Speeches by Dollimore.

“No?”

“Have you faced the local regional media since the incident?”

“So, you had your team speak to the media but you, as chief executive, would not front that media in a time of severe crisis for your customers.”

“How were they doing that? Were they speaking to the media?”

“You were not able to speak to the media?”

“We will come on to the incident and the details of that shortly, but is it correct that you have turned down media interviews at times of extreme panic among your customers?”

“You have talked about how you, as a company, are committed to transparency. I have heard that when you have had ongoing major incidents, the local BBC and ITV asked for interviews with you and that you, as chief executive, have refused to be interviewed by the media, for example, during the cryptosporidium incident. Is…”

“Susan, we have heard a lot about your company’s failures in terms of sewage and flooding. We are going to come on to talk about an incident that landed your customers in hospital, it was so serious. But, apart from your last answer where you said you were sorry to hear something, I have not heard you say sorry to your …”

“Is it likely that fines in the future will go towards that?”

“Secretary of State, I want to ask about the broken water system, particularly as it relates to water quality and the impact on the environment. We all know well the issues and the impact they have had on many communities up and down our country, including seaside communities but also communities like the Lake District.…”

“On the point about Ofwat, we have been calling in the water bosses one by one on the EFRA Committee and there are a lot of takeaways from that that we will be feeding into the Independent Water Commission for DEFRA’s perusal. On Ofwat itself, our evidence from Ofwat and from the other companies shows that it seems to b…”

“On the point around increasing fines, which is coming with the Water (Special Measures) Act, we heard recently that the water restoration fund will go towards environmental improvement projects. Can you talk a bit about that for the Committee? How can people access the water restoration funding?”

“Roughly what would that cost be? What would the marketing budget be every year?”

“Roughly what would that cost be? What would the marketing budget be every year?”

“Making customers aware of a change that is harmless and is not an issue with the drinking water is one thing, which I think is what you are talking about there. What controls are now in place for when people phone up your helpline to say, “My water has suddenly got a funny taste”? I appreciate this was not in your area…”

“Are you confident that an incident like this cannot happen again?”

“I just wanted to probe a bit further, Ruth, on the issue around the TV advert. The Advertising Standards Authority said that that advert needed to come down, as it was misleading to the consumer: it confused the progress you had made, and implied you had made a lot more progress than was the case on tackling sewage. Ho…”

“There were other issues as well. It thought it was confusing to imply that you were operating on 21st-century practices when actually there are still issues with wastewater and rainwater being combined and going out together. That was the issue that the ASA was getting at. We need to get to the root of this, because wa…”

“To Sarah’s point, on the hottest day of the year—19 July 2022—there were 68 sites where sewage may have been discharged illegally because wastewater and rainwater were being combined. That was on a day when, clearly, there was no rain. That is the misleading nature of the advert that the ASA banned. It was saying, “You…”

“I want to ask about major incidents that have occurred in your area. There was a particular incident in Wiltshire—in May 2023, I believe—where you were fined £300,000 for supplying water that was not fit for human consumption. This went on for three weeks. Before that happened, customers were complaining for weeks abou…”