Speeches by Dollimore.

“Have you spoken to the trade unions as part of your evidence submissions?”

“I have two more quick questions and then I will let you get on. First, you have talked about the need to hire 30,000 skilled workers in this industry.”

“I do not think you would want that to come across otherwise, but do you not see the urgency in this? There are many people who want to swim in their local areas who put it off at the moment because the quality is not good enough or they cannot risk the tummy upset that comes from it. That is an urgent task, surely, for…”

“It is a good thing people are using the sea and swimming more, to be clear.”

“We would not expect the Prime Minister to disappear in a big crisis. It was very strange to see the chief executive of a water company absent at that moment of crisis. I look forward to your commission’s recommendations in those two areas. Public health is an area that has really been impacted by the sewage scandal. It…”

“The media is clearly an important channel for getting information out.”

“The water was not safe to drink. There was real panic among the community. She chose not to appear in front of any media at the time. That cannot be right, can it?”

“You will be familiar with the incident that happened in Brixham. People were literally getting sick and ending up in hospital.”

“That was the recommendation our report made. To be clear, it was not saying, “The leak should be fixed in X number of hours”. It was saying, “If you have a water outage that goes on for 12, 24 or 36 hours, this is what people should reasonably expect from the water companies”. That could be portaloos, showering facilit…”

“Yes.”

“We talk a lot about environmental degradation and sewage dumping, but, as a Committee, we have also focused on water outages and particularly the experience of people who are suffering a major incident where there is a water supply interruption. The handling of that by companies has been particularly appalling. We have…”

“People will find that reassuring.”

“I would like to invite you to come and visit Hastings and Rye because we have been at the forefront of the scandal in the water industry. Not only have we suffered huge amounts of sewage dumping, which as a coastal town has really severely impacted us, like many coastal towns, but we have suffered two major water outag…”

“I understand that. Particularly because you have talked about having a number of meetings with the water industry and the chief executives, it is important that there is seen to be a fair balance of different experiences in your evidence.”

“What visits have you done?”

“I am going to focus on the experiences of the public. I use that phrase quite deliberately because we often talk about customers and billpayers, but a toddler who wants to go paddling on Hastings beach and is told they cannot because there has been a sewage dumping is just as entitled to make use of our beaches and our…”

“Does that not speak to the broken culture in the industry?”

“No one is talking about changing the floor at which the lowest-paid members of staff are paid. We are talking about the ceiling. If we look at the chief executive level, they are often looking at bonuses of 150%; for the lower-paid members of staff, it is 3% to 5%.”

“Secretary of State, in the manifesto, you committed to banning trail hunting, ending the use of snare traps, and ending puppy farming. Can you give the Committee an update on these commitments?”

“I have one final question. With the warm weather that we are experiencing at the moment, we are hearing warnings of a drought. It is a very serious situation for the country to be facing, particularly for consumers, but also for our farmers, as we heard from colleagues earlier. Secretary of State, how will DEFRA ensure…”