Speeches by Lowe.

“You have 480 staff and a £30 million budget, so you have plenty of resource.”

“Are they being increasingly used by the industry?”

“Are you increasingly using bailiffs?”

“Do you think it is wise that CCW is the ombudsman, effectively, for your industry? Do you have a view on that?”

“You need to use AI to find the definition.”

“It is an interesting debate.”

“Because the chap running it, Rob Wilson—as you know—is under investigation for fraud, as I understand it. When he was in Parliament, he claimed 9p for going 322 metres in a car journey. That does not fill me with huge confidence.”

“There is one other thing that I would like to clear up with you. Am I right in saying that under your permitted “Paying Fair” rules bailiffs are an acceptable way to proceed, because it appears that the use of bailiffs is on the increase, not the decrease?”

“You should have an interest in that, shouldn’t you? You may not be actually doing it yourself but you should have an interest in it.”

“In my opinion, until you’ve got the number of people who are actually on the PSR up, bailiffs should be used sparingly and only for good reason. I think my colleagues have quite ably underlined the need for you to make sure that your customers do understand how they can apply for this financial help.”

“I have found what you are saying very interesting. This is not my area of expertise, but I am inclined to agree with you that we have the worst of all worlds here, with private monopolies reporting to boards of shareholders. This obviously does not apply to broadband, but how did the water corporations and power utilit…”

“Well, you can chop me off if I ask something too long, Sir Geoffrey. Chris, where do customers, and particularly financially vulnerable customers, rank in the list of your priorities?”

“Yes, you probably were. Does nobody else know how they dealt with it? Did they have a social responsibility?”

“I am of adequate intelligence, and I run lots of businesses, but we find it very difficult, even in a business environment, to keep up with energy prices, in particular. We now have this underworld of people who have leapt up and who disintermediate between the energy companies and the end user. There has almost been a…”

“Okay. If I look at figure 2, there is an Energy Ombudsman and a Communications Ombudsman; there does not appear to be an ombudsman for water. Is CCW performing that function?”

“It is performing the function of the ombudsman, is it?”

“Well, it is in The Daily Telegraph. On that, I think I am right in saying that complaints to CCW for billing were up 63% and those for affordability were up 110%. Does that sound right to you?”

“Is that right? It is hardly surprising given that the real cost of water is up 20% over the last four years. It is therefore disappointing to see that there is actually only a 13% take-up of the PSR; that does not reflect well on you, particularly when the Report tells us that up to 50% of households are in need of it.”

“They are burning more coal as well.”

“Finally—”