Tessa Munt MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jun 2026 · Child Sexual Offender Data · Hansard source

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  I am sorry. I hope that the members of the public who have suffered are able to sleep a little more peacefully, but we need data collection and sharing. We just need to bring some rigour and force to what we are doing. Lots of people have looked at this over a period of years. If I have time to make one more small point, I want to bring in the subject of religion. I am particularly interested in religion because, as far as I can tell, there is no mechanism for collecting data on belief systems, faith systems or whatever. We have only to look at the census of 2011, when, certainly in my neck of the woods, we had masses of people refer to themselves as Jedi. What people choose to call themselves in religious terms is absolutely up to interpretation, and I am not entirely sure that there is a way of making that data clean. Experience tells me that, if we bring religion into this, in the near past we would have been looking at the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, where some of the most appalling things happened to people, and at the fact that that power was vested in people who had positions in the Church, as they do in youth movements and other places. I do not know whether it is possible to hold religious data or whether there is a real purpose to that. I am not sure that we can get anywhere with that, but I recognise that nationality and ethnicity data is useful and helpful. On immigration status data, I know that the Home Secretary has the power to remove people, so that data may look a bit squiff if people are being deported, as they are. There are several ways in which the Home Secretary can remove people in different situations, so we may find that those figures are going down. They may not be useful or show the whole picture, but I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that. The Liberal Democrats will support anything that improves the situation for victims. We have to remember the victims in all this, and we have to protect children into the future. As I said, I hope that victims can sleep a little better every time they hear a debate like this—something will happen.

• 21 Jul 2025 · Extending the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme · Hansard source

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  Could we ask the Minister for clarity about the women who have dependent children or elderly relatives, who are often unable to meet the income thresholds required under settlement routes such as the skilled worker visa or the global talent visa? Could we also ask for clarity for their children, who have learned English so that they are so fluent and who have had their education here, as they cannot look forward to going to college or university because they do not have a visa that will see them through that course?