Tessa Munt MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 May 2025 · Infected Blood Inquiry: Government Response · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the Minister’s statement, but I too would like to identify the gaping hole in the compensation scheme that relates to the special category mechanism. I point out that some of my constituents are in very poor health and their lives may be limited time-wise, yet they will end up with less compensation than someone who is in stage one and is healthy. At every point throughout the process, the compensation scheme has said that the SCM infected should be compensated. The infected blood inquiry said the same thing. The Government’s own expert group also said in August 2024, until they were hauled back into the Cabinet Office and then they changed their mind, that they must have compensation. I invite the Paymaster General to meet me and my affected constituent—it would have to be online, and it would be with his carer because this gentleman is very ill and suffering dreadfully, and yet he seems to have been excluded from getting fair compensation.

• 7 May 2025 · Personal Independence Payment: Disabled People · Hansard source

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  In response to all the letters and emails from my constituents, I will focus on PIP and the effect that the changes will have on the 1.3 million people who are suffering from ME and long covid. I am particularly concerned that the additional criterion for a PIP award of needing four points in one descriptor disproportionately affects people with ME and long covid, because they currently reach their eight points with a spread of low points across many descriptors. The abolition of the work capability assessment and the focus on PIP are a double whammy, particularly given the extra difficulty that people with ME and long covid will have in accessing PIP. They did better under the work capability assessment, because that could accommodate the fluctuating nature of ME and the reality of post-exertional malaise as a distinct aspect of it. PIP does not accommodate the nature of that disability for those who suffer with the condition. The Green Paper talks about two positive moves, which I potentially support: the redesign of the PIP assessment and the recognition that many people have lifelong disability and cannot return to work, so there should be some accommodation for them through special funding. I ask that the Minister consider people with ME and long covid when looking at that redesign.

• 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?

• 16 Oct 2024 · Flooding: Bedfordshire · Hansard source

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  I was part of the call to which the Minister referred on 30 September. I am an MP in Somerset, and we requested a meeting. We have the benefit of the Somerset Rivers Authority, which I believe is unique in the country. We need to wrestle with how we enable the Environment Agency, the internal drainage board, the council, the rivers authority, and every other agency to address the problem of flooding for people in Somerset as well. Will she please ensure that her officials make that meeting happen?

• 9 Oct 2024 · Government Support for the RSPCA · Hansard source

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  That is counterintuitive, isn’t it, because having a pet can be one of the things that keeps people’s mental health so fit and together. As I mentioned earlier, the cost of running my local centre is £1,300 a day, but where they can match pets with people, those people often benefit enormously from improved mental health because of the company of an animal.