Speeches by Tufnell.

“Your own report says that you do not.”

“It is quite concerning because, Mr Train, I think you have set out in correspondence that this is in line with industry standards in terms of staffing—”

“I will start with the maintenance and monitoring. Mr Hinton, you gave an answer to my colleague just now about the need for more advanced problem solving, but what is striking when you look at the DWI report is about the basics. It sets out that routine maintenance was just not being undertaken. Seven of 13 scheduled s…”

“How long have you been working with Severn Trent on best practice? How long have you been learning from it?”

“This was in terms of your response systems.”

“You have been taking best practice from Severn Trent for three or four years?”

“Let us talk about being asleep at the wheel, shall we? The DWI set out what you were doing in the control room. It is only manned Monday to Friday during the day, and there is no one there otherwise to monitor issues and nothing to see the emerging problems. Do you not think that is being asleep at the wheel?”

“Then why have you not been doing best practice internally within your company? That was something your report identified.”

“The report says that on-site visits and interviews were observed where best practice was not implemented. So why were you learning from best practice with Severn Trent, but not doing that internally?”

“The DWI recommended better response systems in respect of your control rooms in 2018, 2022 and 2023, but even in April ’24 you still had not taken up any of those recommendations.”

““Nothing to see here, guv; it’s all fine.””

“The report says that on-site visits and interviews were observed where best practice was not implemented. So why were you learning from best practice with Severn Trent, but not doing that internally?”

“Do you understand why it is so important, though? Because if you read the DWI report, “The company focused too much attention on the bad batch theory for the coagulant,” which means that that theory effectively fits the narrative being put forward that it is outside the company’s control, even though DWI states there i…”

“Hold on a second, because you say that, but in the report you talk about gaps in operation. This is not just a gap, is it? You are not doing over half of what you are meant to be doing.”

“Part of understanding what maintenance needs to be done is that you have to monitor what is happening in the first place. The DWI also set out that there was not enough monitoring going on at the Pembury works, particularly around optimising that coagulation process. There was no continuous temperature monitoring, and …”

“But it is flagged in your own report that you have got a reactive and distinctive approach to safety; so it is not part of your—”

“Part of understanding what maintenance needs to be done is that you have to monitor what is happening in the first place. The DWI also set out that there was not enough monitoring going on at the Pembury works, particularly around optimising that coagulation process. There was no continuous temperature monitoring, and …”

“In terms of the culture of the organisation that you oversee, and the scrutiny and accountability, are you not concerned that you have been in post for over two years and you have never thought that maybe safety should be part of the organisational thinking?”

“You have touched on risk, and in your reports there was no structured mechanism for how to capture or escalate risks from the operators during site interviews, so that presumably was incredibly concerning to you?”

“You told the Chair that you have been in post since 2022, and obviously your role is to hold the executive to account. Are you concerned that safety was not one of the company’s values, or is not one of the company’s values?”