Speeches by Dollimore.

“Sir Jon, on this point on bonuses, the Committee has heard a lot of evidence from water CEOs trying to justify eye-watering bonuses while overseeing a lot of failure. Like you just have, they often explain that they think bonuses are very important to incentivise performance. When we then press them on, therefore, what…”

“Is that right?”

“Moving on more broadly to some of the themes that we have heard about in our inquiry into the water sector, as well as pollution, we have heard about a number of incidents where customers were left without water supply. We had a very serious incident in Devon, where a parasite in the water supply meant that customers w…”

“On this point more broadly, there has been lots of speculation about Thames Water. How confident are you that Thames Water will avoid special administration?”

“That is good to hear. One of the things that Sir Adrian, the chairman of Thames water, said when he was before us and was trying to justify the paying of these retention payments, or bonuses by any other description, was that Thames Water’s creditors had said that it was a condition of the loan that they had to allocat…”

“The public were rightly furious to hear from Thames bosses last week this assertion that they might still take their bonuses in the forthcoming year, or “retention payments”, as they wanted to call them. You are confirming to the Committee today that that is off the table and they will not be doing that.”

“I am going to start with some general questions. Secretary of State, there is huge public anger about the behaviour of the water industry. As a Committee, we have been leading an inquiry into the water industry. Time after time, as we have been calling the water bosses in, we have heard about this bad behaviour. We hav…”

“Secretary of State, as we discuss the fishing implications, I wanted to bring in a practical example from my constituency of a local business that exports a lot of seafood to the EU. At present, it is paying around £200 a shipment. It has to obtain a health certificate and often stuff gets stuck at the border. It goes …”

“I have one final question. With the warm weather that we are experiencing at the moment, we are hearing warnings of a drought. It is a very serious situation for the country to be facing, particularly for consumers, but also for our farmers, as we heard from colleagues earlier. Secretary of State, how will DEFRA ensure…”

“We have heard time and again that the water supplies do not get delivered to vulnerable customers, people get missed, and it is very chaotic. It often causes traffic gridlock when they try to provide water supplies, because they do not open enough water stations. It is more than just bottled water that people need. Whe…”

“Secretary of State, in the manifesto, you committed to banning trail hunting, ending the use of snare traps, and ending puppy farming. Can you give the Committee an update on these commitments?”

“As the Minister has said, the situation is intolerable with one in five Gazans facing starvation; the use of aid as a weapon of war by Israel is inexcusable. The continued firing of rockets by Hamas and detention of hostages are also inexcusable, and it all must end. I welcome the UK, with our international allies, cal…”

“Just to be clear, these 100 projects were committed to be done in the 2019-24 period. Customers were charged on that basis for these works, but they were not done, so you have rowed back on those commitments.”

“How can customers have any faith that you are committed to turning around the business and reducing sewage pollution incidents and water outages if these 100 vital projects—projects that you committed to the legal regulator you would do in 2019—were rowed back on?”

“That is 70 times the bonus of the lowest-paid staff in the company. If the work that they are doing on the frontline—repairing mains and leaks and fixing sewers—is so vital, why is the percentage bonus that they receive so much less than what the top leadership of the company receives?”

“Can customers have any faith now that what you have committed to do will be done if you row back on these commitments so easily?”

“You just said you do not think you rowed—”

“But the impact of that referral—”

“That was also to pay some money to bonuses and dividends; the two are linked, so address the two together.”

“How does that relate to the percentage bonuses paid to the CEO?”