Charlie Maynard
MP for Witney · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“It has mapped the illegal sewage spills at Thames Water sewage treatment works and found that, between 2021 and 2025, there were 1,231 illegal spills just in the Witney constituency, and 271 illegal spills in just one sewage treatment works, Faringdon.”
“I completely agree, and Thames Water’s full-year accounts are out at 7 am tomorrow morning. We will see just what they tell us. It is going to be ugly, not least because the company’s equity is worthless. The largest equity shareholders wrote down their shareholding to zero value and withdrew their board members more than two years ago.”
“This approach is costing customers an absolute fortune. Thames Water paid £338 million just in interest expenses in the six months to September 2025. That is £133 million more, just in interest expenses, than it paid in the same period the previous year.”
“Ofwat could then work towards a licence transfer to the mutual, rather than running a market sale. In conclusion, I have some questions for the Minister. If she is unable to answer them now, I would appreciate an answer in writing if possible. Have the Government sought legal advice on the SAR process from a specialist law firm?”
“I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is what is going on up and down the catchment writ small, with treatment works deferred despite being crucially needed. In Aston, we have sewage running down the street year after year, and it is the same in Standlake. It is just disgusting, and there is no end in sight.”
“That does not require a competitive auction, as the legislation provides for a transfer approved by the Secretary of State and Ofwat.Nothing in the legislation states that either route requires a competitive sale, as the overriding objective in a SAR is continuity of public service, not maximising creditor returns.”
The complete record
Every one of 458 lines we hold for Charlie Maynard, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 10.
“I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French), as well as all the Members who attended the debate; and you, Sir Desmond, for chairing it. I appreciate the sensible, fair and respectful way that we have handled the debate and the shared recognition that gambling can be fun but can also do a whole lot of damage. We have to try to balance that as best we can. I think we have all tried to do that in our own way. I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) for doing his best to make the other case. He did a fair job of that. I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) did excellent jobs in detailing the damage done, particularly so with regard to M, who my hon.”
“I thank the Minister for that. I believe we have covered everything. I appreciate everybody’s being here. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered reform of gambling regulation.”
“We were proposing to fund the renewables obligation instead from a windfall tax on the excess profits in the banking sector that have resulted from quantitative tightening—something that would have happened now, unlike the deferred taxation that the Chancellor is proposing, which may or may not happen. Both those changes will make struggling families’ lives a little easier, and are very much welcomed. Similarly, doubling remote gaming duty—something we have also been calling for—is clearly a sensible move. It is one way to raise much-needed revenue without increasing the burden on hard-working families, but it is comparatively small, raising only £1 billion a year. The sad truth is that these are all small wins in the context of the huge challenges we face.”
“Too many children and families have been trapped in poverty because of the decision to impose it and the Government’s previous stubborn decision to keep it. I just wish that this had been done a year ago, and I give my commiserations to the brave Labour Members who lost the Whip after standing up for a policy that their party now finally accepts. I also welcome the Government’s action to cut energy bills by removing the renewables levy, which is something that we Liberal Democrats had been calling on the Chancellor to do. It will make a difference to families struggling with sky-high fuel bills. However, I wish that the Government had gone further, rather than removing just 75% of the levy and only for three years.”
“This is a Budget driven far more by political calculation than by the economic realities that the country faces. The Chancellor has an enormous majority—on paper, at least—and the country desperately needs change, but we now have a second Budget in which the Government have failed to demonstrate that they have any big ideas to get the economy moving. However, before I go into that, I want to focus on some positives. I welcome some of the announcements that the Chancellor made last week, which will help households that have been struggling with the cost of living. Lifting the two-child benefit cap will be worth up to £5,000 a year to each of the more than 500 families in my constituency who have been impacted by the cap.”
“That is equivalent to two thirds of the UK’s entire annual Budget deficit of £138 billion; to nearly 80% of our entire annual debt expense of £114 billion; or to our defence, security, prisons and courts budgets combined. The Government now finally acknowledge that Brexit has left our country poorer, weaker and more divided, but they are still unwilling to do almost anything material about it. I was elected by my Witney constituents in 2024 to do all that I can to make their lives better and our country better. This Budget is a key lever through which to do so, and I am deeply dismayed at the lost opportunity that it represents.”
“This four-day debate clearly does not provide an effective scrutiny function, and there is no meaningful ability for Parliament to amend the Budget once it is announced. Our country is the poorer for this approach. Secondly, of course, we need to seek a deal with Europe that captures the economic benefits of the European market, which is five times bigger than our own, while maintaining control of our borders. This should start with negotiating a new customs union with the EU. Last month, the US’s National Bureau of Economic Research published a paper that found that Brexit had cut UK GDP by between 6% and 8%, with the economy now £170 billion smaller than it would otherwise have been. The House of Commons Library found that we are losing £90 billion in tax revenues every year as a result of Brexit—an enormous number.”
“This Government are gaming the system, in the same way the Conservatives did before them, by adjusting everything in year five to perfectly line up, with more spending early on and tax rises deferred, possibly into the never-never. Let us look at international examples of how national Budgets are set to understand why the UK is so ineffective at controlling its debt. The Government could take inspiration from the Swedish model of tax scrutiny. Thirty years since introducing changes, and aided by strong economic growth, Sweden has reduced its national debt from nearly 80% to 32%—and yes, Sweden had covid too. Meanwhile, our national debt stands at around 95%. A key component of the solution is that we need to substantially strengthen the scrutiny powers of this Chamber when it comes to the Government’s financial management.”
“As per policy decision 37, the Government determine that they will go further on efficiencies and savings in public services, but not just yet. There are zero governmental cost savings in each of the next three years and then, miraculously, we expect £4 billion in savings in 2029-30—the other side of a general election. How can the country take the Government seriously when they take this approach? That last instance highlights the problem with the fiscal framework the Government have set themselves. The rule that the current Budget must be in surplus in 2029-30, and the aim of ensuring that debt is falling as a share of the economy by ’29-30, are all well and good, but entirely excluding the intermediate years from the calculation serves our country extremely badly.”
“What is the sense in taxing salary sacrifice schemes when we know the strain that the state pension and social care systems are under and when we need people to save more, not less? Does common sense not tell us that discouraging people from saving for retirement now will only lead to a greater burden on the public purse in the long run? Then there is the desperate state of our special educational needs and disabilities provision. The SEND national deficit overspend is forecast to reach £17.8 billion by March 2028. The Government have said they will cover costs directly from that point on, but they have given no answer as to how this huge bill will be settled up. In Oxfordshire alone, the SEND annual overspend is expected to reach £153 million by March 2026. Why are we waiting two and a half years to do something about that?”
“Yes, I welcome it. The OBR has marked down economic growth for each of the next four years, which is bad news. We have a ballooning debt, which now sits at £2.9 trillion. Our debt costs have tripled in the last five years—yes, that is the Conservatives’ fault—and our Government debt is now more expensive than Italy’s. Yes, this all happened on the Conservatives’ watch, but we now have a situation in which 11% of Government spending goes on covering the interest payments, not on paying down the debt itself, and the Chancellor has given no indication that she is serious about addressing that. Across the five years of the forecast, the Chancellor proposes to deliver a reduction in our net borrowing of just 0.04% of GDP, and I question her tactics.”
“I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his help and work on this issue. I want to ask his opinion on the efficacy of our arms export control regime. We had two sessions in which we were looking into the F-35 in Gaza, and essentially it seems like the UK has outsourced its arms export controls to the Americans for F-35 replacement parts. Also, we continue to sell a lot of weapons to the United Arab Emirates, and it has been widely reported in the international press that the UAE is arming the Rapid Support Forces, which is creating enormous numbers of atrocities in Sudan. Does the right hon. Member think that our arms export control criteria are up to scratch?”
“Even though it was independently assessed and agreed by Oxfordshire fire and rescue service as legally binding, the amount awarded was equivalent only to on-call pay rather than the full-time wage. As a result, the Pensions Ombudsman became involved, as well as the Fire Brigades Union. There has continued to be a Byzantine maze and the Pensions Ombudsman has walked away saying that the case lies outside its brief. Four years on, Bill remains incredibly debilitated and suffering deeply, supported wonderfully by his wife, Nikki. I would like your help in finding a way through this situation monetarily, but the man also deserves an award, exactly as we have named here today.”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) for securing this excellent debate. I want to seek the Minister’s help with the case of my Witney constituent, Bill Maddocks. Bill was an on-call firefighter at Witney for 22 years and contracted covid at work, while seconded on a whole-time contract to assist the ambulance service during the pandemic. This became long covid and, as a result, he was retired from the fire service due to ill health. During this process, he was assured by senior managers that a pension equivalent to a whole-time firefighter would be his, and he was independently medically assessed as having a tier 1 level and 100% disability, entitling him to a compensation pension equivalent to a whole-time firefighter wage. There has been a long-standing dispute about his disablement and the apportionment.”
“Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) has been working closely with constituents who will now be disappointed that the alternative site of Oldbury has not gone forward, so can the Minister clarify what the future is for that site?”
“New small modular reactors have real potential to help reduce our reliance on foreign gas and bring down energy bills, as well as bringing a welcome boost to jobs and investment in Anglesey. SMRs should be where the focus is when it comes to nuclear, not big, expensive nuclear power stations that cost multiples more and take far longer to build. The Liberal Democrats are pleased to see SMRs coming forward as part of a mix of cost-effective and safe decarbonised power generation, but will the Government please confirm that they will also maintain focus on boosting wind and solar power generation in order to bring down everyone’s energy bills? My hon.”
“There is a real irony in the fact that the Conservative party has tabled a motion calling for the control of public expenditure and for trust to be returned just three years after a notorious mini-Budget that saw the biggest set of unfunded spending commitments in recent memory and that continues to damage the markets’ confidence in UK fiscal credibility. We still pay the so-called moron premium, driving up interest expenses on Government borrowing, which are now running at £131 billion a year. That is money out of the pockets of everyone across this country and we are still living with the real-world impact of that, because debt in the UK has gone from £0.5 trillion in 2005 to £2.9 trillion today. That is up six times in 20 years—and who has been running the country for the majority of those years?”
“I think the hon. Gentleman will find that the moron premium relates to Liz Truss. People are feeling pressures and that has a huge impact on everybody individually. Pay cheques go less far, tax bills are higher and small luxuries such as having a slice of cake or a pint, or taking the family to the pub, are increasingly out of reach for many people. That hurts, and it is all on the back of stagnant economic growth. Those facts are all the enduring legacy of the disastrous decisions that the Conservative party made. [Hon. Members: “The coalition!”] It is fun to keep saying “coalition” but, sorry, this is more recent than that. We want to back—”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that. We want to back— [ Interruption. ] It was unquestionably a disaster for our ratings—I will happily give the right hon. Gentleman that—and I do not want the Government to break their promises. That is absolutely right and correct.”
“Banks never expected to receive that windfall, they never relied on it and never took any risk to reap it. They have only received the payments because inflation and interest rates shot up. That needs to be corrected. It is fair and reasonable to return a portion of that unexpected windfall to the taxpayer and it will do nothing to undermine the health of our financial sector to claim it back.”
“If the Chancellor chose such ideas, she could deliver them in her Budget, which is just days away, and the impact would be felt by households across the country with almost immediate effect. First, we call for a time-limited tax on big commercial banks levied on the massive windfall profits that they receive due to unintended consequences of our financial system. Because of high interest rates and the way the quantitative tightening programme works, the Treasury hands over billions of pounds to the big banks every year via the Bank of England, effectively subsidising banking profits at the expense of the taxpayer. Figures from the OBR confirm that, as things stand, we are on course to hand the big banks £50 billion over the course of this Parliament.”
“Indeed, that will be closer to £250 for some of the least well-off, who rely more on electricity for their heating. This is about supporting local businesses at the heart of our communities, which we all represent, and making a real difference to people’s lives by making it cheaper for them to heat their homes. For too long, our high streets and the small business owners on them have been crippled by the policies of successive Governments. All that needs to be paid for and needs to be done in a way that is pro-growth and pro-business and which shields households from even greater bills each month. That is not an easy circle to square—I will not pretend that it is. We, as Liberal Democrats, seek to bring deliverable and progressive ideas to the table.”
“I have already said that the Government should keep their promises, so there we are. May I continue, please? We want to back hard-pressed households and small businesses and push for practical steps that will help ease the burden on families and get our high streets thriving again. We have called on the Government to respond to the crisis in our hospitality sector through an emergency VAT cut. That would boost footfall on our high streets, thus protecting jobs in a sector that employs people from all walks of life: young, old, those returning to work, those vulnerable part-time workers and everyone in between. We also propose bringing down household energy costs as winter is coming by removing the biggest levy baked into people’s electricity bills and, in effect, putting more than £90 a year into the pockets of the average family.”
“I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend— [ Interruption. ] People might be joking about it, but our reputation as a country matters. That is why people invest in our country, and that is why traditionally our debt prices have been low. When we self-sabotage, we pay for it not just for a few weeks or months but for years, and we are paying for it now.”
“These are enormous numbers, so when we are looking around for solutions, there is one right in front of us. It stands to reason that a new customs union would probably raise more than £25 billion a year for the Exchequer. There it is. Grab it, please. With the autumn Budget just two weeks away, the Liberal Democrats’ message to the Chancellor is clear. Instead of asking hard-working households and struggling small businesses to pay even more tax, she must take growth seriously and repair our broken trading relationship with Europe.”
“Nobody voted to leave the customs union, but we are now in a market that is more than seven times smaller than the one we used to be in. As somebody who founded and ran a business for 24 years, I know that that hurts. It has done huge damage to small, medium-sized and big businesses and we are living with that loss. The quickest thing we could do is to negotiate a new, bespoke customs union with the EU. This would unleash the potential of British business. With every month and year that goes by, it becomes clearer just how economically damaging the previous Government’s Brexit deal has been. The OBR has forecast that it will harm economic growth, reducing long-term GDP by 4%. However, according to Frontier Economics, a much closer trading relationship with Europe—not even a customs union—could boost UK GDP by 2.2%.”
“They are interested in what costs them money, and their mortgages are more expensive because of the decisions the Conservatives took three years ago— [ Interruption. ] Well, read the Financial Times . Moving on, I suggest that the digital services tax is another way we should be looking at to raise revenues. We would increase it from 2% to 10%, which would raise roughly £4 billion a year and get some of the biggest and wealthiest corporations in the world to finally contribute their fair share of tax here in the UK. We would also increase gambling taxes, because gambling really beggars some of the most vulnerable in society. Of course, the biggest one of all is that we should rejoin the customs union with the EU.”
“Meanwhile, our public debt is around 95%, which means that billions that we could be spending on our public services are instead going towards servicing our debt. A key component is significantly strengthening the scrutiny powers of this Chamber when it comes to the Government’s financial management. The Chancellor’s practice of keeping the Budget secret until the day, at which point everyone else has to scramble to assess the detail and has no time to provide a proper, meaningful critique, is far from the best way to scrutinise the Government’s economic policy. This is not how many of our international peers go about their economic policy. Proper, detailed scrutiny of the Budget, as opposed to the wave-through regime we currently have, with no proper transparency before approval, needs to be addressed—”
“I think we should have all the economic benefits of Europe while controlling our borders and controlling movement— [ Interruption. ] Well, look at Norway, Switzerland and Turkey. There are lots of options out there. Let’s go and negotiate something that makes sense for us. My final point is that we need an office for value for money—an effective regulator with proper scrutiny and proper teeth that really looks into our Budget. I ask the Government to take inspiration from the Swedish model of tax scrutiny. I understand that after introducing these changes 30 years ago, and aided by strong economic growth, Sweden has reduced its national debt from nearly 80% of debt to GDP to 32%.”
“Okay, can I just respond to my colleague chuntering in the background? He keeps saying “the OBR”. We are Parliament. We have a responsibility to scrutinise the Budget, and I believe that we, as a Parliament, should be doing that properly, line by line and taking out what is wasted— [ Interruption. ] I would do it tomorrow if we had the chance, yes. I will finish in a moment, then I will be off—”
“Just because we have always done things a certain way does not mean that there is not room for fresh thinking, a more collaborative approach and greater ambition. Realistically, if we are going to repair the economic damage of the last few years, we need fresh thinking and new ideas.”
“I have already said this, and will say it again: I absolutely—and I speak on behalf of my colleagues—expect the Chancellor to stand by her promises.”
“Let us talk about trade, Madam Deputy Speaker. I find it extraordinary if we look at the future. I think it was Stephen Bush in the Financial Times who talked about the permanent lobotomy that the Tory party needs to have when talking about Brexit. If we are talking about getting money into the Exchequer, let us get our economy moving again and get growth back into the economy. Let us open up a customs union with Europe and get our economy growing. Let us look to the future.”
“Will the hon. Member acknowledge that debt has risen from £0.5 trillion to £2.9 trillion from 2005 to 2026, forecast to March? That is nearly six times as much, and the great majority of that happened under the Conservatives’ watch. Yes, we can talk about covid, but covid is a very small portion of that—about £0.7 trillion—so what about the rest of it? Is anyone going to take any responsibility for that?”
“Dealing with the microscopic increments puts domestic and foreign producers and retailers in this country in real trouble, because every single one of those bottles needs to be measured and calibrated, and priced and taxed accordingly. The administrative burden of that is absolutely horrendous. I hear that from Oli Gauntlett, the head of Eynsham Cellars and a loyal constituent, and from the Oxford Wine Company, which is a wonderful wine company that serves Oxfordshire. It has had enormous admin trouble dealing with this issue. I also hear it from Majestic Wine, which has a shop in Witney. The single best reason to change this is, as so many people have said already, that it is not working: we have £300 million less excise duty as a result. I cannot think of a better argument to tickle the Treasury into a sensible decision.”
“On 31 January 2025, wines between 11.5% ABV and 14.5% ABV were taxed as if their strength were 12.5%, but that measure was withdrawn on 1 February 2025. Therefore, 85% of all wine sold in the UK is subject to the same rate of duty. Under the new system, that has been replaced by 30 different rates based on ABV at 0.1% increments. That is extraordinary. It would make sense if we were talking about vodka, which is distilled, or beer, which is brewed, as the producer is able to perfectly and precisely determine how much alcohol is in those products. It makes absolutely no sense for an agricultural product like wine; a bottle of wine may have more or less alcohol in it from one season to the next.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for bringing us this very important debate; it is much appreciated. The overall logic of more alcohol resulting in more tax makes sense, and the taxation of wine needs to be stable, fair and workable. That principle has to work in practice, and we are completely failing on that in the current system. We really need to fix that as soon as possible. To recap, before August 2023, in line with EU regulations, wine duty was predominantly charged according to volume, rather than how much alcohol the product contained. In August 2023, through the Finance (No. 2) Act 2023, a new duty system was introduced that required duty to be paid on all products according to strength.”
“I agree 100%. That is a great illustration of just how painful and unnecessary it is. This is not benefiting anyone, not even His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The Budget is very soon and, bluntly—I do not want to stick the knife too much into my Conservative colleagues—I think the previous Government’s tax reforms were, overall, quite sensible in levying more tax on higher amounts of alcohol, but that is obviously mad when it comes to wine. I am an equal-opportunities knife sticker, so why did Labour follow a mad Tory policy? It is a bit like, why are they following a mad hard Brexit? Pull out, blame the Tories and then change the policy back to something sensible. They could raise more tax and put UK growers and UK retailers back on their feet.”
“I am just going to make a plea. HMRC is losing nearly £1 billion a year, which is incredibly bad news, and there are massive frictions and admin costs on business. Why would we not just go back to the easement? We can stand looking at this massive problem, or we can face facts and deal with it—and actually get money for the Exchequer.”
“The continued lack of transparency in the overseas tax havens, or overseas territories, including the absence of truly publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership, poses a real threat to the UK’s reputation and standing in the world.”
“It inhibits law enforcement and prevents citizens, workers and journalists from holding the powerful to account for their corporate actions. If Labour wants bad actors to be brought to heel and to stand up for people in our country and globally, this is its chance; it has the power to act. The world’s top three corporate tax havens—the British Virgin Islands, which have been much discussed, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda—are all British overseas territories. Tax Justice Network estimates that, in total, profit-shifting through the UK and its Crown dependencies and overseas territories accounts for nearly a quarter of all lost tax revenues globally—over £80 billion annually.”
“I thank the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing this debate. I also thank the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) for all his work on this issue and for his good speech today. Indeed, I have enjoyed the contributions from all hon. Members so far. The common theme has been explaining that what goes on in the overseas territories impoverishes people in the UK and takes money out of their pockets, which we all want to see stopped. The Government have an opportunity to improve financial transparency by working with the overseas territories so that they adopt the same standards as the UK. The deliberate masking of corporate ownership is used to dodge tax, accountability and responsibility.”
“More specifically, section 51 of SAMLA allows the UK Government to make regulations requiring overseas territories to establish publicly accessible registers of the beneficial ownership of companies, and if they do not do so voluntarily, we have the power to enforce them to do so.”
“I did not know that, so I thank my hon. Friend for informing me. How can we ask others to get their own house in order when we enable these entities on UK sovereign territory to beggar their neighbour on a global scale? The UK Government bear responsibility for this lack of transparency, as British overseas territories are subject to UK law in certain respects. The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, or SAMLA, requires the UK to support these territories in implementing public registers of company ownership, which are a crucial tool for combating tax evasion and financial crime.”
“I understand that the Minister is here under the auspices of the FCDO, and they fall under the Ministry of Justice, but I hope that the Labour Government will very quickly look hard at applying the same UK standards to those Crown dependencies.”
“It leaves a strong impression that all three are doing their damnedest to withhold information on such a scale as to make the existence of the registers completely pointless. Online, fully accessible and public access for all is not in place in any of the three jurisdictions, so I have two requests. First, can our Government set a deadline beyond which they will not tolerate a failure to provide an open, transparent register? They must use all their powers and leverage to work with these democratically governed British overseas territories to find a way to bring them quickly into line with UK standards of transparency and accessibility regarding these registers. My second request is about the Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.”
“The BVI is getting there slowly, with existing companies having been given until the end of this year to file their information. However, and importantly, none of these three territories has a publicly open and accessible register. Instead, there is all sorts of obfuscation. I will give some examples. Some of these registers require inquiries to have “legitimate interest”, whatever that may be. Access is possible only “at the Commission’s Secretariat’s office by appointment, with no copying or scanning allowed, on written request, payment of a fee, and some limitations, during working hours”. That is not complying with the spirit of the law—indeed, it is really unhelpful—and we have it in our power as a country to stop it.”
“Yes; I fully agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Direct legislation should be a last resort, but it is necessary and we need to move quickly. SAMLA came into force in 2018, and we are now nearly in 2026. This is just playing for time, which is bad. Since 2022, the UK’s register of overseas entities regime has required that the details of all corporate trustees in the chain of an overseas entity’s ownership structure are registered and that the ultimate beneficial owners of real estate are identified. Information on the overseas entity and the beneficial owners should be accessible to all, online and for free. I will review those top three overseas territories. Bermuda and the Cayman Islands now have registers of beneficial interest that are up and running.”
“Given that it has been widely reported in the press that the UAE is arming the RSF, does the Minister have a view on the following two points? First, if any party is exporting weapons to the RSF, we would be in breach of our export licence criteria if we are exporting weapons to that party. Secondly, it is irrelevant whether or not our weapons are being exported and end up in Sudan if that party is exporting weapons to the RSF.”
“It has been widely reported in the press that the United Arab Emirates is arming the RSF in Sudan. The RSF is one of the two warring factions in Sudan, and it was found by the UN to be responsible for crimes against humanity including murder, torture, enslavement, rape and sexual violence. As per UK Government export data, the UK exported nearly £750 million-worth of arms to the UAE via standard individual export licences between 2019 and 2023. If the UAE is indeed arming the RSF, the UK is breaching its arms export licensing criteria, specifically criteria 1f, 2, 4, 6 and 7. Importantly, those criteria look beyond considering whether UK-exported weapons ultimately reached Sudan, and they instead consider the UK’s international obligations. Given this, what steps have the UK Government taken to verify whether the UAE is arming the RSF—”