Speeches by McKinnell.

“I absolutely acknowledge that it is a real fact—it is noted very clearly in the Report—but it does not necessarily solve the underlying challenges of how we improve the situation. With respect, it does not feel like there is an acknowledgment of the scale of the challenge; that is my impression, having read the Report.…”

“Sorry; I think we need to be clear that the £1.34 appears to be a one-off, because there was a review of commercial leakage that brought about a one-off recovery. Putting that to one side, are you confident that, overall, we are going to see an increase on the 48p in the pound, which is already well below the £3 in the…”

“Are you confident that by next year we are going to see a significant increase on that 48p in the pound recovery?”

“Can I come back to your assessment of good progress? That is not the reflection that I took from the Report, so it would be really helpful to understand where you see good progress being made and how you are confident about your trajectory. From what I understand, the reason why there is a slight improvement on the 48p…”

“Good morning. I want to ask about a couple of the points the Chair highlighted in his opening comments. The Ministry of Defence is responsible for huge-scale contracts and billions of pounds of public money, and, clearly, counter-fraud initiatives could not be more important. As the Chair mentioned, the Treasury expect…”

“It is interesting to hear about the procurement process, because it sounds like it was a very thorough process and that although, as you acknowledge, it took longer, the results obviously speak for themselves. As well as the need to comply with all the legal requirements, there are also the security and commercial chal…”

“I was going to ask a slightly technical question. Did you encounter any challenges in taking that approach when it comes to the regulation around procurement? Were there challenges in getting the right balance between open communication with anyone who may be competing for a project, so that you get the best out of tha…”

“The overall message I am taking from your response is that there is an overarching clear vision, which seems to have come out very strongly. You have mentioned the things that you wanted to achieve: resilience, which you have mentioned a number of times, competition and innovation. Coming to the procurement process, wh…”

“Thank you all for being here today. I have to say that it is quite unusual for this Committee to be looking at a success story and trying to extrapolate why, although, as ever, there will be challenge as to how we can do this even better in the future, right across Government, where we know much digital renewal needs t…”

“That is really helpful, because one of the big frustrations you hear from small developers is that it can feel like a tick-box exercise with no tangible or discernible output at the end. That is reassuring to hear.”

“Has this proposal brought sufficient streamlining for developers of the interaction with regulators? We know that the Government are very ambitious about seeing more housing development, but is it sufficient to streamline that interaction, or do we need to do more?”

“Could I put a challenge in there? I appreciate that smaller developers may not have the capacity to deliver on the environmental requirements of undertaking a development, but there is a balance to strike if we are not to price them out of the market. Has that balance been struck correctly? Otherwise, only larger devel…”

“Philip, are there impacts from the Act on the Environment Agency’s obligations?”

“Do you mind if I just ask one specific thing on that? Is it targeted towards large developers, or is it equally accessible to smaller developers?”

“I also want to touch on the complexity of the regulatory environment. I think the statement in the National Audit Office Report, which is from DEFRA’s independent review, is quite striking. It is that “our regulatory system is not working as well as it should to support either nature recovery or economic growth”. The f…”

“Since I was first elected in 2010, I have seen the misery caused for constituents in Great Park, Moorfields and Grove Park, who suffer high ground rents, hikes in service charges, threats of forfeiture and a total lack of accountability of the maintenance companies. I therefore strongly welcome today’s announcements an…”

“The other side of that frustration is the frustration of the experience that customers have while that is going on. Helen, what incentives are in place to make sure that companies are minimising supply interruptions and maintaining the quality of the water network?”

“Who will meet the cost of those penalties? The concern is that cost is then just passed back to the ratepayer or the taxpayer.”

“Is the intention that it should come off the profits that the companies are making and the bonuses that may in some way be paid?”

“I have two follow-up questions. They are quite chunky, but I will give you both. One is in relation to what you just said there, Chris, about penalties and enforcement. Do we have sufficient capacity to actually enforce these penalties? Do we have the investigative capacity? Do we have the ability to make sure that tha…”