Speeches by Maynard.

“There is the FRC’s statutory footing; there is changing your information powers; there is making private companies, as well as public companies, PIEs; there is making company directors, whether accountants or otherwise, accountable to you—you have not named any of those quite clear goals. Are there any of those on whic…”

“I thank my hon. Friend. Rather than having customers pay hundreds of millions of pounds of debt at ludicrous interest rates of nearly 10%, Thames Water should be taken into a special administration regime, which is commonly known as bankruptcy on insolvency grounds. I urge the Government to pursue a SAR on the basis of…”

“Good afternoon. What do you see as the biggest problems inside the FRC’s brief, and what do you most want to get fixed?”

“We will come to that in a moment. Why has the budget gone up three and a half times and the headcount gone up four and a half times?”

“I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is what is going on up and down the catchment writ small, with treatment works deferred despite being crucially needed. In Aston, we have sewage running down the street year after year, and it is the same in Standlake. It is just disgusting, and there is no end in sight. A S…”

“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 curre…”

“Thank you.”

“In terms of your first term, what would you most like to be a measurable improvement? What would you like to be able to say about, “Right, that is what I achieved”? What would be on that list?”

“On that point, will the Minister give way?”

“Just thinking about money, although resources and capacity have been touched on a little already, I am looking at a table that says that in the 12 years from 2012 to 2024, the total budget went up three and a half times, and the headcount went up four and a half times. I am jumping ahead a bit, but the financial sancti…”

“How would you do that?”

“What do you think about competition in the industry? We have the big four. How are you going to encourage competition in that market?”

“Has the market share been concentrating or spreading relative to those big four? My impression is that they are getting a higher and higher market share, so that is not working sufficiently. Therefore, we need to do more. What would you suggest we need to be looking at?”

“Could I ask you to be a bit more specific? Can I ask where you stand on various things and you can say whether you want to see them changed or not? Is putting the FRC on a statutory footing something you want to make happen or is it low down the priority list?”

“On audit reform, we have had the Kingman and Brydon reviews. In 2024, the Government said that they would go forward with audit reform and now they are not. Does that matter? What problems are presented by not going forward with audit reform?”

“You were just talking about the proportionality of reporting. Loads of companies in my Witney constituency and beyond are saying, “We are drowning under reporting requirements.” What is your perspective on that in terms of proportionality, and what would you like to see the FRC doing to try to drive down unnecessary re…”

“How is that possible?”

“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 coun…”

“I have three more. On information powers, it is goodwill-based, which seems not good. Then we have the definition of public interest entities, and how they can only be public, not private, which seems like a problem. Finally, we have the accountability of company directors, which your remit covers only if they are insi…”

“Crunchier, measurable improvements.”