Speeches by Roca.

“Nicola, are you alive, and are the board alive, to the concerns that the public have in this area? Fitch downgraded you in January. You were the second worst company for pollution in 2023, you were in the elevated concern category of Ofwat, and yet you have received an additional £371,000, taking your pay to £1,028,000…”

“Because the initial announcement was immediately after the cryptosporidium incident, which we talked about earlier, and the public were a little bit angry that you were announcing an increase in dividend immediately after that crisis.”

“Susan, your company approved £45 million in dividend payments for ’24-’25, which was a 265% increase from the £12 million in ’22-’23. Can you just talk us through how you can justify such a dramatic increase with the financial strain that households are facing at the moment?”

“When did you decide not to pay the dividend? It was announced and then you decided that it was not appropriate to pay it.”

“When did those two events happen?”

“The intention is to increase the dividend payments with inflation by CPIH?”

“We touched on pay earlier, so I understand your overall package was £860,000 in ’22-’23. Is that right?”

“And what is it this year?”

“Again, that is quite a large sum of money. Do you think that is fair remuneration for the work that you do?”

“Of the measures the committee uses to set your pay, there are over 40 from what I could see but affordability to the customer of their bills was not one of them. Did that seem fair to you?”

“Do you think, then, affordability for customers of their bills should be one of the measures you are measured against when your pay is being set?”

“It is not explicitly in the criteria, is it?”

“There is financial efficiency of the company, of course—”

“But there is no explicit measure for you to keep people’s bills down in the way that your pay is set. Because if the company is incredibly efficient it might just return more money to its shareholders, might it not, rather than reduce cost?”

“These are large sums of money in terms of remuneration, which the public will obviously be concerned about. Ofwat criticised your policies for the performance-related pay and suggested they do not match expected company performance. Do you share that assessment?”

“Absolutely, because this is about rebuilding confidence.”

“I will address it to you, Paul, in the first instance. Yorkshire Water’s return on equity has been 6.2%, significantly above Ofwat’s recommended 4% level. The shareholder return has been about 10% on average, despite the penalties and fines for the underperformance that we have certainly heard of today. Why do you main…”

“Talking about bill payers, the University of Greenwich suggests that a third of the average bill for a customer—about £442—is going away from frontline services and into debt or dividend payments. Do you recognise that figure?”

“Linking to borrowing, obviously we have talked about gearing before. BBC analysis suggests that you have paid £2 billion in interest on debt and loans over the last seven years and that the total debt pile has increased from £4.8 billion to £6.2 billion, while only £1.2 billion has been spent on enhancement capital exp…”

“The level of debt within the sector overall is quite a sensitive issue to the public. I do not know if you have a comment on it because, overall since privatisation, something like £70 billion has been taken out in dividends but £60 billion of debt has been created as well.”