Charlie Maynard
MP for Witney · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing this fantastic debate on an important issue, on which she spoke so well.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate and for her excellent speech. Like all of us present, I find the dangerous misuse of e-bikes and e-scooters is being raised with me more and more.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Locally, Thames Valley police officers are finding and seizing bikes that are able to go 120 mph. The problem keeps growing. By some estimates, there are more than 1 million e-scooters in use across the country, with no standards for speed, brakes or batteries.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is happening in Witney and in other areas up and down the country. It is harsh and cruel. The numbers of people losing their jobs every week are not by accident, but by design.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. [ Laughter. ] The latest round of the sustainable farming incentive was a disaster for small farmers, including many in my constituency. They were counting on this money as a lifeline after another impossibly difficult year.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The way to fix that problem is by focusing on two things that the owner values most: stamp price rises and taking cash out of the Royal Mail business. Here are some ideas on how we could achieve that. First, as others have mentioned, there should be no stamp price rises until targets are met. We have to get that link absolutely firm.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
The complete record
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“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.”
House of Commons11 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons11 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons11 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons30 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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—”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Under the Conservatives’ watch, the national debt grew by nearly £1 trillion. They drove our economy through a hard Brexit into the ground, and yet they masquerade as the party of good sense in the economy. I do not understand how that makes sense. Will the hon. Member explain?”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On the point about upskilling teachers, the Mulberry Bush school in my constituency does a fantastic job with outreach from specialist schools to regular schools. Does my hon. Friend agree that upskilling teachers and using skills inside the SEND schools to teach teachers in the broader environment would be a great thing?”
House of Commons15 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given that Israel continues to act with impunity, what new levers will our Government use to take actions that are within its powers, such as restrictions on travel and trade, air and sea delivery of aid—given that land delivery is so appalling—and in relation to the F-35? We are breaching international humanitarian laws; can we please stop doing so?”
House of Commons10 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister outline what the Government are doing to highlight and explain to the citizens of our country what our obligations are to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and all our NATO allies under article 5, and the role played by the joint expeditionary force, with the Baltic three, the Nordic five, the Netherlands and the UK?”
House of Commons10 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Section 22 community bus permit holders, who provide transport on a not-for-profit basis without the need for a full public service vehicle operator licence, ensure a service in communities that would otherwise be completely unserved. The Bill currently does not recognise this category at all. That raises a couple of worries. One particular worry is that the new driver safeguarding and training requirements could become unworkable for small fleets. The Bill’s provisions do not clearly differentiate between private hire vehicles—dedicated school buses—and public service buses which may sometimes carry schoolchildren as part of the general route. In practice, that means that every driver would need full safeguarding training, regardless of the service they normally operate.”
House of Commons10 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is a lot to welcome in the Bill, and I support the overarching aim. However, there are several important details that very much concern small operators and community transport providers in my Witney constituency, and I shall speak on their behalf. They include West Oxfordshire Community Transport, including Andrew Coles, Andrew Lyon and their team, and David Miles and Amanda, who have done so much to get the First & Last Mile moving. My fear is that the franchising frameworks and new training requirements stipulated in the Bill will squeeze out community operators and that the social and economic cost will be severe, particularly in rural areas where mainstream operators have withdrawn.”
House of Commons10 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our strategic export licensing criteria state specifically that licences should not be granted where there is “a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.” Given that the courts have sent this question back to Parliament, does the Minister accept that Israel is committing breaches of international humanitarian law; does he accept that the export of F-35 components is aiding in the commission of these wrongful acts; and if he maintains that we are not in breach of our own arms export laws, will he explain on the Floor of this House the basis for how he thinks we are compliant with our own laws?”
House of Commons17 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I appreciate the Minister’s words of support for the workers who are facing such horror and shock, and the Liberal Democrats will work hard to hold him to those words. I have two questions for him. The carbon border adjustment mechanism leaves UK refineries at a disadvantage when it comes to the trade in international fuel. Will the Government now consider including that trade in CBAM so that our UK refineries can be level pegging with the rest of the world? Secondly, the UK now has only one refinery left facing the North sea. How many refineries is it okay for us to have when it comes to maintaining fuel security? Can the Minister be precise in telling me how many more can fall after Grangemouth and the one that we are discussing?”
House of Commons30 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State said, “The UK has long been and will remain a champion of free trade” —if only! It is not on the big stuff or the important stuff. Leaving the EU’s customs union and single market has reduced UK GDP by between 2% and 4%. The deal with India is good news, but according to the UK Government’s own estimate, it adds 0.1% in the long term—that is, 20 to 40 times smaller. UK exports are down 13% since the trading co-operation agreement took effect. That impacts people in my constituency and all hon. Members’ constituencies. When will the Government move faster to repair the enormous economic damage of a hard Brexit?”
House of Commons23 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I join with all Members of this House in thanking everyone who works so hard at RAF Brize Norton in my constituency, led very effectively by Group Captain Lou Henton, who is an example to us all. I very much respect and admire how the community in Carterton, right next to RAF Brize Norton, has pulled together at this stressful time—they have done a fantastic job. We have really underinvested in security at the base for a long time. Like many Carterton residents, I have walked the perimeter quite a few times, and know that that fence is not formidable. What assurances can the Minister give that this airbase and other defence facilities around the country and internationally will have their defences strengthened for air, sea and land attack?”
House of Commons23 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Chair for his leadership; we enjoy being under it. To focus on one thing, energy costs are causing havoc around the country, leading to many companies going to the wall. Does he think this emergency should be to dealt with by cutting energy costs, dealing with the distortions between gas and electricity, and giving better access to manufacturers so that they can get the power they need?”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To quote the chair of the County Councils Network, we are “nine months away from a financial cliff edge when these multi-billion deficits are placed onto councils’ budget books, potentially rendering half of England’s county and unitary councils insolvent overnight.” Oxfordshire county council asks for three things, and I think many of us will agree with them. The statutory override, which will run out in nine months’ time, needs to be extended. Frankly, extending it for one year makes little sense; let us have some perspective and length on this. We need a write-down or a write-off of the high needs block deficits across local authorities. We need to have some borrowing potential for local authorities. That needs to be explored, so that they have flexibility to settle any remaining deficits over an affordable period.”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have no high needs provision in the constituency, which means that lots of children are being taxied God knows where, far too far away, on a daily basis, which is terrible for the kids and terrible for the whole system for obvious reasons, economic and otherwise. We are desperately trying to find routes through that and to find solutions. In Oxfordshire, we are headed for a £100-million high needs block accumulated deficit this year, which is obviously completely unsustainable. That is just one county, and I am sure that it is repeated across all our counties.”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) for bringing forward the debate, and I appreciated his speech. I also appreciate the interest of everybody in the Chamber in this matter. That stems from our experiences on the doorstep, where we have met far too many parents going through hell. We see a mix of determination, frustration, helplessness and betrayal. They look at me and at each hon. Member and say, “What are you going to do about it?” We are not doing enough, and their comments motivated each of us to be here today to do what we can. Primary schools in my constituency—just dealing with the As, we have Alvescot, Aston and Appleton—do not have the spaces and the provision to provide for their children and the SEND needs that are going through the roof. In the secondary schools, it is the same story.”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Secretary of State agree with Thames Water’s own expert adviser Teneo—on page 193 of the expert advice report—that the ultimate cost to the Government if the company goes into special administration will be zero?”
House of Commons3 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to do more to protect section 22 community bus services such as West Oxfordshire Community Transport, which are now facing a mountain of bureaucracy to re-tender for routes that it built up from scratch against commercial bus operators that have all the abilities to pitch and win, leaving community bus operators high and dry?”
House of Commons2 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister and many hon. Members have mentioned teaching support staff, who make up half the school workforce but have no statutory pay body to represent them. Many support staff are left without a voice in discussions on their pay, terms and working conditions; I hear that time and again in schools throughout my constituency. Will the Minister give assurances, through the written ministerial statement, that school support staff will get a fair pay deal?”
House of Commons22 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the right hon. Member for his leadership and hard work on the Committee. I welcome the move this week, and the set of aspirational statements of intent that go in the right direction. That is great, but does he agree that we should focus on the big stuff? Proportionately, the deal with India will get us 0.1% of GDP growth by 2040 and the American pact takes us to a position that is worse than where we were six months ago, so Europe is where it is at. Europe represents 45% of our trade versus 12% with the US, but of the beneficial 21 recommendations that the Committee set out, maybe five or six have been hit. The key thing is to go for the big stuff, such as being back inside the customs union. That would make a big difference.”
House of Commons22 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There seems to be a consensus across the House that the NHS dental contract is broken. That is the consensus across the country as well, including in my constituency. If there is one thing we can get out of the debate today, it is a timeline to which the Government will commit to fixing the situation and to bringing legislation before the House. Does my hon. Friend agree that would be of benefit?”
House of Commons22 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Times has reported that the UK has fewer than 10 tanks stationed in Estonia and that troop numbers have been cut from 1,650 in April 2022 to around 1,000 today. By comparison, Germany has 5,000 troops on track to be stationed in Lithuania by 2027. Is this correct, and is it a concern for the Minister?”
House of Commons19 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Government commit to allocating and spending the £40 million within a decade, which is already far too long, of their original May 2018 commitment—by May 2028, which is three years from now? That is doable if we put our minds to it, and we need the Government’s help. Will the Government stand by the May 2018 commitment to host an annual global conference to bring together world experts on brain cancer? That has not been done, and we committed to that as a House. Will we stand by that, commit to it and kick off a conference by the end of the year?”
House of Commons8 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Concerningly, a little bit of text was added after that, which said: “plus an estimated £31.5 million in infrastructure”. I have three key questions for the Minister, which I would love some answers to, because more than 5,000 people dying each year is far too many. This has been going on for far too long. We need to do more and fulfil the promises that this House has made. The three questions are as follows. Will the Minister confirm that the new wording is not an attempt to include the £31.5 million of infrastructure spend in the £40 million headline number, with a view to getting the NIHR and the Government off the hook on their commitment to spend the full £40 million that they have committed to new research into brain cancers?”
House of Commons8 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In May 2018, the Government announced a research fund of £40 million on the back of the death of Baroness Tessa Jowell to encourage new research into brain tumours, administered through the National Institute for Health and Care Research. On that day, the then Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), said: “At this agonising time, I hope her family can draw comfort from the fact that her legacy will be lives saved and heartbreak averted for thousands of other families.” However, three years later, in May 2021, the then Health Secretary reported that just £8.8 million of that £40 million had been allocated for dedicated brain tumour research. Three years after that, in March 2025, under a new Government, spending to date directly on brain tumour research was just £11.3 million.”
House of Commons8 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We do not know how it goes from here, but she brings home in her thinking how wonderful and beautiful our world is. She has also been a driving force. We have raised £60,000 and counting so far for the Brain Tumour Charity, which does a wonderful job, and she has brought people in left, right and centre who have suffered or are suffering from GBM or have lost loved ones to GBM. She is engaged, thoughtful and determined, and my heart goes out to her. I will mention the stats. We know that there are 120 types of brain tumours. Some 12,000 people are diagnosed with a brain tumour every year and—the nasty one—5,300 people die from a brain tumour each year in the UK.”
House of Commons8 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I too thank and commend the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) for securing the debate. It has been a pleasure to work with her and we are all in awe of her single-minded relentlessness on this topic, from which we can all learn. I have a similar story. Two years ago, I received a call from my nephew and my two nieces asking me to come over quickly. I jumped in the car and drove as fast as I could to my sister’s house, where I found her semi-conscious on the floor, which was the start of a journey over the past two years. She was diagnosed with a glioblastoma. She underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She is somewhere up there in the Gallery now, and she is doing incredibly well. She is an absolute inspiration to everyone who meets her in her raw courage, determination, empathy and joy in the world.”
House of Commons8 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last May, Thames Water’s largest shareholder, OMERS, wrote its stake in Thames Water down to zero and pulled its directors off the board. This has been widely reported in the press—it is not secret—yet I got a letter from Ofwat last month confirming that it believes OMERS is still the ultimate controller of the company. Why is Ofwat ignoring this, and why does it matter? Being the ultimate controller of the company means it has certain responsibilities. Those responsibilities are just being ignored, and Ofwat, which is exactly what is supposed to be holding the company to account, is hiding under a stone somewhere. It needs to stop doing this.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Water companies have been allowed to hike bills this year—in the case of Thames Water, by 31%, although some of my constituents have come to me and said they have received increases of 50%, 70% or even more than 90%—and what are bill payers getting for that? This is not fair when more than a quarter of the bills in Thames Water’s case are just paying the interest—not paying down the debt, but just paying the interest. Again, Ofwat is continuing to allow the pockets of water company creditors to be lined at the expense of ordinary households. Ofwat fails to be awake. It has a responsibility—bear with me on this one—for tracking who are the ultimate controllers of the water companies. That should be pretty simple; there are not many of them. In Thames Water’s case, it is taking wilful ignorance to an extreme of utterly determined ignorance.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They do this through extraordinarily long depreciation periods for network assets such as pipes, which were installed 50 years ago, but somehow have depreciation periods of 100 years and are leaking like sieves. It also gives them an incentive to pour really expensive concrete. Why is it that something built over here costs eight times the price in Denmark? Why has, say, the Oxford sewage treatment works gone from £40 million to more than £400 million in planned spend in the last four years? What sort of inflation is that? Ofwat fails to provide fair pricing. Water companies have a requirement to demonstrate fairness, transparency and affordability to customers, which, again, Ofwat is supposed to uphold.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As per the Water Industry Act 1991, it has a statutory duty “to protect the interests of consumers” and “to promote economy and efficiency” on the part of water companies. As WASP’s recently published note on water companies’ capital project costs states, the costs that companies are proposing are extraordinary. In some cases, they are almost an order of magnitude higher than those in comparator companies in countries such as the USA and Denmark. Why is this, and why is it being allowed to happen? Why are our costs so much greater? Is it because our regulatory capital value pricing model is based on asset values, and therefore gives an incentive to water companies to boost their asset bases?”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has £19 billion of debt and is quite possibly heading towards £23 billion of debt, and it has cash flows of just £1.2 billion. That obviously makes no financial sense, yet Thames Water is allowed to breach the rule with impunity. I have no doubt that other water companies, and companies in other sectors, take note of what Thames Water has been allowed to do and say, “We, too, can cross that line in water and other regulated sectors.” How is that good news? It introduces a moral hazard that does enormous damage to our country. Who is ultimately paying the cost of all this debt, and the enormous interest and advisory fees that go with it? Of course, it is the bill payers. Ofwat fails to provide value for money.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Ofwat is responsible for holding water companies accountable against the terms of their operating licences. DEFRA has oversight of Ofwat, sets the policy framework and provides strategic guidance to Ofwat on key environmental and social policies. As many Members have said, Ofwat is clearly failing on pollution. The Environment Agency’s own data shows that Thames Water discharged raw sewage for almost 300,000 hours in 2024—up by almost 50% on the 196,000 hours in 2023. That is well known. Ofwat is also failing to enforce financial viability. Just like every other water company in the country, Thames Water, which serves my constituency, has to have two investment grade credit ratings, but it has not done so for nearly a year. It has been beaten with limp celery, but that is about it.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is just north of Early’s mill, where generations of people have spent their summer swimming but no longer do so. We know what a car crash our sewerage network is, thanks to the many campaigners who have gone to so much trouble in their own time, and often using their own money, to bring this issue to our attention. At the top of the star is WASP—Windrush Against Sewage Pollution—which is run by Professor Peter Hammond, Ash Smith, Vaughan Lewis and Geoff Tombs, who have worked tirelessly for the last five years to highlight what has gone wrong. I thank them and all the other citizen scientists in my constituency and beyond, who have done so much to bring this issue to national attention. We owe them all a huge debt of gratitude. I will focus on failures of regulation—specifically, Ofwat’s failures.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am delighted to speak on the issue of how we can fix our broken water and sewerage sector, and get serious about cleaning up our rivers and lakes. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for securing this debate. My constituency of Witney, in west Oxfordshire, has borne the brunt of the sewage scandal. Many beautiful rivers flow through it, and the Thames bisects it. We have the Windrush and the Evenlode, Shell brook to the north, and the Ock to the south. They are all heavily and frequently polluted. I welcome the calls from colleagues to introduce a new blue flag status so that we can guarantee that a river is clean enough to swim in. That would help to restore people’s confidence in swimming, and the bathing place in Witney would be a fantastic example.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What I am appalled by is that the new Government, who came into power with promises to get tough with the water companies and sort out the scandal, have so far shown themselves to be about as tough as Ofwat. The Water (Special Measures) Act—by the way, I say to the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) that it was not voted on by us—was, well, just about nothing. Government Members and Conservative Members rejected a whole host of basic common sense steps, proposed as amendments, which could have made the legislation genuinely impactful. I will give some examples.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is where the issues of the dire state of water companies’ finances and the sewage scandal intersect, because companies cannot make basic repairs, let alone properly innovate and improve, when so much of their revenue is going straight out of the door in interest payments. The previous Government have a lot to answer for. It was on their watch that dumping sewage in our rivers and lakes reached record levels, as water companies piled up billions in debt. All the while, bosses rewarded themselves with generous bonuses for mismanagement and failure on so many levels. Many people who work so hard in those companies suffered under that mismanagement. There is only so much point in looking backwards.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend, and, yes, I absolutely do. Ofwat is also failing to innovate. It appears to do little, if anything, to push companies to do this. This is so critical because, if we are going to increase capacity in sewage treatment works, there are many better ways of doing so. There is a host of new technologies out there from leak detection, pipeline monitoring and predictive maintenance equipment to trenchless pipe repair and pressure management technologies. Yet I have heard from firms in my constituency that it is easier to sell sewer technology solutions in the US and Europe than in the UK.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗