbalance and have resorted to going to the courts to receive a fair income for their waste materials, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) referred to in relation to Kent. To give an example, in June 2024, Buckinghamshire council took its waste management company, FCC Environment, to the High Court. The council claimed that the 75%/25% revenue share in favour of the waste management company did not reflect the council’s entitlement. The High Court agreed, and the council was awarded substantial funds for underpayments going back as far as 2016. As the Minister knows, FCC Environment now controls waste management for the councils in her constituency, both of which have extended their contract to 2030. South Ribble borough council is a clear example of action being taken after political change, as was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells. When Labour took control of South Ribble, the new administration immediately terminated the contract with the waste management company, brought services in-house and saved £178,000 in the first year. Where there is political will, injustices can be corrected. When local government finances are so tight, I find it puzzling that so many councils let this source of extra income slip through their fingers. I wonder how much children’s and adults’ care could be delivered and, as I said earlier, how many potholes could be filled with the extra income highlighted in those examples. The issue is becoming increasingly important to our councils because aluminium is fast replacing plastic and glass across a wide range of drinks and consumer goods. Industries are turning to aluminium more and more. It is lightweight, substantially more recyclable and its quality is not time-sensitive, unlike that of plastic and glass. Many brands also see it as increasing their sustainability credentials, especially among younger consumers. In the last few years, the use of aluminium cans has expanded from a few soft drinks and craft beers into spirits, wine, coffee and water. Last year, Diageo sold more than 80 million cans of Baileys alone, and Marks and Spencer sold 35 million aluminium cans containing a variety of drinks—an increase of about 1 million on the number sold in the two previous years. Even the whisky industry is looking to aluminium to replace its traditional glass, although I am not sure what some hon. Members will think of that. I am sure that the Minister sees my point. Year on year, right across the country, our councils’ residents are purchasing increasing numbers of aluminium cans, our councils are collecting an increasing number for recycling and, at the moment, waste management companies are allowed to sell increasing quantities of that precious resource abroad to the highest bidder. I anticipate that when she replies the Minister will offer the packaging recovery notes system and the coming deposit return scheme as possible solutions. I plan to seek debates on both topics later in the year, and my research tells me that the packaging recovery note system has been plagued by fraudulent scams that open the doors to even more aluminium exports. The Minister will know that the Local Government Association claims that the system does not channel revenue to councils and has called for changes. As for the deposit return scheme, despite the benefits that it may bring the Government are allowing the drinks companies and the supermarkets to manage it, with no regulations whatsoever to restrict them from exporting as many aluminium cans as they want. When my constituents put their cans in their recycling bag or bin they consider that recycling, and in one sense they are correct. It has become very clear from my research that when councils hand over their waste to a private material recovery facility most consider that to be recycling, but that is not the case. All a recovery facility does is divide the waste into different components. Consequently, when the aluminium comes out of such private facilities it has not been recycled; it is nothing more than crushed and broken bits of aluminium. I raise that point because the definition of “recycling” is important. The current confusing definition allows councils to be persuaded, whether honestly or otherwise, that their aluminium is recycled, and recycled in the UK, when too often, after it leaves the recovery facility, waste management companies sell it to the highest bidder abroad. It is important that the Minister and her Government establish some clarity on this issue, so I would like to know the Government’s definition of recycling and its main characteristics, and at what point in the process the Government consider items such as aluminium to be actually recycled. To try to answer those questions for myself I took some of my aluminium to the largest aluminium can recycling centre in the UK: the Novelis reprocessing plant in Warrington. I thank the amazing Allan Sweeney and his team at Novelis for showing me around the plant. I saw how crushed and broken aluminium cans are cleaned, melted down and cast into brand-new 27-tonne ingots—they are huge. I also saw the almost-completed £75 million expansion of Novelis’s facilities, which is jointly funded by the Government. Once operational it will allow all the UK’s used cans to be recycled in the UK. Each year in Warrington 8 billion cans are reprocessed, ready to be rolled into new aluminium cans and bottles. For me the question was answered right there in Warrington: aluminium is not recycled until it is reprocessed ready to be made into a new product; up to that point it is just scrap metal. That definition would resonate with my constituents and with all those who take the time to recycle their aluminium. I will return to how that all impacts the Government’s critical minerals strategy and their circular economy objectives. I believe that there is no question but that it does impact them, and in a manner that makes a mockery of the Government’s intentions. I will give the Minister three very clear examples. First, the critical minerals strategy categorises aluminium as a national strategic asset, central to our defence, infrastructure, manufacturing base, circular economy and net-zero targets. It says that the UK must secure access to such critical minerals; the amount of scrap aluminium exported abroad each year seriously undermines that. Secondly, one of the critical minerals strategy’s primary pillars is reducing exposure to volatile global markets, yet waste management companies are given free rein by the Government to export unlimited quantities of aluminium scrap into the very volatile markets that the critical minerals strategy says must be avoided. Thirdly, circularity is central to the critical minerals strategy. As I have already pointed out, aluminium is infinitely recyclable and reprocessing uses 95% less energy than primary production. Exporting scrap aluminium breaks the circular loop that the critical minerals strategy says is essential for resilience. All the research that my team and I have conducted so far this year has led me to conclude that many of our councils have a good understanding of the commodity value of the aluminium that they collect from the public. They manage it well through prudent procurement agreements and secure real value for money for their residents, but far too many fail to take the management of their waste seriously. They sign contracts that simply hand everything over to waste management companies, which then profit massively from aluminium and other materials’ value. Far too many believe that UK recycling policies are being adhered to, when in reality, the truth is shrouded from them and their aluminium is being sold abroad to the highest bidder, lining the pockets of the waste management companies. I am well aware that the responsibility for this issue lies not with central Government but with the leadership at local government level. Might the Prime Minister’s devolution initiative help here? I urge the Minister and her Government to act now to stop scrap aluminium from councils all over the UK being exported by waste management companies. What those companies are doing undermines all the Government’s initiatives around the critical minerals strategy and circular economy initiatives. Aluminium, that vital commodity to our country, should not be sent for recycling or reprocessing abroad while there is capacity to do so here in the UK. In conclusion, I ask the Minister to give me some reassurance that the Government will act on this matter before our national interests are further harmed.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Local Authorities: Aluminium Recycling · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered aluminium recycling and local authorities. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful to have secured this debate, as I believe that what I am about to set out is one of the most significant and least understood failures in our country’s local authority waste and recycling policy. It concerns aluminium, the most valuable material in every household recycling bin in Britain. We should ask ourselves, what happens to the aluminium cans that residents put out for the council to collect? What do councils do with that aluminium? Is it managed in the best possible way? And how does the disposal of aluminium impact the Government’s critical minerals strategy, aluminium recycling targets and circular economy objectives? For many years, I have collected used aluminium from businesses in my constituency. Once I have collected enough, it goes to our local scrap merchant, and I donate the money to local charities. Recycled aluminium has roughly 10 times the value of mixed plastic waste and several times the value of paper or cardboard. As aluminium can be recycled indefinitely, it is the most valuable material that councils collect from households by a very wide margin. I knew that a number of councils in my region, including my own council, had an efficient kerbside collection scheme and return much of the collected aluminium’s commodity value to the council’s coffers, but I wondered about the rest of the country. How much aluminium is recycled each year? What happens to it once councils have collected it? Are councils getting a fair income from its commodity value? Is it recycled in the UK or sent abroad? And what, if any, are the Government’s regulations regarding the export of aluminium? Those are some of the questions to which I wanted answers. Earlier this year, I submitted a freedom of information request to more than 300 councils across the UK. I asked them what happens to the aluminium collected from their residents’ kerbside recycling. While I waited for replies, I did some further research on the subject. I discovered from the House of Commons Library that about £1 billion-worth of scrap aluminium is sold abroad each year by waste management companies. Industry groups told me that manufacturers are spending about £5 billion importing reprocessed aluminium. According to the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation, which I would like to thank for being here today, we use around 12 billion aluminium cans every year.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Local Authorities: Aluminium Recycling · Hansard source

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  Yes, of course I agree. The more we can do to recycle everything that we potentially throw away, the better. Around 60% of the 12 billion aluminium cans used each year are exported for recycling, with only 40% recycled in the UK. I also learned that, although we currently have a high recycling capacity, next year we will have the capacity to recycle every aluminium can used in the UK. By this time next year, there should be no need whatsoever for any council in this country to send its aluminium cans abroad. I shall return to that point. Environmental groups revealed that every tonne of aluminium recycled in the UK saves 95% of the energy needed to produce primary aluminium. Of equal importance, recycling in the UK avoids the carbon emissions of shipping material to smelters in China, India, the USA, Thailand and Greece. I mention those countries because, according to the manufacturers’ trade body, Make UK, and aluminium industry analysts AL Circle, that is where 84% of our aluminium scrap ends up. Exports of aluminium to the USA are particularly worrying, because they have surged by almost 1,200% from 2,000 tonnes to 24,000 tonnes in just 12 months. Aluminium scrap is exempt from President Trump’s tariffs on primary aluminium, so the waste management companies are profiteering by sending as much scrap aluminium there as they can. In April, answers to my FOI requests began to arrive. The results were revealing. Far too many councils could not say where their aluminium ended up. Too many have no policy requiring their aluminium to be recycled in the UK and, I have since discovered, too many councils that do have a UK recycling requirement are blissfully unaware that their aluminium is being exported abroad by private waste management companies. The most shocking thing my research revealed, however, was the number of councils that do not know the value of their aluminium waste and the number receiving little or no income from the sale of this valuable commodity. Equally alarming was the number of council leaders who refused to answer my question about income, quoting commercial sensitivity. I found that those councils that understand the value of their aluminium and manage their recycling well are retaining significant amounts of money each year. However, councils of similar sizes and demographics, sometimes using the very same waste management company, are losing money for reasons that simply make no commercial sense. I will give a few examples: Cambridgeshire county council made about £1.6 million from aluminium recycling last year; West Sussex county council made about £1 million; Surrey county council made £2,000; Warwickshire county council made £500; and Lancashire and Kent county councils made nothing.

• 16 Jul 2026 · National Planning Policy Framework · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The point I would like to make to the Minister is that, if developers choose to raise the level of the land on which they wish to build, we make a complete mockery of the Environment Agency’s work in relation to the LiDAR data that it uses to measure flood risk. There will be little pockets that are no longer in flood zone 3a, for example, but everybody else is then in a more problematic area for flooding. The current neighbours would be affected, because floodwater has to go somewhere. In the event of flooding, if the properties are lifted above sea level by raising the land, the displaced water goes straight into existing homes and businesses. The Association of British Insurers has been clear that, while it supports the Government’s ambition to deliver 1.5 million homes, it has serious concerns about allowing developers to bypass the flood risk sequential test in areas at high risk of surface water flooding, which is precisely the kind of decision we have seen play out in Yatton. The scale of the risk to which it points is sobering. The Environment Agency’s national assessment of flood and coastal erosion risk shows that 6.3 million homes in England are already at risk of flooding, 4.6 million of them from surface water alone. In just the first quarter of this year, insurers paid out £846 million in property claims, with the average weather-related claim reaching £6,040—the highest first quarter figure on record. Subsidence claims, often linked to the same extreme weather, rose 9% year on year to £17,820. Research commissioned by Aviva suggests that 11% of new homes built between 2022 and 2024 are already at risk of flooding, and that figure is projected to rise to one in seven by 2050, once climate change is factored in. That is why I believe the Association of British Insurers, together with UK Finance and flood campaigners, has written directly to the Secretaries of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and for Housing, Communities and Local Government to raise the alarm. The message is simple: rather than weakening the sequential test, the Government should mandate sustainable drainage systems, finally implementing schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. That legislation has been in the ether, unimplemented, for nearly 16 years. It is telling that 66% of the public already say that they do not believe the country or their local area is prepared for future flooding. Ignoring the industry that pays out when floods happen is really not the way to change people’s minds. I put it to the Minister that Somerset council is required to deliver 75,000 new homes in the next 20 years, and I believe that North Somerset has to produce nearly 25,000 new homes in the next 15 years. To repeat something that one of my colleagues on Somerset council says, it has taken since the dawn of time for the population of the Somerset council area—not including the North Somerset council area—to reach 560,000. I am keen to know why the Minister and his Government believe that the population will grow by more than 75,000 people in the next 20 years. That is a 13% increase, when it has taken centuries to get to 560,000. It is a ridiculous population increase, and it is not realistic in the slightest. For context, the Office for National Statistics projects that the entire population of the United Kingdom will grow from around 70 million to around 72 million over the same period—a rise of just 2.8%. I am the first to recognise that Wells and Mendip Hills is a lovely place to live—actually the best—but, even allowing for that huge appeal, I struggle to understand why the Government believe that such a disproportionately rural area will see growth at almost five times the national rate. The NPPF changes will affect much more than just flood risk—our area and its green spaces will be under pressure. It seems especially disproportionate when I look at Bristol, my local city, which I love dearly. Its population is projected to grow by about 10%, which is again above the national average. It seems that those in Somerset and North Somerset will be asked to take a huge number of new residents. I do not know where they are coming from, and I cannot quite see how the Government have come to those figures. I would be grateful if the Minister could write to me on how his team has come to that assumption. The last matter I would like to raise is that farmers run factories. Those factories are the agricultural land—it is just that we do not have roofs on them. That is no different from any other part of the country that has some sort of manufacturing. Farmers use fields, and they do not have roofs, so it is quite hard for people to spot the fact that they are food factories. In the interests of an honest debate, I acknowledge that many in the farming community welcome what is set out in the new NPPF, but that comes with real caveats. It is worth the House hearing what they are. A lot of our greenhouses are more than 40 years old and in urgent need of modernisation, yet large glasshouse developments are still routinely treated as major infrastructure projects, which triggers huge delays that again undermine our domestic food production. My colleagues will need no second invitation on this point: food security is national security. I am really glad that the Government recognised that in February. Ensuring that our farmers can produce the food this country needs is of critical importance in what is a very unstable world. Will the Minister consider the points that I have made and write to me about the population figures? I want to make absolutely certain that he does not misunderstand me; this is not a sentimental case for nature and green spaces. It is very realistic damage that is happening to Somerset.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I herald the passage into law of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, but many will be disappointed that the judge in Tuesday’s High Court hearing had to rule, under current legislation, that the Chinook families were out of time to challenge the Ministry of Defence, which has kept secrets and hidden the truth from them for decades. Will the Leader of the House ask the new Prime Minister and his colleagues to consider how victims of cover-ups might know or discover that they were or are victims of a cover-up, so that they can challenge in good time any Department that is doing the covering up, and to ensure that legislation associated with the Hillsborough Bill guarantees transparency for victims, not just time limits that protect Government Departments?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Last month, the High Court issued its judgment permitting the development of 119 homes in a flood risk area in the village of Yatton in Somerset. The site had failed the flood risk sequential test. The judgment prioritises building and development over protection against flooding and imperils existing homes and businesses in the area, and flies in the face of everything that insurers, lenders, Flood Re, the Environment Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are trying to do. Will the Leader of the House ask his colleagues in DEFRA and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to assess jointly the likely impact of the judgment, which may set a national precedent whereby flood risk assessments shall be ignored?