January 2026 Newsletter

I hope you have enjoyed a happy and healthy start to the new year.

I’ve been busy getting stuck back in, both in Witney and Westminster, after a good break with my family over Christmas.

Working for You in Westminster

Sticking with transport, Hugo Ashton (West Oxfordshire District Council councillor responsible for Planning) and I met with the team at Oxfordshire County Council who are leading the development of the “Movement and Place Plan” for West Oxfordshire.

OCC are now procuring a “modality” study to compare rail with other transport options which could provide a mass, fast transport solution along the A40 corridor.

This month, I held two constituency advice surgeries - one in Faringdon and the other in Shrivenham.

From potholes to flags, the cost of living to Thames Water, immigration to housing, many thanks to everyone who came to meet me. We are busy following up on the casework and will do all we can to help.

I had great fun at the Pizza and Politics evening held at Langdale Hall in Witney which was focussed on encouraging young people to find out more about politics and get involved as they like.

Oxfordshire County Council organised the event which brought together a range of local politicians from the different parties, including fellow Liberal Democrat's Cllr Liz Leffman (Leader of the County Council, Charlbury & Wychwood), Cllr Toyah Overton (Brize Norton & Carterton East), Cllr Sean Gaul (Bicester East) and Cllr Gareth Epps (Deddington). There's a picture of Liz and I at the event at the top of this article.

Questions ranged from potholes to the national debt, and from the impact of social media to the rise of populism. Thank you all who came along for the great questions and conversations!

A new drop-off and parcel collection point for Witney and West Oxfordshire Food Bank has been set up at Elmfield House on New Yatt Road in Witney. This is next to The Edge cafe, and in the same building as my local office.

I’m a huge fan of the food banks, fridges and larders that we have locally and the wonderful help they give. Well done to Perry and Emma from ZinCo Green Roof for their work in setting up this new drop-off and collection point. 

My Work in Westminster

At the start of January, I spoke in a debate on the future of Thames Water where I focussed on the need for the Government to hold Thames Water fully to account for its sewage spills which pollute our local rivers.

The Environmental Agency certainly should not be giving Thames Water a free pass on the fines they’ve racked up from the regulator. Labour is not doing nearly enough to fix this.

As I write this, Standlake’s sewage treatment work has just passed 500 hours of non-stop sewage dumping and the sewage works at Witney, Carterton, Bampton, Milton-under-Wychwood and Kingston Bagpuize are all currently dumping too.

The government continues to duck the big decisions and we, the customers, are bearing the cost of this through massive price hikes.

Adding insult to injury, a big chunk of our bills is spent on advisory fees and sky-high interest charges on their £20bn debt mountain. The sooner the company is put into Special Administration, the better.

If you agree, and haven't signed already, please do add your name to my petition here: Take Thames Water into Special Administration.

The Government has begun to lay out plans for legislation to improve the water sector, including a new regulator to replace Ofwat – something I’ve been calling for, for a long time.

However, the Government’s proposals are very short on detail about how this new regulator is going to have the power and resources to make it more effective. I gave my response to the proposals in the FT here: Water companies press for faster abolition of regulator (sorry, paywall). 

The Government’s last Water (Special Measures) Act was far too weak on new regulations and sanctions for failing water companies. I will push them to be more ambitious this time around. I’ll keep you all posted when we have more details of what this new Bill will look like.

This month I also spoke in two debates about how we can improve research and outcomes for the treatment of less survivable cancers, which are responsible for 40% of all cancer deaths in the UK.

I’ve been campaigning to get a national target in the forthcoming National Cancer Plan to double the survival rates for these cancers in the next decade and also for excised tumour tissue to be frozen as standard so it can be used for research purposes, using a similar approach to organ donation.

I spoke in a debate on the Government’s Finance Bill, to welcome the news that Ministers have finally listened to rural communities and revised their badly thought out inheritance tax changes which were threatening the future of family farms.

I welcome the changes, but it’s taken 14 months of protesting and pain from farmers to get this result. The Government rushed out their original proposal with little understanding of the real-world impact on the sector. This all could have been avoided, but instead it has required yet another flip-flop to fix an unnecessary mistake. 

I also spoke in a debate about the Government’s proposal to cap the amount you can save into your pension via salary sacrifice schemes without having to pay National Insurance Contributions.

Like a lot of the measures the Chancellor announced in her budget, this feels very short sighted. While it may look like it offers some limited gain in increased tax revenues, when you look below the surface there is a big risk that it will deter people from saving towards their retirement.

It will also put a big additional cost and admin burden on small businesses, who may rely on offering salary sacrifice schemes to support staff retention and reward.

On the Business and Trade Committee, we have had some very interesting discussions this month, including on our trading relationship with the EU, where we heard from hauliers about the vast amount of additional paperwork caused directly by Brexit, with 27 stamps now required and far slower border crossings.

This is all new bureaucracy added thanks to the hard Brexit the Conservatives chose and it makes our country less competitive.

It increases the cost of food and that is a burden we are all continue to pay. It has also led to a drastic fall in the volume of goods we export to the EU, which represents roughly half of all of our goods exports.

We urgently need a new agreement on agricultural products with the EU, so our farmers can export their food more easily - and we can pay less for our food.

I had a very productive meetings with the Rail Minister, Lord Hendy, discussing the railway project to re-link Carterton and Witney with Oxford.

This rail project would deliver huge benefits for our community, cutting journeys times by 70%, with Oxford reachable in just 16 minutes from Witney and 22 minutes from Carterton.

This would attract jobs and businesses into the area and enable us to manage better the enormous amount of housing that the Labour government is forcing on West Oxfordshire.

Lord Hendy was very encouraging and gave some very useful advice on next steps. This is something I’m continuing to work very hard on this year. It would be helpful if the Conservatives came round to recognising the benefits of the rail project rather than campaigning to kill it.

Electricity costs are far too high in the UK and this causes trouble for households and for businesses. I had a very useful roundtable meeting to discuss the rocketing uptake in stationary battery storage solutions that can store solar and wind energy, both of which are now the cheapest sources of electricity in the UK.

I also had a meeting with National Grid where we discussed the broken linkages with Europe’s energy market which result from our hard Brexit, and how we can repair them so we can access cheaper electricity more effectively.

I have continued to focus on the crisis unfolding in Sudan where more people are being killed than anywhere else on earth.

I met with Amnesty International to discuss this. I have previously put questions to Ministers about how we can stop British weapons being sold to the UAE, given their widely reported role in arming one side in the Sudanese conflict. This is something I will keep pushing the Government to take stronger action on.

I attended an event in Parliament by Witney’s very own Open Doors who were launching their World Watch List 2026.

The organisation does very important work highlighting areas where Christians are experiencing persecution around the world, providing them with support and aid. I’ve met with Open Doors at their UK office here in Witney too and I am hugely impressed by the hard work and commitment of the team.

As ever, if you have any questions or you would like my help, please email me on charlie.maynard.mp@parliament.uk and lay out your concerns & struggles.

I will continue to do what I can to help.

Best wishes,

Charlie Maynard MP