Future of Thames Water

Debate between Charlie Maynard and Calum Miller

Tuesday 14th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Maynard]

My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I am grateful to the former Secretary of State for setting out in a letter to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in June last year that

“we expect that any Government funding required during a SAR would be recouped after the conclusion of the administration”.

The current Secretary of State set out the same point in a parliamentary debate on 16 June. It is also worth noting that the Tories—there are not any in the Chamber—continue to refuse to acknowledge this, and that Teneo, Thames Water’s own expert adviser, stated the same in its report to the High Court in December 2024.

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. Does he agree that the Government’s reluctance to take a company that is clearly now technically insolvent into a SAR is loading costs on to consumers who use other water companies, by creating a moral hazard that means that companies are incentivised to take on ever more debt, with the debt providers being protected by the Government? Instead, the Government should allow companies to fail, if they are going to fail, and to be taken into a SAR, so that there can be investment in the infrastructure that my hon. Friends referred to.

[Charlie Maynard]

I agree 100%, and that is what is so depressing; by continuing to demonstrate that the regulators have no teeth, we create a bigger and bigger problem for ourselves.

The alternative to a SAR—a deal with the creditors, which, extraordinarily, seems to be the Government’s preferred option at this point—should not be countenanced. Giving these businesses, now operating as London & Valley Water consortium, yet more control of the company at ludicrously high interest rates would allow this downward spiral to continue. The Government must and can change course by using their power to ask for a SAR under existing legislation.

There is now the opportunity for Thames Water to exit special administration as a mutual, owned and run in the interests of its customers, and to break the cycle of financial mismanagement and egregious environmental failings once and for all. Legislation sets out that a water company insolvency SAR can conclude in two ways: rescue, whereby the company is restructured, debts are written down or converted, and the existing legal entity continues in a modified form; or transfer, whereby the regulated undertaking is sold or transferred to a new owner. That does not require a competitive auction, as the legislation provides for a transfer approved by the Secretary of State and Ofwat.Nothing in the legislation states that either route requires a competitive sale, as the overriding objective in a SAR is continuity of public service, not maximising creditor returns.

The Government could therefore set out at the point of SAR entry, or shortly after, that a mutual is the preferred exit route for Thames, and make that clear in the special administrator’s mandate. Work would need to be done in parallel with the SAR process to incorporate and put in place the governance framework for a new mutual, as well as more broadly updating water regulations to take into account the Cunliffe report’s recommendations. Ofwat could then work towards a licence transfer to the mutual, rather than running a market sale.

In conclusion, I have some questions for the Minister. If she is unable to answer them now, I would appreciate an answer in writing if possible. Have the Government sought legal advice on the SAR process from a specialist law firm? I appreciate that FTI Consulting has been instructed for many months, but that is not a substitute for legal advice. A proper, specialist understanding of the SAR as a legal process, and of the litigation risk—perceived or actual—of applying for a SAR, is critical.

Will the Government commit to publishing a SAR assessment policy, and does the Minister agree that the creditors consortium has material influence over Thames Water, and therefore meets the ultimate controller test? Will the Minister act with Ofwat to enforce the appropriate penalties on Thames Water for having undergone that change without having given notice, and will she provide an update on the negotiations between Ofwat and Thames Water? Will the Minister now take the London & Valley Water deal off the table, and work with the Secretary of State to apply to the court for Thames Water to be put into special administration? Finally, in response to a question about whether she would consider the Liberal Democrat call for water companies to be mutually owned public benefit companies, the Minister said:

“I would be happy to see more mutual ownership of water companies, but the question is how we get there.”——[Official Report, 16 June 2026; Vol. 787, c. 728.]

Given that, will she confirm her Department’s position on mutual ownership models for water companies? What are the Department’s plans for exploring how we get there?

Rail Connectivity: Oxfordshire

Debate between Charlie Maynard and Calum Miller

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)]

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.

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.

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree with me that the misery experienced by my constituents in Eynsham and Cassington as they travel on the A40 each day will only be made worse by the new housing developments, unless we find a way of alleviating that pressure? The railway on which he has done so much to campaign is one important solution, along with improving the road, that will make those journeys much easier and open up opportunities to the west of Oxford.

[Charlie Maynard]

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. 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.

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. 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.