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 ↗
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“It is fairly standard on boards today to have directors and officers insurance; indeed, all board members have it. What is the problem with the new people also having D&O insurance?”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, it is up to each individual to sign up or not; they do so of their own free will. Secondly, this is standard insurance which almost all boards have in the UK and internationally nowadays, which protects board members. It would not be specifically for those board members; it would be for all board members. To say that that is a concern, and that we should not make this provision on those grounds, seems odd.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have a question for you, Mr Vickers. This is my first Bill Committee and I am trying to understand how everything works. There are six amendments to clause 1, and our task is to do line-by-line scrutiny. My ambition is to understand why the Government support or reject each of those amendments. At the moment, in our debate of clause 1, we are swimming quite happily between those amendments. I would love your advice, Mr Vickers, as to how we work to understand what the story is on each amendment in turn, because I am not clear on that.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I take it in good faith that the Government are keen to have the measures implemented, so we do not understand why they would take the timeline out. The Government want to ensure that it happens, but as currently stated, they are removing the timeline. Taking it on good faith that Ofwat will publish the rules is less strong than keeping in that commitment to six months. I will correct the hon. Member for Epping Forest on our amendment 21. Our amendment relates to the same aspect of the Bill as Government amendment 2. However, we want to retain the need for Ofwat to publish the rules on bonuses within six months but remove the option for that to be kicked into the long grass by requiring the Secretary of State to lay a statutory instrument to bring them into effect. By taking out that provision, we remove that risk. That is the purpose.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Perhaps, since I am standing, I will make the other two points I want to make. We have touched on Government amendment 2 already, but I think it is important. I was very pleased to see the wording coming in about bonuses. Proposed new section 35B(3) of the Water Industry Act 1991 says: “Rules made for the purposes of imposing the prohibition mentioned in subsection (2)(a) (“the pay prohibition”)”. That is the ban on bonuses. While the explanatory statement says that it is to prevent the need for a statutory instrument—which the Liberal Democrats support and seek to do in further amendments—the impact of the Government’s change is also to remove the requirement for the rules to be published by Ofwat within six months. That we find very odd.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will just express disappointment. The Bill currently sets a deadline of six months, which is not exactly a moment in time; six months is a long time to get something done. I respect what the new Government are doing by trying to go after the bonuses and hold people to account, but to take a step back and say, “Actually, we are going to weaken the Bill”, which is what amendment 2 is doing—the Government are taking out the deadline—is retrograde and a real mistake.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Amendment 13 is about volume. It would add volume to the list in clause 3, which includes “the location of the emergency overflow…when the discharge began…when the discharge ended.” The Liberal Democrats seek to add the volume of discharge to that list, and that is common sense. As many Members have said, we want to know how much sewage is coming out, and we are looking for help from all Members to get the amendment into the Bill. If we are serious about solving the problems in our rivers, we need to know how much sewage is coming down.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That means less human interaction and lower costs, and it is much more achievable. There is a map that shows whether sewage has been dumped in the last 48 hours, is being dumped currently or has not been dumped in the last 48 hours—Thames Water was actually one of the first to put that in the public domain—but it does not give the historical information. We need the historical information in there and it needs to be downloadable, so that any citizen scientist can come along, pull the data off and act on it. Without amendment 15, we do not have that. These are very nuts-and-bolts, practical things that we want to head along.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Amendment 15 relates to reporting on discharge from overflows and would add to existing stipulations about the form in which the information must be published. I will read it out: the information must “be uploaded and updated automatically”. Let us get rid of human involvement. We are in 2025—all this stuff can, and should, be automated. Professor Peter Hammond has done some great research, and I am incredibly grateful to Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, which has been one of the drivers of information and campaigning in this space. Well done to Peter, Ash, Vaughan and Geoff; I give them many thanks. Peter spotted that when Thames Water monitors its sewage, it does so at the wrong times of day, when the level of sewage is at its lowest. We want to automate that so that it is monitored all the time.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I believe that everyone on this Committee wants to capture wherever that overflow is, which is what the amendment would do. I will try to quantify some of the numbers, and I will talk about my favourite, Thames Water. Right now, Thames Water has 30 event duration monitors at inlet storm overflows at waste water treatment works. It has 183 EDMs on storm tanks at waste water treatment works and 137 EDMs at storm discharge overflows at pumping stations, and it has 320 storm overflows on the sewer network—not in a pumping station or at a treatment works. We are trying to capture all those areas, because we need to know what is going on. If we do not know what is going on, we cannot fix it. Amendment 13 is on the volume of discharge. Amendment 14 concerns the same count, so I will not go into it in more detail.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) said, “If you have a coke bottle of sewage, and you don’t know how diluted it is, you still don’t want it in your bath.” Of course we want to know how diluted it is—that would be nice—but if we are serious about addressing these problems, we need to know how much is coming out of those overflows. To quantify what has been going on over the last few years—I give the previous Government some credit—some 14,000 monitors have been installed in the last seven years, which is good news. The figure was less than 1,000, and 15,000 have now been installed on the storm overflows, but another 7,000 do not have monitors. Amendment 16 talks about where those locations are. We can have overflows at a sewage treatment works, at a pumping station or on the sewer network.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us talk about the spectrum of information here. We have got the number of spills, where we have no idea how long those spills went on. We then have EDMs—event duration monitors—which count the number of hours of pollution. There is then the volume of flow, and then various iterations around measuring dissolved oxygen, or whatever it might be. I do not want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. We need to make progress. Thames Water is installing flow monitors all over its network, upstream of its sewage treatment works, but not downstream. That is because it is scared of actually having to count and have in the public domain the volume of sewage that it is dumping. As my hon.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If we take the higher level of the unit cost and say that each of them will cost £2,000 to install, it is quite a lot of money. We did it much cheaper in west Oxfordshire and Witney. Well done to the Witney flood mitigation group. It got 10 installed for a fraction of that, so that is doable. Let us just talk £84 million. Does that sound like a lot of money? Frankly, it does not to me, and I will try to quantify that. The £84 million is between 10 or so water companies. Thames Water alone has £17 billion of debt. We are talking about £84 million. It is a fractional number, and if we are serious about fixing our problems, we have to go there.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I find it rather depressing that I suspect this information came out of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Why is there this desire to slow the whole thing down if possible? We have a huge problem, so why are we not moving faster to deal with it? Frankly—I am not looking at the crew opposite—the DEFRA mindset is profoundly depressing. That’s that. Amendment 16 covers the installation rate. What we are trying to do there is get the rate much faster. We have asked for 12 months, and I will try to quantify this; I have a business background. How much do flow monitors cost? How much they cost matters. Flow monitors are £500 to £2,000 per unit. We have 15,000 across the country, so we are talking £85 million or whatever it might be. That is if we have £2,000 as the unit cost.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very happy with looking at monitors upstream and downstream. That is fine, but I want them all to be in, and I want them done quicker. In the last seven years, 14,000 monitors were put in. As per the House of Commons Library briefing on clause 3, we are currently being signed up to a much slower installation of monitors—it does not matter if they are EDMs or flow meters. The briefing states: “The reporting duty on discharges from emergency overflows would be phased in, with water companies expected to achieve 50% monitoring coverage by the end of the next price review in 2030 and 100% by 2035, the end of the following price review.” Why would we go slower? That is a lot slower than what has been done over the last seven years. We should be moving much faster.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Mr Vickers, may I revert to amendment 16? I am sorry; I thought I had mentioned it. I will read it out: “The undertaker must ensure that, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, appropriate monitors are installed to collect the information required”. That point is 12 months, so that is holding people’s feet to the fire, but we have a massive problem. This is totally doable in terms of timeline. If the Government came back and said, “No, we want 36 months, not 12 months,” then fine, I have no problem with that, but I have talked about being depressed by the desire to slow things down, and about the House of Commons Library data on giving another 10 years to install these monitors. Why are we going slow? We all say to the public that we are really serious about it; let us be serious.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Would the Minister be willing to give information on the breakdown of that £6 billion? That would be very helpful. Also, I think we are all in agreement and of course we want to know the quality. As has been said, if that is the case, surely the plan is to go there. By all means, have flow meters with the quality meters installed, rather than not going there. I think the Minister was proposing not putting in flow meters and not putting in any quality meters either, or is she planning on putting in flow and quality meters? If so, when and how?”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are here for another week or so. I take the point about apples and pears, but if the information is already in DEFRA’s hands, would it be helpful, if DEFRA can move fast enough—I do not know whether that is possible—to have a little grid circulated to Committee members about storm and emergency installation periods, whether that is quality, flow or EDM? With that data we could talk about it decently and honestly.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not see any reason why we cannot; respectfully, I think the Government are being flim-flammed by the £6 billion figure. We talk about sewage treatment works, pumping stations and so on. I have mentioned them already but really want to push the point home because we want to be capturing every overflow, wherever it is. Too often, people talk about works but forget pumping stations and the overflows on the network itself. We look forward to seeing that being covered in the legislation: overflows, works, pumping stations and the network. We will not press the new clause to a Division.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will keep this short. I am looking forward to the factsheet, but the Minister will note that new clause 25 focuses on overflows, not emergencies or storms. Frankly, it does not make much difference to a bug, a bunny or a bather whether they get whacked by an emergency overflow or a storm overflow—they are still getting whacked by the sewage. Trying to unify things and get all the issues into one table would be really helpful. We have already been denied one amendment about flow; I recognise that and will not go on. But quality and flow are important. I am afraid that I find the Government’s position—“We really need to focus on quality, so let’s not talk about flow or install flow meters”—to be spurious. I mean no offence, but it feels like a real let-down that we are not going there now.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister please consider doing two things: making it easier to de-designate main rivers to ordinary watercourses; and simplifying the EA’s permit procedure, which is incredibly byzantine, so that people can apply for permits and be able to unblock their ditches?”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Many of us recognise that our drainage network is in disrepair in many places. Much of that stems from the Environment Agency’s main river designation; an enormous amount of bureaucracy is required in order to get permission to unblock what is nominally called a main river but to almost all of us is a ditch. These ditch networks are very broad; in Northmoor and Bablock Hythe in my constituency, virtually every ditch is a main river, which means that in one case we required about three years to get a permit from the EA. That makes things extremely difficult and nothing ever gets done. We have had five permits in five years from the EA throughout the West Oxfordshire district.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are about a month away from Thames Water signing up for another £3 billion of debt. If that happens, 46% of the bills of every customer in that catchment will be spent on interest expenses, and that is without even paying down the £20 billion of debt. How is that helping anyone?”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are getting event duration monitors but not flow meters, and that means we are back in the same place where we have been for the last 14 years. We need flow meters, so please can we insist on that? Finally, we need to haircut the debt: we need to get that £20 billion down to £5 billion. That should be the key focus, because then we will be back on a stable footing and able to invest as we need to.”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, they should reform the three regulators, by putting them all together. In respect of clauses 10 and 11, why should consumers pay for financial losses following Government financial assistance? Why should not creditors and shareholders pay for those losses? It seems pretty weird to me. Pollution baselines should be established for each catchment; we should get that straight. Environment Agency permits for individual sewage treatment works should be reset. The capacity for each STW should be established, and the agency’s Environment Agency 3.0 multiplier should be applied to every one of them. There should also be volumetric flow meters, for which clause 3 does not provide—we are not getting them. I invite Members to read clause 3 themselves.”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“You do not need a GCSE in business to know that if a company currently has £16 billion of debt and £1.2 billion of cash flows, it is unlikely to be able to pay its debts. I believe that our Government are running scared. They are worried about being sued by big bad American vulture investors, and that is why they are not putting Thames Water into the special administration regime—a regime that was explicitly set up for exactly this purpose. I say to the Government, “Please, do not let Ofwat approve a price rise for Thames Water. Put the company into special administration and start to deal with the problems, because we will not be able to deal with them until we deal with the financials.” I have one minute and 17 seconds in which to ask the Government to steal some of these ideas.”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I believe that this Bill is disappointing. It almost totally ignores the financials of the companies, and that is the root of the problem. Unless we fix the financials, we will not fix the problem. Thames Water, for example, has £17 billion of debt, and it is currently expected to have a further £3 billion of debt by the end of January. If that happens, it will cost Thames Water an extra £334 million a year, which means that 46% of the bill of every single one of the 15 million bill payers will be funding interest payments—before the £20 billion of debt that the company will have is paid down. How does that make sense? How do we get this working again? That is not the route to a solution. The reason Thames Water is not in special administration is that, officially, it is unable, or unlikely to be able, to pay its debts.”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The reason why I put so much blood, sweat, tears and toil into the issue is that we have two huge problems in West Oxfordshire—there are probably others as well, but the two big ones are transport and housing. They are two sides of the same coin. In transport we have the A40 corridor, which links Oxford and points east with Cheltenham and Gloucester and points west. Oxford city is at the centre of that web; it is one of the strongest growing cities in the country and is putting enormous pressure on Oxfordshire. To the west is some of the worst-served infrastructure in the whole county. There is no major railway station apart from Hanborough, which is very small with one train an hour, and there are just a few miles of dual carriageway—yet enormous housing is coming into the district.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered railway connectivity between Witney, Carterton, Eynsham and Oxford. I am here to argue the case for bringing back the railway that connected Oxford, Eynsham, Witney and Carterton, but was torn up 50 years ago. That would cut journey times by 70%, connecting Oxford with Eynsham in roughly 11 minutes, with Witney in 16 minutes and with Carterton in 22 minutes. I have worked for the last four years with many parties, and I am deeply grateful to them all for their help. They include Oxfordshire county council; the district council in West Oxfordshire; town councils in Witney and Carterton; parish councils in Eynsham; the RAF; various landowners and developers, including Grosvenor at Salt Cross garden village; and England’s Economic Heartland—the list goes on and on.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Connecting those places with a fast, reliable transport corridor would allow businesses to locate in West Oxfordshire. That would mean less need to commute and jam up our roads. That is a big opportunity.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We support putting the houses that we will have to take anyway around the railway stations. Just as our Victorian forebears did many decades ago, we will use those houses to fund the railway. That would solve housing; then it would solve the economy. Our economy in West Oxfordshire really suffers. One would think that lots of good employers would come to West Oxfordshire, because we are only 10 miles west of Oxford, but they do not. There are some good employers, but very few now come in, because they know that the transport is completely unsustainable. The concept is logical: Oxford is at one end with the best universities in the world, and at the other are places such as Witney and Carterton with excellent skills, particularly in the aerospace and aviation sectors because of RAF Brize Norton.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That assumes that the disastrous bus lane project will have been completed, although that is not going to happen because there is not sufficient money. That was something that the previous Conservative Administration signed up for: £180 million for four miles of bus lane, which has turned into two miles of bus lane and a park and ride —not a good investment. We need a long-term transport policy, which will deliver a number of things: journey times cut by up to 70% and a plan for housing. Many constituencies, including mine, support housing. We all recognise that people need somewhere to live. We want to be grown-ups at the table coming up with a solution, rather than scattering houses willy-nilly around the district with no coherent plan. There is no plan without a transport solution.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I very much concur. I want to quantify the housing and the scale of what is going on now. Since 2000, the population of Oxfordshire has increased by a quarter. In the 2018 local plan we were signed up for 16,000 homes over the period through to 2031, increasing our housing stock by a quarter in just 10 years. On top of that, as per the new national planning policy framework, there is a 62% increase on our current local plan. I move on to transport. Our road is under very severe pressure. Some hon. Members might have spent time on the A40; probably more than they would have liked. It is an extremely constrained corridor, which, according to AECOM’s 2021 study, is going to be 30 minutes slower by 2031, which is seven years away—30 minutes slower between Witney and Oxford by 2031.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We would be delivering on our side of the bargain by getting all those houses into West Oxfordshire in a coherent and sensible way. Without a railway line, we will not have that solution and we will have an unsustainable, long-term problem.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secondly, they can build at higher density around a railway station. Thirdly, each of those houses is worth more because it is next to a railway station. That might sound radical, but it is what our Victorian forebears did 150 years ago. It is what Japan, Korea and Hong Kong do, and what much of northern Europe does. That is how they fund their public infrastructure, and I would argue that case. Labour sometimes mentions land value, and I really hope that it looks into the issue because it is a way of using private and public funding to get things moving quickly—as opposed to just sticking it to the taxpayer, which is what we have had to do up to now. I really ask for the Minister’s help in exploring that. That would fund about 50% of the railway line, and the other half would come from Homes England.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I used to work in business and I understand that there is really one thing that counts here: money. A key part of our work has been on the funding, and shaking a tin at the Treasury and waiting 50 years is not what we have in mind. Who have we been working with? It has been E-Rail so far, which has just funded 30% of the Ashington-to-Blyth line by going up to landowners and developers along that track and saying, “If you want to bring back a passenger rail line here, sign some voluntary, legally-binding contribution agreements, which will allow you to build houses around those future railway stations. Bluntly, the reason why you should do so is that you will make more money.” They will make more money for three reasons. First, the local plan will allow them to have houses sited around that railway station that would not otherwise exist.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am immensely grateful for its having made me chair in 2020. Since 2020, we have conducted a number of technical studies, particularly on defining a route that goes not only from Oxford to Carterton but through the Salt Cross garden village. Those studies gave the county council enough comfort to commission a feasibility study, which was published last November, and this year Lichfields is carrying out an economic analysis. That is all working towards the new local plan for West Oxfordshire, which is being worked up now. As a district councillor, I am working closely with my district council colleagues, as well as Sasha White—the planning and land use silk of the year; many thanks, Sasha—to work the railway line into our local plan. If the line is in there, we have a real chance of getting this railway built.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is only set to get worse on current plans. Finally, on defence, RAF Brize Norton is the biggest RAF base both in the country and internationally, with 7,500 people working there. It was built there because it had a railway connection, but that connection was ripped up 50 years ago. We must bring back that railway connection now. In times of peace, the lack of the connection is bad news, but in times of war it is truly terrible. Is that really how we want to run our country? The biggest airbase in the country, which runs all our international transport, does not have even have a railway connection. That is a disaster. What has been going on to date? I give real thanks to the Witney Oxford Transport Group, which really took the charge on this issue in 2014, before I showed up.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Well said—I very much agree. Following on from that, transport is one of the hardest nuts to crack in that decarbonisation agenda. Without a large-scale mass public transport solution, we are not going to get there. That is at the core of Oxfordshire county council’s strategy and this would help to deliver it, just as my hon. Friend’s project would in his constituency. I have two more points. Vast numbers of people living in West Oxfordshire have to get to hospitals in Oxford for secondary and tertiary care. The unreliability of the road puts enormous stress on their lives; they—including members of my family, as it happens—often have to go backwards and forwards a number of times a week. People have to leave home for a 10-mile journey sometimes two or three hours in advance, because they are scared about missing their appointment.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Just one small correction: from Oxford to Carterton North is £600 million only—we do not need to build out to Carterton West necessarily; that would just be a nice-to-have—and, of that, land value capture would allow something like £300 million. That is the broader scheme of it.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q13. We recognise that Labour is determined to defend the economically disastrous Conservative policies of being outside the customs union and single market. However, does the Prime Minister agree with the principle that where it is in our country’s interest to maintain alignment with EU standards so that we can better sell our products internationally, we align; and where it is in our interest to diverge, we diverge?”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituency of Witney has the Windrush, the Evenlode and the Thames, all of which have really impacted constituents today. We have just lost out on some FiPL—farming in protected landscapes—funding to produce modelling of the Windrush, which is upstream of Witney, our key market town in the constituency. That means that we are unable to forecast how we can lower and slow the flood crest through Witney, which would make it safer. Will the Secretary of State please look into providing better funding or enlarging the funding for such modelling, so that we can keep towns such as Witney safe on rivers like the Windrush?”
House of Commons25 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I find it more than ludicrous to hear the Tories lecturing Labour about red tape. What the Tories have served up to the country through Brexit and the damage they have done to our economy is a disaster. To hear them masquerading as—”
House of Commons25 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is largely how our Victorian forebears built our railway network, and it is how countries around the world, ranging from Japan and Korea to much of northern Europe, fund new transport links—something that we want to do between Oxford and Witney. Scrapping stamp duties on commercial land would make our market in land simpler and more efficient. Switching the tax to the owner rather than the tenant would spare 500,000 small and medium-sized enterprises the admin burden of property taxation and would save money and time in collecting the tax. Ending the exemptions on empty and derelict premises would incentivise action rather than inaction. We very much hope that the new Government will follow through on their promises to take further substantial steps. After all, they have the votes.”
House of Commons25 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need to do much more to level the playing field between online and offline retail, but this adjustment is a very, very blunt instrument for doing so. We need to be much more precise about going after big tech and taxing it appropriately. There are a few steps that we would like to see. A commercial landowner levy that taxes just the land value of commercial sites, not productive investment, has worked very effectively in Australia, Denmark and Estonia. A land value tax is much more effective at capturing the publicly created uplifts in land value, rather than leaving it to landowners to pocket them, sometimes with enormous gains.”
House of Commons25 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Liberal Democrats would like to see a much more fundamental reform of business rates. Although there are promises of further steps, it is disappointing that our new Government, with such a large majority, are not being more ambitious now. Our high streets will remain in deep trouble. The retail, hospitality and leisure sector will now have only 40% relief instead of 75%, but sectors such as manufacturing, which is having such a difficult time adjusting to a post-Brexit world, will get zero relief. National insurance contributions will be greatly increased, with taxes having to be paid before a business even makes a profit. On top of that, we all know that our high streets—such as Witney’s beautiful high street, as seen in The Times today—are being eaten alive by online retail.”
House of Commons25 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T5. Will the Secretary of State give a clear date by which QR codes will be incorporated into the NHS app at the point of care, thereby making the process faster and safer, as was highlighted to me by Dr Steve Bright at the Windrush health centre in Witney?”
House of Commons19 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“How does that all gel with the fact that the OBR is saying that business investment will fall by 0.6%, as a share of GDP, by 2029? It sounds great, but it does not add up in the OBR’s eyes. Will the Minister please elaborate?”
House of Commons6 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, although not a single person on Labour’s Front Bench even voted to leave the EU, we find ourselves with a Government supporting daft Conservative economic policies that nobody in the country voted for, such as remaining outside the customs union and the single market. Even before Trump’s win today, we as a country could not afford to be taking these wrong decisions. Continuing to do so, wilfully and in direct contradiction of the facts, is neglectful and shows a disregard for the wellbeing of our country. I urge the Government to change course.”
House of Commons6 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As a result of this Budget, real private consumption as a share of GDP is set to fall by 0.4% by 2029, and real business investment is set to fall by 0.6%. It is not me saying that: it is the OBR. That is very different from what the Secretary of State has told us. It leaves real GDP growth lower in the outer years, in the 2027-29 forecast—again, not my words, but the OBR’s. As per OBR data, Brexit is cutting our long-run productivity by 4%, and is cutting the overall trade intensity of our economy by 15% in the long term. The UK has a free option to boost economic growth at zero fiscal cost by restoring a closer economic relationship with Europe.”
House of Commons6 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗