Charlie Maynard is the Liberal Democrat MP for Witney, having first been elected to parliament at the 2024 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Maynard won 20,832 votes, representing 41.2% of the vote. The Conservative candidate, Robert Courts, received 16,493 votes (32.6%), while the Reform UK candidate, Richard Langridge, secured 6,307 votes (12.5%). Maynard was duly elected with a majority of 4,339 votes.

The Witney constituency is located in Oxfordshire, in the South East of England. It was held by the Conservative Party from 1922 to 2024, most notably by former prime minister David Cameron from 2001 to 2016. Robert Courts held the seat from 2016 to 2024.

Political Career

Maynard served on the Liberal Democrat frontbench as shadow chief secretary to the Treasury from September 2025 to October 2026. He resigned from this post as part of a challenge to Ed Davey’s leadership of the party.

Maynard is also a member of the House of Commons business and trade select committee (since October 2024). The committee scrutinises the work of the Department for Business and Trade.

Maynard is listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for less survivable cancers.

Maynard delivered his maiden speech on 9 September 2024.

In it, he said: “Thames Water now has £18 billion of debt and £1 billion in cashflow. It is in breach of its operating licences, but is allowed by this government to operate with impunity. The sooner the company is put into special administration, the better.”

He added: “Today’s motion is about Syria. I fully support it, because we need to get more humanitarian aid in there.

“Thirty years ago, I visited Syria and it was wonderful. After a chance meeting one morning, I was invited to a wedding feast in the evening and the hospitality was fabulous. Nine years ago, a two-year-old Syrian boy was washed up dead on a British beach.

“This country’s grief was enormous: there was a nationwide outpouring.

“Almost by accident, my family ended up taking quite a few Syrian refugees. They stayed with us for over a year and we still stay in very close touch with them. That taught us that one key thing the government could do is make it easy for their citizens to help refugees to integrate in our country and society.

“We really have not done that very well at all. The other thing it brought home to me is that when a government fail their citizens, it can go very, very badly wrong. In our country, I think we are complacent about how unlikely some things are; that they will not happen and that things will not go wrong.”

Before entering parliament, Maynard was elected as a Liberal Democrat councillor on West Oxfordshire District Council in 2022. He stood down from the council in 2025.

Political Views

The Liberal Democrats (or Lib Dems) are a liberal political party, occupying the centre to centre-left ground in British politics.

The preamble to the Lib Dem constitution begins: “The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.”

The Liberal Democrat autumn conference in 2021 ratified a policy paper entitled What Liberal Democrats Believe. The paper, an attempt to expand on the constitution’s preamble, was framed around seven “principles and values”.

The party’s core values were described as “liberty, equality, democracy, community, internationalism and environmentalism.”

Maynard is a member of the Green Liberal Democrats, an official environmental group within the Liberal Democrats. It aims to “promote a green approach to policy formation within the Liberal Democrats” and “develop links with the wider green movement.” The grouping, formed in 1977 as a faction within the Liberal Party, is “committed to a net-zero and nature positive future and driving ambition across the national party and in local governance.”

Maynard is listed as a supporter of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for fair elections – a cross-party group of MPs and peers that campaigns for electoral reform. The group’s stated aims include replacing the first past the post (FPTP) voting system with a form of proportional representation, eliminating “dark money” and “undemocratic influence” from politics, and countering disinformation.

Maynard was endorsed by local groups of the cross-party organisation Compass during the 2024 general election. Compass is a thinktank and campaign group. As part of its “Win as One” campaign in the 2024 election, local Compass groups backed a slate of progressive candidates who had pledged their support for electoral reform. The central aim of the initiative was to elect a “caucus” of MPs who would champion the cause of replacing the first past the post electoral system.

Brexit and Europe

Customs union vote (2025): In December 2025, Maynard voted in favour of the UK-EU Customs Union (Duty to Negotiate) Bill. The bill, introduced under the 10-minute rule procedure by Liberal Democrat Europe spokesperson Al Pinkerton, sought to mandate the government to enter into negotiations with the European Union to establish a bespoke customs union. In total, 13 Labour MPs joined the Liberal Democrats in supporting the motion, while the majority of the party abstained.

Assisted dying

Maynard voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill, at both second reading (November 2024) and third reading (June 2025).

Before Politics

Charles Adrian MacFie Maynard was born in February 1971.

He studied geography at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1993.

In 1996, Maynard co-founded BDA Partners, an international investment advisory firm, at the age of 25. In January 2021, he stepped backed from an executive role, becoming BDA’s non-executive chairman.

In his 2024 maiden speech, Maynard told the House: “I built it, with colleagues, over 24 years. It ended up being a global business. We had nine offices around the world, with seven in Asia, and 100 people.

“That was through thick and thin, and by hanging on in there and trusting people to get things done.”

Personal Life

Maynard is married.

Maynard’s family has hosted several Syrian and Ukrainian refugees in their home.

He broke his neck at the age of 18 by diving into the sea and misjudging the depth of the water.

Trivia

Maynard is the first non-Conservative MP to be elected to represent Witney in parliament since 1922.

He is a keen hiker and swimmer.