Speeches by Gardiner.

“Would not allow.”

“You are paying for it.”

“Let us get back to the point that the Chair and I were in the process of making, and that is that you chose to eliminate those others from the bid. In response to the Chair, what you said was that there came a point when you had to do this, it was the right thing to do, and those bids fell away. Yet we have heard from …”

“Oh no, not another explanation. Come on. Just answer it.”

“So you did not choose KKR because it could bully the Treasury. Did you choose KKR because it committed to giving the senior debtholders less of a haircut?”

“In fact, under the new Water (Special Measures) Bill they have the right to recover that and to make sure it is not the public that are paying the bill. The High Court judge said that he might have refused to sanction the plan from the outset if the, “Eye-watering level of the adviser’s fees had been clear up front.” W…”

“I am delighted to speak in support of the Committee’s report, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee on the way in which he has led the Committee and on how he took up the remnant of this report from the last Parliament as the first report for our Committee in the new Parliament. He is righ…”

“Yesterday I spoke with colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about the progress of the treaty on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction—sometimes known as the global ocean treaty. I was assured that, as far as the Department is concerned, the matter had been dealt with and was all done…”

“You do so to maximise the profit that you can make on each of those sites. You will do that, and that is why you make the assessment of the economic and market conditions. It is precisely why you look at the sales and input prices so that you can maximise the profit. If you did not, surely you would then come back to m…”

“Thank you. I want to put one more question—this may touch on what you were saying, Mr Spearing—about early intervention being required here. You may be aware of a report that was commissioned by Wild Justice, which was carried out in the summer of last year, looking at 42 new developments across five local planning aut…”

“It dies off.”

“Are you talking about FirstPort again?”

“What compliance regime do you think would improve that 47% of features not being there? Mr Thompson, do come in if you feel the urge.”

“That goes back to what you said about being properly resourced.”

“That is not the issue here, is it? The issue here is that you are making, by your own admission in your annual report, a risk-adjusted assessment of the potential gross profit for each of those sites, and you do so taking into account the economic and political backdrop, the planning and regulatory regime and the sale …”

“I have been looking at your annual reports. Mr Spearing, your current 2024 annual report says that in 2023 you built 4,637 properties and about 65 of them were a joint venture. The average price was £608,000, making a pre-tax profit of £130,000 on every home. But the figure that really made me think that the Chair has …”

“Both of you said that.”

“It says: “This represents management’s risk-adjusted assessment of the potential gross profit for each of the Group’s sites, including the proportionate share of its joint ventures, taking account of a wide range of factors, including: current sales and input prices; the economic and political backdrop; the planning an…”

“Frame this, please, Mr Duncan, in a recommendation that the Committee should put into its report to Government. That is where we can meet the need that you are expressing.”

“What is the consistency of the advice you get from the Environment Agency or Natural England?”