Speeches by Dollimore.

“Do you accept that that was a failure? Before 2017, you accept that it was a failure of Southern Water to not invest in fixing this infrastructure.”

“You have spoken about the need to invest in crumbling infrastructure, and decades of under-investment in that infrastructure. What I have here is, just in the Hastings area, a list of all of the pipes that your own documents define as “aged assets prone to failure”. I am sure that the pipe that burst would be one of th…”

“Why did you think that it was right, just two months after that incident, to take such a large bonus?”

“You need to take some responsibility. You came into Southern Water in 2020. You became chief executive in 2022. These incidents have all happened on your watch. Take the Hastings incident that you refer to, for example, where a member of your own team said that the Army nearly had to be called in. In 2007, Southern Wat…”

“We will come on to the specific incidents in a minute. If you accept that your handling of these incidents is not adequate and that they should have never happened in the first place, why did you choose to take a bonus of £160,000 in July last year?”

“Why have the lessons not been learned? In October 2023, in Rye, I fed the lessons directly into Southern Water. I then saw the same failures played out in Hastings, and we have heard about exactly the same happening in Southampton. Why does your company not learn the lessons each time?”

“What about the response when they did happen?”

“You would agree that Southern Water’s response to those three incidents was unacceptable.”

“I need to start by declaring an interest as a customer in Hastings—I lost my supply for five days last May—and as co-chair of the all-party group on water pollution. Lawrence, your company has the worst record of any water company when it comes to water outages, with customers losing their supply sometimes for many day…”

“Would you like to see a different structure and model of ownership in the industry?”

“Do you accept that there is a problem with the structure of the water industry?”

“David, you represent the water industry. Your evidence today suggests that you are somewhat struggling to read the room in terms of the level of anger out there in our constituencies at how water companies have behaved in polluting our seas and failing in their basic services. You have blamed lots of other people for t…”

“Is it your belief that that should be the case, and that all incidents should be covered?”

“David, on your response to the GSS update, with the figures going up and the number of incidents that will be covered going up, you mentioned that, when these changes are made, compensation will be payable in incidents where the interruption lasts 12 hours or more. Is it your understanding that that covers both an outa…”

“It is a source of national shame that our country was so underprepared for the covid pandemic, and the Conservatives need to take their fair share of the responsibility for that. We all worry about where the next pandemic will come from, and I am particularly concerned about the risk posed by dengue fever. For those wh…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. The hon. Member referred to the record of his party while in government for the last 14 years, and said that it set the threshold for a water boss being denied a bonus at the level of criminal activity. Does he agree that many of our constituents would find it str…”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“I am yet to hear an apology from the Conservatives for their failure to put monitors on any outlet in my constituency, their failure to make those monitors report to Government at all, and their failure to address the severity of the sewage scandal that has caused so much disruption for my constituents, for local busin…”

“I thank the Minister for all her work in introducing this Bill so quickly in the new Parliament. It is a Bill that my constituents in Hastings and Rye desperately need. As I have said many times in this House, our constituency of Hastings, Rye and the villages has suffered hugely at the hands of Southern Water. Litres …”

“During the debate, we have heard a lot of words from the Opposition parties, but we had very little action during their 14 years in Government. We on the Government Benches have raised clear examples pointed out by Ofwat where it has not had the necessary tools to ban bonuses when it wanted to do so with Southern Water…”