Speeches by Maynard.

“In terms of structural versus behavioural remedies, could you say a little about where you are headed or whether there is any change in direction?”

“OMERS is the largest shareholder in Thames Water. Last May, 14 months ago, it removed its director from the board and wrote off its shareholding. How can you tell us seriously that it is the ultimate controller of this company?”

“The concept is broader than legal ownership, as you know. It includes anyone who can exert significant influence over strategic decisions. As per the High Court ruling and that judgment, it is very clear that class A bondholders are meeting that level. Do you agree?”

“Can you explain why you think that the class A creditors do not exert significant influence over strategic decisions for Thames Water?”

“What it looks like to me, and perhaps to other members of the Committee, is that you are flouting your own regulations on purpose, because making them ultimate controller would mean they have legal obligations that they no longer have. We have shareholders who have publicly walked away and said, “Our equity is valueles…”

“When are you going to come to a decision?”

“My next question is on the special administration regime. Steve Reed wrote to Alistair Carmichael on 25 June and said, “However, we expect that any Government funding required during a SAR would be recouped after the conclusion of the administration.” Do you agree with that?”

“Running with that, what you are also agreeing with is that the net cost to the Government is likely to be zero, because what Steve Reed stated is that they are likely to recoup their money at the conclusion of the administration.”

“I am asking for your view.”

“What I am worried about, particularly with the very quick exit of your prior chair, is that, if you read the FT or any other newspaper, it seemed to be a message from Government to say, “If you are in big tech or have dominant market share, we are going to go more lightly on you. As a dominant player, you have more lee…”

“Do you agree with the Government’s assertion that they would expect to recoup their funding at the conclusion of the administration?”

“In that reasonable proposition, the net cost to the Government of putting Thames Water into special administration would be zero. Just sticking with what we have stated here, are you in agreement with what Steve Reed said?”

“They are the super senior lender, so they are at the top of the tree.”

“Many thanks for that, Douglas, but if I may, it is not just about our weapons; it is about other weapons. If the UAE is transferring weapons into Sudan, which is a bloodbath, we should be thinking very hard, because we would be breaching our own export regulations because of what their actions are doing with other peop…”

“On the process involved in that, over the last 10 months we have experienced things like point No. 17 in our weekly pack being, “Company B is blocked from buying company C”, or whatever it might be. That may be interesting, but our job here is to scrutinise DBT. We have absolutely no way of doing that with the informat…”

“I take your logic that there has to be a system, and the security makes it harder to do that. Certainly from my point of view, it does not necessarily have to be this Committee that is doing it, but I am advocating a check and a balance on the Ministry making the decision. Whether it is Matt and his colleagues at the J…”

“Do you at least accept the point that there should be a check and a balance on the decision made by Government, and that we should work towards putting an effective check and balance in place?”

“Sorry to be late. I was in another Select Committee meeting and it overran, so apologies and thank you for having me. Going back to Beth’s point about more efficient trade with Europe in electricity, my understanding is that post Brexit one of the things was being outside the single day-ahead coupling system. What are …”

“Running with Sarah’s point about principles, under the last Government, Labour pushed very hard that any trade agreement should have a human rights chapter in it. India’s does not; the GCC’s, as currently being discussed, does not. It feels a little bit like, “When we’re out of power, we want this, but when we’re in po…”

“So it is strictly best efforts. The message to anybody else is, “We would like to have human rights in there, but we’ll go forward without it.””