Speeches by Maynard.

“Phill, on the UK AI opportunities action plan, I am quite intrigued that the Government very naturally are talking about UK AI opportunities. Is there enough discussion and interest in the threats?”

“If I have an AI data centre at gate 2 and something else there, do you think there is a case that the data centre should win through in that discussion?”

“Putting that into a geographical context in the UK, a lot of power is increasingly generated off the North sea, so further north. I hear arguments about latency and the need for a data centre in the south-east, otherwise it is not much use to us. Is that misconstruing the case?”

“That would be helpful. What about on grid connection queues?”

“I fully concur on those CMA comments. On the AI Safety Institute, now the AI Security Institute, and to your point about UN global governance on AI, what do you think our Government should be doing more of in terms of interacting with those? There are some big risks out there, and I am not sure that the new Government …”

“Can you take that apart a bit for us? There is GDPR and this is post Brexit. Where are the gaps compared with the EU that make it less certain?”

“The EU’s position on copyright is not globally competitive in that context. Is that what you are saying to us?”

“I want to ask a different question to each of you. Simon, Professor Neil Lawrence was pretty active earlier in saying how he did not much like the Government’s encouragement of the CMA regime, which has been widely reported as basically going easy on big tech. If that is indeed the case, is that good news, bad news or …”

“That was not so much on the CMA aspect. Karim, Dame Wendy made the point that there are so few women in AI, tech and private capital—QED. What can UK Private Capital do about that? What do you see as some of the solutions there?”

“Do you agree that Křetínský and IDS make more money if the USO is loosened?”

“Mr Křetínský, I want to ask about the company that you control that bought Royal Mail. In EP Holdings’ latest financial statements for the full year 2024, roughly €1.3 billion of earnings—EBITDA—was generated from gas transmission, storage and distribution. As I understand it, and please correct me if I am wrong, that …”

“Yes, so what if they fail on those? Frankly, £37 million over three years—it is a big business—is pretty minor; that is a little over £10 million a year. Does that really change anything? I don’t think it does.”

“Okay. I would say that, if the conditions are looser, it is easier to make money, because you have to do less work to meet those conditions. Therefore, the incentives do not add up. You mentioned that this may not be a silver bullet. We are worried that we are back here again and again, as we have been for the past dec…”

“Eustream?”

“What comfort can you give us that we will not just be in a cycle—or continue the cycle we are already in—where there is a weaker and weaker USO?”

“If EP Group fails and breaches its obligations, what are you going to do about it?”

“The undertakings, yes.”

“Yes. Just what undertakings did EP give your members when the takeover was completed, and has it honoured those commitments?”

“But that is relevant, because that is where the money came from.”

“So that is undertakings up there, and your obligations down here at the Ofcom level.”