Point of Order: Rectification Procedure
Debate between Charlie Maynard and Caroline Nokes
Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In response to a recommendation by the Committee on Standards, I would like to apologise to the House for failing to register several interests within the 28-day period set by the House. They included my receipt of pro bono legal advice to support my intervention, at the High Court and subsequently at the Court of Appeal, in the sanctions hearing of Thames Water Utilities Ltd’s restructuring plan. Nor did I appreciate that I should have registered an informal arrangement with a family member to use her London flat without charge while I was staying in Westminster. I also owned and subsequently sold shares in a Vietnamese company that exceeded the threshold for registration. Finally, I failed to update my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests when my role as a councillor at West Oxfordshire district council ended.
Those failures were a result of my own errors. I am grateful to the Committee for recognising that I neither gained nor sought to gain any advantage, and that I acted honestly in repeatedly drawing the commissioner’s attention to failings as I identified them. I fully accept that those are breaches of rule 5 of the code of conduct. I apologise to the House and commit to take a more diligent approach to the registration of my interests in future.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Member for his point of order and for giving notice of it. I remind the House that Members may seek advice on the code of conduct at any time from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and from the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests. There will be no further points of order on this issue.
OBR: Resignation of Chair
Debate between Charlie Maynard and Caroline Nokes(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
On behalf of my party, I thank Richard Hughes for his service. We respect his resignation. I also thank Laura Gardiner, Professor Ciaran Martin and Huw Stephens for the very quick turnaround of the investigatory report on the leak. In that report, the point is made that, unlike all other IT systems and services, the OBR’s website is locally managed and outside the gov.uk network. That decision was made, apparently, to ensure the OBR’s full independence from the Treasury. Will the Minister soon report back to the House with a timeline for decisions—between now and the OBR’s next report in spring 2026—on how these matters will be managed in future? Will he provide an outline of how the OBR website will be operated so that it is secure and maintains appropriate separation from the Treasury?
Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Power Station: Wylfa
Debate between Charlie Maynard and Caroline Nokes(1 month ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
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. 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?
Taxes
Debate between Charlie Maynard and Caroline Nokes(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. When the hon. Gentleman makes an intervention, he should do that via me, facing the Chair and not the Back Benches.
Charlie Maynard
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.
Industrial Strategy
Debate between Charlie Maynard and Caroline Nokes
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I can run this only until 2 pm, so can questions and answers be brief, please?
Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
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?
Sewage
Debate between Charlie Maynard and Caroline Nokes(7 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Charlie Maynard
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. 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. 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.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I would just like to suggest that the hon. Gentleman bring his remarks to a close rather than give us some examples, because we want to hear from the Minister. He has 30 seconds at most.