Tessa Munt
MP for Wells and Mendip Hills · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I associate myself with the comments of the Secretary of State. I am sure that all of us on the Liberal Democrat Benches feel deeply sad for the Prime Minister. Tuition fees continue to rise, while the plan 2 repayment threshold stays frozen until 2030.”
“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.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I just wanted to highlight a case of exactly that. I have a constituent whose property has been on the market since 2022. The landlord chooses who the new owner will be.”
“When the Minister says managing agents, does she mean management companies, a bit like FirstPort, which provide a lamentable service? One of the retirement buildings in my patch has just been offered the repainting of its windows for £240,000. I think that works out at over £5,000 per flat. This is just for the birds.”
“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.”
“May I encourage the Church Commissioners to support the Church in facilitating community events? Wells cathedral and Wells bishop’s palace are at the centre of an amazing programme of year-round festivals, fairs and markets, but the Church Commissioners have suddenly served a stop notice on the Phelps’ family at Palace farm in Wells, whic…”
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“Would the Minister consider doing something about the cost of accommodation in university towns and cities? Where I come from in north Somerset there is no university, and at the moment people do not really have the option to go anywhere except a city, which is incredibly expensive. Would she give some consideration to reducing those costs on ordinary working families?”
“3. What discussions he has had with his counterparts in countries to which foreign national prisoners will be returned on ensuring that prisoners serve the full term of a sentence handed down by the UK courts.”
“I am not sure that that really answers my question. Let me set out the details of what I am asking about. One of my constituents was murdered by a foreign national, which robbed her mother of her daughter and her mother’s grandsons of their much-loved mother. Her mother is very distressed to discover that the murderer is being repatriated a short while into his sentence, which was over 14 years, at which juncture she will lose what remaining input the family has into his parole arrangements, which was promised to her when the man was sentenced. What can the Minister say to reassure my constituents that, as victims, they will not see him released early in the country where he was born? What voice will victims have in situations like that in future?”
“It has been revealed that Peter Mandelson was given top-level briefings before his vetting was finalised. Who did that, and who will hold those people to account? Will the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister write to me if he is not able to answer that question now?”
“Serious concerns have been raised about GPs being offered incentives to prescribe particular branded drugs. We cannot have a situation where prescribing decisions are made to balance the books; they should be made on a purely clinical basis, as I am sure the Minister agrees. With many GP practices seriously strapped for cash, does the Department of Health and Social Care have a clear picture of the situation, and what consideration has the Minister given to banning incentives so that the very best drugs are prescribed, not those produced by the most influential companies?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I do not know whether you have had the opportunity to visit any of the Somerset carnivals, but they are spectacular and huge. One of the magnificent seven is, of course, Wells, and the second in my patch is Shepton Mallet. As my hon. Friend was saying, they not only contribute to cultural life but have an absolutely huge number of volunteers. They work on making carnival carts all year round, engaging young people in the activity. It is fantastic that so many young people—literally hundreds and hundreds—get involved in building the carts. They really are a spectacle, and I invite you to come down to Somerset to have a look. You will not see anything else like it anywhere else in the country.”
“My hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech. I thank her and my friend the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) for bringing this debate to Westminster Hall, because it is a really important issue. I have been a carnival collector for years. I carry two buckets. In years gone past, it was almost impossible to carry them because they were so heavy with coins. Everyone used to save their pennies, tuppences and fivepence and tenpence pieces, but now there is very little of that money saved across a year. First, that is because things are tight: it is hard to live, so people need every penny that they can get. Secondly, as my hon. Friend mentioned, there is a lack of wi-fi. In fact, in parts of Shepton Mallet and particularly in the city of Wells—”
“Almost the whole of the way east of Wells is without any wi-fi, even for those who live there. That makes things incredibly difficult. Does my hon. Friend agree?”
“Last time we were here for Business and Trade questions, I asked about exports of paraquat—the use of which is forbidden here—to other countries, and I live in hope that I will get an answer to that question. To update the ministerial team, Syngenta—the company that makes paraquat—put out a press release on 3 March to say that it would stop production this year. May I therefore expand my previous question to ensure that the response includes the export of pesticides and other products whose use is banned in the UK?”
“I am seriously concerned about the lack of progress on the Public Office (Accountability) Bill. I served on the Committee in November, and the issue was urgent then. Will the Leader of the House write to me to explain why the Government have not adopted the common-sense and victim-centred amendment 23? Bearing in mind that the Bill is about openness and transparency, it is ironic that Ministers seem completely unable to explain their objections to the amendment. Will he investigate what is blocking progress?”
“We are celebrating Commonwealth Week. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is absolutely shocking to discover that the Government made the decision to freeze UK state pensions for 430,000 British citizens overseas, of whom 90% are in Commonwealth countries? It is particularly cynical of them to have introduced the legislation enforcing that freeze last Friday, using a mechanism that does not provide for parliamentary debate or votes, although the policy affects so many people who live overseas.”
“The hon. Lady mentions the Environment Agency, which is causing quite high levels of stress. I should declare an interest: my partner is a farmer, and we had an 80-acre lake for some weeks on the farm. The Environment Agency started thinking about bringing the pumps only after the storms had come. What we need is for the pumps to be there already, so that they can start to pump water away as the storms come in. Otherwise, everybody gets flooded and it is really catastrophic.”
“When the Minister replies, can he be clear about whether it is the Department of Health and Social Care or the Ministry of Justice that has control over this area? There seems to be a bit of a wrestling match going on between the two. I am sure the hon. Lady agrees that responsibility needs to sit in one place, so that there is definite control over this sector.”
“I think it takes an average of 26 years for children to disclose that they were victims of sexual abuse, so it is absolutely critical that the provision on the reasonable suspicion of abuse is included in the Bill, as well as the trigger for the duty to report. In small, high-demand religious organisations, cultural norms prevent open discussion of sexual harm and discourage mandatory reporting. That needs to be overturned.”
“If I may, I would like to explore what happens with the Minister. There is mistrust of external agencies, and in a lot of these small, high-demand religious organisations—those that look like cults—people may not realise that they have any capacity or agency to report.”
“Specialist hospitals—by which I mean major trauma centres, trauma units, cardiac centres, burns centres, stroke units and some children’s hospitals—are the main destinations for the most time-critical, seriously injured and ill patients. Those are the same patients that our amazing air ambulance services routinely treat and take to hospital. Will the Leader of the House speak with his Health and planning colleagues to ensure that helipads with 24/7 access are mandated for all specialist hospitals? The national guidelines for planning neither protect hospital helipads nor include hospitals and aircraft operators or ambulance charities as statutory consultees on development in proximity to existing helipads, which can affect their utility for safety reasons.”
“I welcome the Minister’s statement. What role will Parliaments have in the ongoing oversight and scrutiny of the operation and implementation of the Gibraltar agreement? Will the Government commit to having a vote in both the UK Parliament and the Gibraltarian Parliament?”
“In 2024, my constituent Claire lost her husband—a personal tragedy. Overnight, she became the sole parent to her three-year-old son. [ Interruption. ] Sorry, this is personal as well. I was going to talk about me, but I am not going to talk about me. She rightly points out that the fixed 18-month limit on bereavement support payments creates a financial cliff edge for widowed parents, to which my hon. Friend has already referred. Does she, and the Minister too, agree that the grief, permanent loss of income and parenting responsibilities to all children, particularly very young children, do not end at that arbitrary 18-month period, that cut-off point, and that it should be rethought?”
“Talking about positive role models, in preparation for this debate I looked at the number of people in teacher training who were male. Although the numbers are going up, the proportion of men is going marginally down. I had the advantage—as did my children—of having teachers who were positive role models. What does the hon. Gentleman say about making sure that young people have teachers who are positive role models?”
“I am particularly grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because it is an area of interest to me. I have been a long-term supporter of Families Need Fathers, although not necessarily Fathers4Justice, which pinged off out of that. I tried to work out exactly how many times judges have allowed child arrangements orders to be given to fathers, but no data is kept. If we do not have data about how many children live with which parent—or about where there are shared parental orders, which in my view have to be the route forward, except in exceptional circumstances—how can we possibly know what is happening?”
“I am glad that the Government reviewed parental leave and pay last year, but as far as I can see, it opened in July and closed in August, when loads of people are on holiday, so I do not know how much of a response there was. Is the Minister able to enlighten us on when the outcome of that consultation might be published? I cannot see any information on that, but she may correct me. Given my life experience, through the various groups I have worked with over time, I want to put a flag in the ground on another serious problem: men as victims of domestic violence perpetrated by women. It is definitely not cool and definitely difficult for men to report. They do not think they are going to be believed—there is that fear of not being believed.”
“I have already mentioned the data on teacher training, but there are all sorts of other areas that particularly concern men and boys. There is, as far as I can tell, no data on child arrangements orders, referred to by the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood), so we do not know what is happening. Shared parenting has to be a really good thing, with the requisite exclusions where it is not safe. Paternity leave was introduced in 1999 and paternity pay in 2003, but again there are very few public statistics, and the statistics that exist are not comparable, so we cannot see in which direction we are going. We have isolated islands of data that are not particularly helpful. From 2010 to 2015, I was part of the Administration that introduced shared parental leave and pay under the Children and Families Act 2014.”
“It is good to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg, and I am sorry that I did not have the chance to say that in my earlier intervention. I commend the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for securing this debate. When I looked at it, I was amazed at how many different topics might come into scope of this debate, and many of them have been mentioned already. Following all I have heard today, I suspect that we probably do need a Minister for men and boys to make sure there is some focus, because when there is a Minister, people tend to sit up and pay attention to what is going on. I know the Prime Minister said, in response to the focus on “Adolescence”, that he did not want such a Minister, but I think it would not be a bad thing, even if for a trial period of three or five years. I will briefly summarise.”
“We need to do more than watch out; that is completely unacceptable. I know so many men who have been the victims of domestic abuse. That is shockingly bad.”
“There are so many things. There should be an MOT at key points in men’s lives, and in people’s lives generally. In conclusion I think that we probably need to have a Minister for men and boys in the short term.”
“The all-party parliamentary group on men and boys’ issues, co-chaired by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), identified that many men view suicide as a rational solution to life’s events that they cannot solve any longer, whether that is relationship breakdown or financial pressures. Rather than viewing suicide as a clinical condition and a health issue, they see it as a life problem. Here, I pay tribute to the late Derek Mead, who provides a room at the cattle market at Junction 24 on the M5 where health checks for farmers are available. There is also a lady called Susie Wilkinson in my constituency, who is part of the Farming Community Network. Those are people who support people in the community. I will write to the Minister with several things that my party has asked for to promote mental health.”
“One in eight men gets prostate cancer, and black men are twice as likely to get it as those of other colours, so screening for men with the relevant genetic variants is good—but that is for a very small group. Last weekend, I was pleased to be at Wells town hall in my constituency, where the Cheddar Rotary and the Wells Lions club, and a whole group of fantastic health professionals spent the day testing 320 men. The misfortune was that about 38 of them could not turn up, for one reason or another, but it is brilliant when that sort of stuff happens in our communities. That is a start, but we need Government to step up on prostate cancer. I want to talk very briefly about male suicide. Some 14 men a day take their own lives. Again, there are some amazing things that happen.”
“The President of the United States seems to typify what people might think of as an alpha male leader. His version of masculinity seems to see dominance, subordination of others and aggression as desirable and socially valued traits. His politics has been explicitly endorsed by Andrew Tate—I can hardly bring myself to say his name—but in that context, I thank Gareth Southgate. He raised the alarm in his public lecture that young men definitely do not have positive role models, which makes them vulnerable to the influence of online personalities who promote negative ideologies about women and the world generally. The world is not against men and boys, in my view, and people saying that that is the case is unhelpful. That is why we should laud the efforts of Gareth Southgate to rebalance that. I will quickly comment on prostate cancer.”
“I absolutely agree. That goes back to the business of data. We need to have the data, and I ask the Minister to look at that issue as well. I have made several points about data and statistics. If we do not know what is going on, we cannot possibly make an intelligent assumption about anything. Another area—to criticise my own gender—is that of children so often being used as a weapon against men. Again, this is something that I have seen in the groups in which I have been involved and in my work in the past: the use of children, most often—though not always—by women is a shocking indictment. We have not got to grips with that, and we absolutely need to. I have listened to all the comments about education, and I want to make a quick observation about macho male culture.”
“T2. Earlier this month, I joined South Western Ambulance Service for a shift, which was an incredibly humbling experience. At the hospital, I met paramedic science students who told me that it is almost impossible for them to get a job: only eight of last year’s 120 paramedic science students got a job. The university has assured students that they can definitely get employment as a graduate, but the ambulance services have a massive pool—of 200, in my local area—to draw from and it has not advertised a single job in the past six months. What is the Minister going to do about that?”
“I thank the Minister greatly. Does he agree that it is timely, right now, for the Government to press ahead with the Public Office (Accountability) Bill? Amendment 23, which is blocking everything at the moment, seems to present a way through, and to ensure not only that we have transparency and openness but that the Government, and other Members of the House, can be assured that anything that is subject to matters of intelligence or security—and, indeed, matters relating to the police investigation—will not be released. There is an answer in the Government’s hands, and I know not why they are waiting and waiting and waiting to get this sorted out.”
“I could talk to him about the whistleblowing Bill and the independent office of the whistleblower. People should be able to reveal what they know and should tell the truth. It is shocking that we have to have legislation to tell people to tell the truth, but all this falls under the same remit: people should be free to declare exactly what they know, papers should be released, and there should be an independent High Court judge—that is what happens at the moment and that is what is in amendment 23—who says what may and may not be released.”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in connection to WhistleblowersUK, a not-for-profit organisation. I am concerned that we still have no conclusion to the Public Office (Accountability) Bill. It seems to be stuck on amendment 23, which still is being discussed. I am not sure how the Government will ensure that there are credible sanctions, maybe against Ministers who fail to whistleblow. Will the Minister commit to protecting whistleblowers by establishing a new independent office of the whistleblower, so that members of the public understand that they can have legal protections and so that they have much greater awareness of their rights about whistleblowing?”
“My observation is that surely it is for the Information Commissioner’s Office to decide whether the data breach is serious or not, and if the ICO does not have the information it cannot make that judgment. My question is this: when the contract was procured, was there a clause in the specification that prevented the release of personal and sensitive data? If so, is the company in breach of its contract, in which case the aggression should perhaps come from the Government as opposed to their waiting for the company to threaten them with legal action?”
“I direct the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in relation to whistleblowing. I am hopeful that the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister knows that during the passage of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, I was promised a meeting with him about whistleblowers; I look forward to that. Is he aware that current legislation dealing with whistleblowers directs them to seek an employment tribunal, but that there are 47,000 employment tribunal cases waiting to be heard? We have to do something about whistleblowing, and we have to ensure that protections are in place. I look forward to meeting him with a number of my colleagues, so that we can discuss the matter in detail and in full.”
“A young woman, Savannah Victora-May, is in a critical condition due to very severe ME, compounded by inadequate treatment in hospital, where she has been for 11 months, since March last year. One of the few and welcome commitments from the Government’s final delivery plan for ME was to explore whether a specialised service for very severe ME should be prescribed by the Secretary of State. The ministerial foreword acknowledged that avoidable deaths of people with ME should “become never events”, but in the continued absence of specialist provision, it is difficult to see how situations like Savannah’s can be prevented from recurring. Will the Leader of the House request an urgent update on any progress made in respect of this commitment and on when a recommendation will be made?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Before I asked the Leader of the House my question this morning, I believe I should have declared that I am the new chair of the all-party parliamentary group on myalgic encephalomyelitis. I apologise to the House for omitting to say that—I was in a bit of a rush, because everyone was being hurried along.”
“I welcome the statement and the plan, and salute the Minister’s bravery; I wish her very good health. My constituents do not get a particularly good deal: when measured against the 62-day target, 47% meet the target for radiotherapy, 62% for drugs and 73% for surgery. However, looking at just the first treatment masks the true picture, as a combination of treatments is often crucial to survival, and if people wait six months for their second treatment, it is really poor. Will the Minister consider bringing in measurement of secondary treatments? We know that radiotherapy can reduce a tumour and that surgery comes later, but if someone has to wait six months for surgery, they are in trouble.”
“There is an 82-year-old man who has been in prison for 38 years. He was convicted of murder, and the trial judge in 1989 said that this was “not a violent process” and gave him a life sentence with a 15-year tariff, which expired over 22 years ago. He is repeatedly described as an exemplary prisoner. Because he has maintained his innocence over the past 38 years, he has not attended the prerequisite courses that would require an acceptance of guilt, so the Parole Board assesses his risk to the public if he is released as “unmanageable”, which seems ludicrous. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the Parole Board’s repeated response to this situation and whether there should be some sort of system for those who maintain their innocence for a great number of years?”
“The use of the toxic chemical paraquat was banned in the UK by the previous Labour Government in 2007. It is associated with the development of Parkinson’s and is deemed too dangerous for use on our own soil, but continues to be produced here and sent elsewhere, perpetuating harms that would not be tolerated at home. What is the policy on exporting UK-manufactured products such as paraquat to other countries?”
“It has been raining hard in my constituency and across the west country generally. I pay tribute to Somerset council, North Somerset council, the internal drainage board and the Environment Agency for their work. The land, however, is saturated. If one were to put the water in Somerset and the little bit of North Somerset that I represent end to end, it would flow from mid Somerset to Singapore. It is 8,000 miles-worth of waterway. Will the Leader of the House please ask his colleague with responsibility for planning and housing to insist that new housing is not built on the floodplain, because when Flood Re finishes in a few years’ time residents will be left high and dry with their insurance but certainly not in their homes?”
“The ombudsman’s ruling in March recommended that some women should get a payout and an apology. Now the WASPI women in my constituency have another apology, but they have not received a penny in compensation for the maladministration found by the ombudsman. Why have the Government chosen to accept one half of the recommendations—I think it is probably the easy half—but not the other? At £1,000 to £2,950 for each woman, it is hardly a high cost for justice in the grand scheme of Government funding considerations.”
“I welcome the Minister’s statement. He has said that the number of extra prison places created since July 2024 is 2,900, but can he say how many cells have been temporarily or permanently closed due to fire safety concerns and other maintenance issues? Can he also state what his Department anticipates will be the result of the Leveson review? Will the Justice Committee—on which I sit—receive his updated modelling, which includes these reforms, and will he come and speak to the Committee about these things?”
“I welcome the Minister’s announcement and I know that it will bring some joy, particularly with the further announcements he is going to make later in the Parliament, to many of the residents in my part of the west country. May I draw his attention to the housing with care sector? I am talking not about those gated communities that have a caretaker or somebody who cuts the grass, but about charities such as the St Monica Trust that provide some affordable rents and shared ownership but mostly provide leasehold purchase with a guaranteed buy-back and resale. This gives them a way of updating their contracts for residents and maintaining affordability. These organisations are really concerned that there will be an unnuanced ban on new leasehold care-led retirement living apartments.”
“Changes to income tax reporting from April mean that childminders need to claim tax relief on specific purchases, rather than the current 10% wear and tear allowance. Deanne, one of my local childminders, points out that wear and tear is a daily reality for the few professionals who face very young children in the stages of potty training, sickness, and learning to eat with a spoon and fork and drink with an open cup. Those clients can put carpets and furniture through their paces! Could the Leader of the House speak to his Treasury colleagues about reinstating the wear and tear allowance or introducing an alternative mechanism to recognise the real costs of providing home- based childcare?”
“I am told that we have to trust what is said, but that seems entirely inappropriate, as the heads of the security services have unfortunately shown themselves not to be trustworthy. People talk about our allies being able to trust us, but if the heads of the security services are lying, I do not know how our allies are meant to trust us. Will the Minister please tell us what the problem is with amendment 23? It has been put together by Pete Wetherby, Elkan and others, and the families support it. Why can we not just agree to it?”
“I thank the Minister for her statement. I know that she is a woman on a mission, and let us hope that we get to the end of this before terribly long. We know that the Government are struggling with accepting the families’ wish that we should pick up amendment 23 and its consequential amendments. I am mystified about the business of a balance being struck between intelligence services personnel being transparent and the protection of national security, because my understanding was that we already had that balance; national security is safeguarded by the fact that in any inquiry, the release of sensitive information happens in closed session, via a High Court judge. Schedule 1 includes a carve-out for the intelligence and security services, who are proven not to have told the truth. That is a dreadful shame.”
“What my hon. Friend has said puts me in mind of another case in a village not far from where I live, where a cleaner was systematically thieving from elderly and vulnerable residents. This went on for years, and every time the person nearly got caught or was interviewed by the police, they just left their job and moved on. This is exactly why we need to do something to make the system far better, because elderly and vulnerable people have no way to be absolutely certain that when they give somebody their card to get some money so that they can pay the carer, something will not go desperately wrong and the rest of their money will not disappear.”
“Should DBS checks not have a start date and a finish date, so that people who are not particularly worldly are clear about the beginning and the end, and understand that when the end date comes, a new check will be needed?”
“The Minister refers to the fact that the DBS would be able to check whether somebody who was going to work abroad had a problem with their clearance. Will that work in reverse? For example, if someone is trying to employ an au pair from another country—I do not know if people can even do that any more—could the au pair be checked before they came in and worked with children?”