Speeches by Newbury.

“You are right: people at home will be most concerned, of course, about what is on the supermarket shelves and how much their weekly shop is going to cost. That is how all this will translate into the real world. We saw from covid that disruption to just-in-time supply chains can lead to shelves going empty pretty quick…”

“Do you think that with what we expect to be higher food inflation, we are also going to see higher supermarket profits?”

“Do you think that with what we expect to be higher food inflation, we are also going to see higher supermarket profits?”

“You are right: people at home will be most concerned, of course, about what is on the supermarket shelves and how much their weekly shop is going to cost. That is how all this will translate into the real world. We saw from covid that disruption to just-in-time supply chains can lead to shelves going empty pretty quick…”

“In terms of the pressures on producers, we know that pretty much universally everybody is exposed to the cost of heating, processing, refrigeration, packaging, and getting goods to market. When you drill down into specific sectors, you have fresh produce and glasshouse horticulture that are very reliant on the cost of …”

“Absolutely. The “as soon as possible” point is the pertinent one because we know that although the costs will be felt by consumers further down the road, the opportunity to stop it is now. Are you as concerned as I that when we talk about Government support, there is often a focus on electricity prices and we miss the …”

“Absolutely. The “as soon as possible” point is the pertinent one because we know that although the costs will be felt by consumers further down the road, the opportunity to stop it is now. Are you as concerned as I that when we talk about Government support, there is often a focus on electricity prices and we miss the …”

“The bottom line is that, if you give people overly optimistic information, then that is what they use to make their decisions on whether to stay put or whether to make any alternative arrangements.”

“That is why having a strategy is so important. As someone who has been a comms professional, who has been stuck on a call and often had to listen to some really technical information, I can tell you that you need to understand, first what the customer needs to know, secondly when they need to know it, and thirdly in wh…”

“You will understand the importance of clean water to vulnerable consumers better than I do; we know that some people have medical conditions that require them to wash regularly, while others work in professions where hygiene is paramount, including in their home life. Your investigation concluded that public health was…”

“Time is short, so I am going to move on to vulnerable customers, but there is a lot more work that needs to be done on the comms side.”

“If you give people communications that are open-ended, such as, “We don’t know when this is going to come back on,” it is frustrating, but the lesson I hope you will learn is that it is far more frustrating for your customers to be told it is only going to be 48 hours when it lasts for a week.”

“I have worked in communications myself, in the NHS. My last team had six members and we worked in a big organisation. We made sure that we had not just playbooks, but proper crisis comms plans and strategies in place for health emergencies across a whole city, and we did that with six members of staff. So why do you th…”

“Are you confident that when the next incident comes you are not going to have five dozen vulnerable customers who are not supported?”

“I will start with a straightforward question to Mr Hinton. How many people work on communications at South East Water?”

“The picture of what you need to do in an outage has not fundamentally changed since the company was set up. You have mentioned all the things that the comms team do from day to day. Why was the preparation work not done for outages, particularly given that you have had outages in the past? You said then, “We will learn…”

“That is quite a substantial number, but do you think it is sufficient in light of the clear shortcomings in your crisis communications over these outages?”

“You have brought consultants in, but what happens when they leave? Has the number of people working on comms increased? Have you spoken directly with that team about these failings? Are you addressing the apparent breakdown between the operational and communications teams? Has any crisis comms training occurred? I am t…”

“Back in January, we asked you about support for vulnerable customers, particularly with bottled water; we talked quite a lot about that. Miss Sephton said there were a few isolated issues—I think that was her phrase. But having looked at this extensively, the analysis from the DWI is that there was a lack of early acti…”

“Public health is not protected overall if some people do not have access to water.”