Speeches by Maynard.

“And sea?”

“Given that Israel continues to act with impunity, what new levers will our Government use to take actions that are within its powers, such as restrictions on travel and trade, air and sea delivery of aid—given that land delivery is so appalling—and in relation to the F-35? We are breaching international humanitarian la…”

“Ignoring Sir Jon’s recommendations and dealing with the here and now, it says that if you materially influence the company, you are an ultimate controller. Clearly, the class A creditors, as de facto economic owners of the company, are able to materially influence it. So why is Ofwat not accepting this and saying that …”

“Sorry, but the ultimate controller is in fact defined and it is in Ofwat’s power to decide who is an ultimate controller or not. Thames Water’s parent company said in court that it is essentially the economic owner of the company, but Ofwat is currently saying that it does not believe it is able to materially influence…”

“My next question is about the definition of ultimate control under Ofwat’s regulations. The Business and Trade Committee received a reply from Ofwat which I forwarded to you this morning. I do not expect you to have read it; I only received it yesterday. It basically says that ultimate control is a defined term under t…”

“Thank you, Chair; it is very good to see you. One question I have is about mutualisation. Following up on your recommendation 46, which I was delighted to hear, if Thames was to go into special administration and there was an offer on the table for a mutualisation of the company, is that something the Government would …”

“Could I let it rest and maybe you could dig into that and reply in writing, if that would be possible? It is really important to make this clear: I am not saying that it is instead; it is in addition that the Class A creditors clearly have material influence on Thames Water. If it is in addition to the existing shareho…”

“The nominal ultimate controllers right now are the shareholders who have taken their board directors off, which is fine; they can stay there because they still officially own those shares, even if those shares are worth nothing. I have no issue with that. What is extraordinary, though, is that in court, Thames’s parent…”

“If you were to say one power that they particularly should have, what would it be?”

“Chris, is it appropriate to threaten to send debt collectors to businesses while a case is being investigated by the ombudsman?”

“Dhara, Energy UK is very keen to have the UK more linked to the European single market of electrons. It makes it cheaper, more efficient and greener. You are proposing putting us back inside single day-ahead coupling, SDAC, on a contractual basis, which apparently does not require the jurisdiction of the ECJ. That is g…”

“Could I just follow up on that, Chris? E.ON operates across Europe. I do not expect you necessarily to have a perfect answer on this, but is there a regulatory environment in Europe that you think has got it right, that does not use the marginal price of gas to price electricity and that you have heard of as a sensible…”

“I have just done a PCSO shift in Witney and Carterton. I was impressed by lots that I saw. The CCTV systems are very good. The knowledge of key perpetrators is very good. Where it gets much stickier, to a point of deep depression, is that everybody in town knows that it is this guy or that girl, or whoever it may be, d…”

“As far as you would like to say, what would be good to see between the police and the CPS for this to change and improve?”

“Thank you for that. I take your point about counterfactuals, but there are lots of countries in the world that have VAT, which are obviously different from the UK, but there is a set of petri dishes that are different but relevant. For Alice or Alison, whoever would like to answer this, there is this whole point about …”

“I get that, but you are more expert than we are. We are looking for your advice as to where to go to have informed opinions and informed information that we can then draw opinions from. People have to make decisions on this and we need help on that. Tell us where to look, please. There must be somebody who has some goo…”

“Alison, do you have any views on how to resolve this in an informed way?”

“Would you be willing to write us a list as to what you would like to see?”

“Jonathan, would that be something that HMRC would be willing to do?”

“I am going to ask about the tax gap, which is the gap between what HMRC should collect and what tax it actually collects. The small business tax gap has rocketed. I am going to read something out that says that 40% of corporation tax due from small business was not paid in 2023-24. Small business was responsible for a …”