Speeches by Dewhirst.

“Those regulations have come in in the last couple of years; it is all new. When I was working on the pig side of it through the drafting exercise there was certainly a concern that we were not going to get everything right, and that once it came into force there would potentially need to be some adaptation just to refl…”

“Without wishing to do Richard out of the job before he has even really started, could you not have brought all those powers under one body that would have made more sense, in terms of what you could both do together?”

“Is there a concern that you simply should not be forcing producers into such a rigid contractual relationship? It is not up to them to negotiate that with whomever they are supplying, whether a processor or retailer.”

“Richard, what would your view be on that? You are obviously going to be closer to some of that contractual framework going forward in terms of dairy and pigs and other sectors as they come online.”

“What assessment has the hon. Gentleman made of the so-called waterside option, which would see a floating pontoon with temporary Chambers built on the Thames? That would allow Parliament to access the rest of the estate during the refurbishment of this Palace. Why has that not been included in the options, and why inst…”

“11. What recent progress the Client Board has made on its work.”

“I am sure the Leader of the House will share my delight at the news of two new dental contracts, worth £6 million, in Bridlington, which will double NHS dental provision in the town. However, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. I am extremely frustrated by the news that the local NHS trust has announced the propo…”

“If we go back to 2018 and the Beast from the East incident, and then four years on from that, Mr Hinton, when the 2022 outage occurred affecting 85,000 customers, the company’s own analysis at the time found that 61 actions identified for the 2018 event had not been implemented. Then, at the end of 2025, another 60,000…”

“That was in 2022.”

“You mentioned livestock; that is interesting as my colleague, Helen Whately, said to me ahead of the meeting that you were frankly dismissive of farmers when they raised concerns because they could not access water towards the end of last year. I appreciate there is a hierarchy of priorities in terms of vulnerable cust…”

“As you have said, this is a failure of your basic objectives. It is failure after failure, excuse after excuse. The board is not doing its job: it is not delivering on governance, it is not delivering on accountability and, as my colleague Tim just said, you have lost the faith of your customers. The only way to rebuil…”

“Just in terms of escalating matters more quickly, which was something we discussed at the previous hearing here, there was some criticism that perhaps things had not escalated. Do you have faith in a multi-agency approach—the local area, the local resilience forum and so on—to be able to implement action plans more qui…”

“Was there unanimous support for the current leadership from the board?”

“Would you accept that some of the sites chosen to distribute water last time were pretty farcical in terms of their accessibility? The other services that they were being used for at the time, for example, was the shuttle bus to Heathrow location, a train rail replacement service, and so on. I hope all of that has now …”

“Was there unanimous support for the current leadership from the board?”

“Mr Train, you received a letter from six local MPs in January—Helen Whately, Mims Davies, Rosie Duffield, Helen Grant, Katie Lam and Tom Tugendhat—calling for a change in leadership. MPs are not shy of writing letters, but it is unusual for them to write a letter calling for such a severe change in a local private comp…”

“That was in 2022.”

“Would you accept that some of the sites chosen to distribute water last time were pretty farcical in terms of their accessibility? The other services that they were being used for at the time, for example, was the shuttle bus to Heathrow location, a train rail replacement service, and so on. I hope all of that has now …”

“You mentioned livestock; that is interesting as my colleague, Helen Whately, said to me ahead of the meeting that you were frankly dismissive of farmers when they raised concerns because they could not access water towards the end of last year. I appreciate there is a hierarchy of priorities in terms of vulnerable cust…”

“Just in terms of escalating matters more quickly, which was something we discussed at the previous hearing here, there was some criticism that perhaps things had not escalated. Do you have faith in a multi-agency approach—the local area, the local resilience forum and so on—to be able to implement action plans more qui…”