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.