Charlie Maynard MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Apr 2025 · Thames Water: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I want to play back what the Minster just said. It is up to either Ofwat or the Secretary of State to apply to the court to put the company into special administration. As the Minister wrote to me last July or September, one of those conditions is whether the company is unable, or likely to be unable, to pay its debts. Given that the company has come out and said that it has only £39 million, with £19.5 billion of debt, and it is going to run out of money by 24 March, I think that we have passed that benchmark pretty clearly. The idea that we have not is simply not true. It is therefore up to Ofwat or the Secretary of State, who continues to decline—maybe that is a better word than resist—to ask the court to consider.

• 6 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Constituents in Witney were extremely distressed to receive letters this week from Thames Water saying that their bills are going up by £19 a month from April, putting more pressure on household bills. Does the Minister think that is acceptable, given that the restructuring plan in the High Court is putting £800 million to £900 million of interest expenses on to this company—

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The change in wording would mean that the clause states: “The Secretary of State may make modifications of the conditions of the company’s appointment so that they include conditions requiring or enabling the company…to recover from its creditors such amounts as may be determined by or under the conditions”. Let us talk through the special administration regime and what happens. I would like this to already have happened but it has not When a company is put into special administration—I would like this to already have happened, but it has not—a court appoints a special administrator. A special administrator looks at the creditors. It looks at the debt and the other creditors involved, and it will prioritise, according to the seniority of that debt and those creditors, who is senior to the other. Suppliers will be a lot more senior.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman—I think he jumped in before I had finished the sentence, which was on the creditors and the management. Who is responsible for this? Yes it is the management, yes it is the regulators and prior Governments, and yes it is the creditors who have provided the debt—they have gone into that with eyes and ears open and they have made that decision to provide that debt willingly. Therefore, they have put that money at risk and they have to take responsibility for that. That is what debt is. I am not talking about Government debt, but about a loss and who is making good that loss. The Government are proposing that all the consumers pay for that—in other words, the bill payers. That is wrong. The bill payers should not be paying for this; the creditors should be, because they have put in, in Thames Water’s case, £17 billion—soon to be £20 billion very likely—which has saddled those companies with vast amounts of debt. More than a third of the bills of the bill payers of Thames Water is just being spent on paying interest on that debt.