Summer Newsletter 2025

A strange summer during which MP Watch Witney passed through vicissitudes, but here we are again with our summer newsletter. We managed a few pavement sallies, banner behind and leaflets to hand, but our main event was the Climate Matters meeting at which Charlie presents himself for constituents and climate and environmental issues are discussed and questions flung.

So, our summer Climate Matters public meeting on 5 July with our MP, Charlie Maynard, was held as usual in St Mary’s, Witney in front of a good, warm audience. Plenty of ground was covered.

The first item on the agenda was Thames Water. Charlie is deeply engaged with this issue, and we were fortunate to have information straight from the horse’s mouth. He outlined the company’s extraordinary economic situation. With roughly a billion in annual income (recently swelled by increased charges) it was, ridiculously, carrying some twenty billion in debt! And this was recently permitted by the courts to rise by a further three billion! No ordinary company, operating in the real world, could possibly sustain this, of course. It’s also completely unreasonable to customers – something like a third of our bills simply services these extraordinary and unconscionable levels of debt.

Charlie, with lawyers acting pro bono, took this to the High Court, seeking to rationalise the company’s position by refusing new loans and reducing the original debt burden to a level at which the company might manage it from legitimate income streams. This would involve putting the company into special administration temporarily, covered by government. Creditors, especially the class A creditors, would have, in the jargon of the City, to “take a haircut”, of course, and incur very considerable losses. possibly measured in billions, but they must have been aware of the dubious and risky behaviours of the company and have been willing parties to considerable indefensible profit-taking and debt-seeking over many years. Some of them are very large, “carnivorous” private equity companies and will fight, potentially exposing Charlie himself to considerable personal financial risk as he pursues this case. (He has taken legal advice and cover - we hope it’s sound.)

Charlie lost his case in the High Court seeking to refuse Thames Water additional debt and proceed to re-organisation of the company’s financial situation. He was given permission to take it to the court of appeal, where he also lost. The courts held the extraordinary view that the industry regulator Ofwat was sufficient protection against malpractice and mismanagement and that the status quo was adequate, even allowing for the enormous increase permitted in an already huge debt burden. Charlie, like almost everyone else, holds a different view of this, and of Ofwat, regarding them as flaccid at best, untrustworthy at worst. He is therefore seeking a final hearing before the Supreme Court. If granted this cannot, realistically, happen before October or November. He’ll keep us posted. He would wish for a sustainable way forward – with mutualisation probably being the best option for medium-term management.

Rosie Pearson laid a question on growth – can we really decouple it from carbon emissions? Do we have to abandon the quest for growth if we are to tackle the climate and nature crisis?

Charlie began by making the point that not all growth was climate negative. There are a lot of good things going on. Renewable energy systems, such as solar and wind for example, were growing rapidly, often driven purely by economic forces, and have become among the cheapest and most easily installed energy sources. Renewable and low-carbon alternatives must be deliberately and energetically pursued through national and regional policies all the same. In particular, we must more aggressively decarbonise our transport systems (prioritising much better public transport, for example) and address heating and insulating our buildings more energetically. However, we need to recognise that much of our activity, and growth in our activity, is not manufacturing but services. Since Brexit, for instance, our export of physical goods has fallen by some thirteen percent. Today, we are largely a service economy. It was suggested from the floor that the word “growth” was no longer a useful measure or target: what we really want is not growth for its own sake, but jobs, which trail prosperity and security.

Charlie was asked about the progress through parliament of the Climate and Nature Bill (the CAN Bill). It was introduced by our neighbouring MP for South Cotswolds, Roz Savage, in January as a private member’s bill but further debate was adjourned until 11 July. Charlie was not sure that was going to happen, however. Ed Miliband’s department was toing and froing and it looked as if the government might allow it quietly to fail.

A question was asked about Charlie’s views on banning fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship (parliamentary debate is scheduled for 7 July), Charlie was unsure. As a Liberal, he was not comfortable with the idea of banning advertising unless clearer limits and parameters were drawn. He saw it in part as a free speech issue – where would you draw the line, how far would you go, when banning advertisements? Flying? Cars? Both increase emissions…

With time running out and Charlie needing to attend another event there was small time for him to discuss local policies and proposals to grapple with adaptation to climate change as it will affect our constituency. Charlie is discussing natural flood management such as to slow flow through Witney with local authorities and farmers’ clusters. As an MP he has little direct influence on decisions, but an MP can add value to proposals to induce things to happen so this is an important ‘watch this space’ issue. There is also discussion ongoing regarding the construction of a reservoir against water shortage in times of drought. The site being considered is not in our constituency but would serve it as a reserve of water in the event of shortage. Thames Water however has no financial incentive to build it, and Charlie feels a proper enquiry is needed as to the need for it and means of achieving it. We do need to speed our decision-making.

On the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (which could impact building regulations and additional investment in alternative energy sources), Charlie is impatient with the endless postponements for additional consultations on detail, and feels decisions need to be taken and matters moved forward at a better pace.

These are examples of the long-term thinking and investment necessary to address adaptation, which is increasingly urgent and increasingly obviously so.

Our chair, Win Burton, closed the meeting by thanking Charlie and informing us of another MP Watch Witney meeting in Oxford on September 18th. This meeting will host Lord Deben and Roz Savage as speakers, supported by Pete Sudbury. It will not focus on climate change as such, but on why our politics fails to address it adequately and what can be done to change this. The meeting will be held in the Wesley Memorial Methodist church in New Inn Hall street, Oxford, and will run from seven to eight thirty. You will need to book a place through Eventbrite, and we ask for a donation to cover our considerable costs.

Our next Climate Matters public meeting with Charlie Maynard will take place on 11 October.

We all hope to see you in Oxford on the 18th. We think it will be an important meeting, examining climate from a different angle and leading, we hope, to useful outcomes. We also hope to see you in Witney on October 11th when we will be listening to, and quizzing, Charlie on adaptation to climate change across our constituency.

Thanks for reading!

MP Watch Witney