Speeches by Maynard.

“Yes, it does. I think Ofwat is doing exactly what the company’s creditors want it to do, and I wonder why that is happening, because it should not be. Finally, there is a failure to innovate. There are a host of technologies out there, and far too often we hear the same old lines about Victorian sewers, cameras and how…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) for securing this debate on Government support for Thames Water. What does Government support for Thames Water look like? Our current Government support Thames Water by letting it breach th…”

“To be clear, I said that Ruth Kelly is the chair of Water UK—I said exactly that.”

“As the Secretary of State will know, in 2018, this House allocated £40 million of funding in memory of Dame Tessa Jowell, who was killed by a brain tumour. Seven years on, less than half of that money has been spent. The money is doing no good sitting in a bank, so will the Secretary of State please commit to spending …”

“But the company can carry on trading?”

“Let’s run with that. So they can say that there is nobody officially there, but they are still making the decisions and running that company just fine. What happens then?”

“Okay. If you see that, what would be the timeline between actions? If by the end of that period, these people do not have their IDs, what kind of strike-off period would there be?”

“Does the hon. Member agree that if we were to rejoin a single market in electricity, we would lower our electricity bills by joining the single day-ahead coupling system with Europe?”

“Thank you for being here. We were talking to Ray Blake at the end of the last session. His firm runs, on a private basis, 150, let’s call them red flags or concerns. So much of this is just about automation, and, frankly, it does not smell that hard. Let us say that somebody puts in assets of $1 trillion—that is a red …”

“Who do you need to challenge back, and how quickly is that happening? We have criminal acts going on in front of our eyes. Nobody wants that to happen. So who decides?”

“Going on with that, you have identity verification coming down in April and then autumn. Then, you have a 12-month implementation period. How much are you saying, “At the end of 12 months, if you have not done this, the following will happen?” Otherwise, it just stretches on—“Oh, well, you can’t file,” and then it’s an…”

“Talking about fines, in 2019-20 Companies House collected 57%. In 2023-24, the collection rate dropped to 46%. Between 2018-19 and 2023-24, you failed to collect £386 million of issued fines. What is going on with the collection rate? I am interested to understand what that was in absolute terms, say last year, but als…”

“What about consequences? If you do not pay your fine, what happens, and is that actually happening?”

“CCJs are?”

“Would you be up for, let’s say in a month’s time, making up a set of recommendations saying, “If we are going to address our fines backlog, we would like to change our processes this way, that way and the other way,” listing those out and sticking them in the public domain somewhere, just to say, “This is what we would…”

“As per our notes, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands are two that were flagged. I was reading the November 2024 communiqué, which I remember hearing about, and it is really disappointing. It says, “We note the UK Government’s ambition that Publicly Accessible Registers of Beneficial Ownerships (PARBOs) b…”

“Martin, I am sorry to interrupt, but I am not actually asking you to advocate these things. I am just asking, if the Government were to act, what the key steps would be that would make a difference. I am not saying that you support those steps or not, but what are they?”

“Yes, and how do we make that happen?”

“Such as? What were those key learnings or key steps that made a difference?”

“Mr Nair and Mr Bell, would you like to add anything on where you see particular advantages or competitive advantages of the UK versus the global field, whether inside your companies or more broadly?”