Speeches by Gardiner.

“It said it could not be delivered in a reasonable timeframe and what they believe the public expectation was. So my question to you is, how is it that you believe that this group with no operational expertise can?”

“The KKR bid would have needed creditors to agree to it in a court vote on a restructuring plan. So creditors were effectively negotiating terms here; that is part 26A of the Companies Act 2006. There is clearly a conflict between creditors where they are bidding against other parties, especially where we have a public …”

“You made statements to this Committee and publicly that these would be the points at which the investment plan would come into effect. All your statements so far seem to have been wrong because it has not come into effect. You are now extending it to the end of the year by saying that it might be in place by that perio…”

“You know full well that the initial negotiation of that £3 billion was that it would come in two tranches. You were expecting to draw down the second £1.5 billion in June which was last month, but you have now said that the first tranche can actually last you until December. Why were those calculations so far out? Did …”

“You would not agree with that? Okay. Originally, you said you were targeting the new equity investment injection to be delivered immediately after the announcement of the final determination of PR24, then it was after the court hearing on the restructuring plan, and then it was at the end of June. Here we are in July n…”

“My question is, was it an artificial deadline?”

“What percentage of investment required by Ofwat have you so far managed to deliver?”

“So at the moment you are not keeping pace with PR24 and Ofwat’s requirements?”

“So were you telling the truth to this Committee when you said that you expected to draw down the second tranche of that loan facility in June?”

“It was wrong.”

“It might be if, as you say, the business has not suffered any interruption of its normal process business. You have been able, according to you, to meet the Ofwat requirements of PR24 and continue that investment programme in the normal way. So actually, given that you said everything is tickety-boo, you have had no un…”

“You went to exclusivity.”

“I thank my right hon. Friend for this statement; I have waited 14 years for it, and I look forward to such a statement being given to the House in each of the next 14 years. One of the key drivers of climate change is deforestation. One of the key drivers of deforestation is cattle ranching and soy production. One of t…”

“Like everyone else, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for bringing this important Bill before the House. I had not intended to speak in this debate; I was simply going to intervene on my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh), but she spoke so…”

“I congratulate my right hon. Friend on this package of measures, which will reduce energy costs. The system left by the Conservatives needed to tackle three things: transmission charges, constraint payments and marginal cost pricing, by which the price of gas drives the cost of the whole system. I therefore welcome the…”

“Is the Minister as surprised as I was to find that the shadow Secretary of State only half quoted that sentence from the report in Navy Lookout, about making it clearer that “no extreme threat” to European security would go unanswered by both countries, but failed to look at the real purpose here—that it signals a stre…”

“Some repairs have been done at the Wembley Brook and nobody can say who has actually done them. We know it is TfL, but it will not own up to it.”

“Just on that, Mr Duffy, neither you nor local authorities actually have the power to find out who is responsible for those flood defences and who owns them. Would it be helpful to have a recommendation from this Committee that gave you and local authorities the authority, the power, to know who actually has those?”

“Minister, Baroness Brown came before this Committee as the chair of the Committee on Climate Change’s adaptation sub-committee, and said that the UK is not adequately prepared for flooding and the public are largely unaware of Government targets or what they mean for individual households. Do you recognise that?”

“The Public Accounts Committee said in its report that you as an agency were forecasting that you would provide protection for at least 40% fewer properties than planned. The recommendation in the Treasury minute response was that the agency should include a robust forecast of the number of properties that will be bette…”