Speeches by Dollimore.

“We have heard time and again that the water supplies do not get delivered to vulnerable customers, people get missed, and it is very chaotic. It often causes traffic gridlock when they try to provide water supplies, because they do not open enough water stations. It is more than just bottled water that people need. Whe…”

“Moving on more broadly to some of the themes that we have heard about in our inquiry into the water sector, as well as pollution, we have heard about a number of incidents where customers were left without water supply. We had a very serious incident in Devon, where a parasite in the water supply meant that customers w…”

“On this point more broadly, there has been lots of speculation about Thames Water. How confident are you that Thames Water will avoid special administration?”

“That is good to hear. One of the things that Sir Adrian, the chairman of Thames water, said when he was before us and was trying to justify the paying of these retention payments, or bonuses by any other description, was that Thames Water’s creditors had said that it was a condition of the loan that they had to allocat…”

“The public were rightly furious to hear from Thames bosses last week this assertion that they might still take their bonuses in the forthcoming year, or “retention payments”, as they wanted to call them. You are confirming to the Committee today that that is off the table and they will not be doing that.”

“I am going to start with some general questions. Secretary of State, there is huge public anger about the behaviour of the water industry. As a Committee, we have been leading an inquiry into the water industry. Time after time, as we have been calling the water bosses in, we have heard about this bad behaviour. We hav…”

“Secretary of State, as we discuss the fishing implications, I wanted to bring in a practical example from my constituency of a local business that exports a lot of seafood to the EU. At present, it is paying around £200 a shipment. It has to obtain a health certificate and often stuff gets stuck at the border. It goes …”

“As the Minister has said, the situation is intolerable with one in five Gazans facing starvation; the use of aid as a weapon of war by Israel is inexcusable. The continued firing of rockets by Hamas and detention of hostages are also inexcusable, and it all must end. I welcome the UK, with our international allies, cal…”

“It is very clear you pay very large bonuses to those at the top of your company. The most junior employees in your company—the people out repairing the water leaks on the roads—what percentage bonus did they get last year?”

“You clearly rowed back on commitments, and the impact of that is clearly seen. As Chris just alluded to, there has been a 40% rise in pollution incidents last year under your watch. Last year, you made profits of £140 million, so all this talk about not having the money to do these vital infrastructure projects, custom…”

“So why pay the bonuses and the dividends?”

“Are you not aware of that figure?”

“Can customers have any faith now that what you have committed to do will be done if you row back on these commitments so easily?”

“You just said you do not think you rowed—”

“How can customers have any faith that you are committed to turning around the business and reducing sewage pollution incidents and water outages if these 100 vital projects—projects that you committed to the legal regulator you would do in 2019—were rowed back on?”

“Just to be clear, these 100 projects were committed to be done in the 2019-24 period. Customers were charged on that basis for these works, but they were not done, so you have rowed back on those commitments.”

“It sounds like you are interested in attracting and retaining those at the very top of the company, but those who are the most junior members of staff—doing the hard work on the frontline—are not receiving the same treatment, and that discrepancy is very clear for all to see. If you were truly committed to fixing your …”

“You did not, because these were asset health projects that you deferred.”

“But the impact of that referral—”

“Thank you for that assurance. One issue is that the company is saying that customers’ experience and what they have shared with their Member of Parliament in surveys does not match what your monitors say. Sometimes that can be because if there is extremely low pressure, there is no usable supply. Would you commit in th…”