Speeches by Aquarone.

“I am sure my colleagues will have questions on measurement in particular. If I could ask you to focus on the overall company-wide benefits management process, that would be really helpful at this stage.”

“I understand. Nick, if I can come back to you. I take Elliot’s point that delay management is subject, of course, to the challenges of measurement and analysis, but one of the things the ORR particularly pulled out was not so much that you should be measuring this stuff better, it was about the big picture, beyond enha…”

“Nick, back to you. You have these priorities of safety, timing, and getting the foundations right for RIS3. There must be some important decisions that will happen under your tenure as interim chief executive. Are there any that you already know need to happen after the permanent appointment?”

“Okay, that is interesting. It helps because that is part of the changing shape of the portfolio.”

“I mean strategic decisions where you think, “I can’t do that yet, we need the permanent appointment in place to do that.””

“I am sure we will come back on that. Does anybody else want to add to this discussion before we move on? No? Thank you.”

“Nick, you have recently taken the leadership role on an interim basis. What are your immediate priorities?”

“Before I come into a bit more detail on that, I know, Laurence, that you had a supplementary.”

“That is really clear, thank you. The delivery plan is coming up; that is a big strategic moment. What other big strategic decisions are you are facing?”

“Let us move on to the ORR; you are probably expecting questions on this. It has been reasonably critical, particularly on the issue of defining benefits and having a clear understanding of benefits, whether those are about schemes or strategies or overall approaches. How are you planning to address its concerns?”

“There is lots of nodding; you seem confident.”

“That makes sense, but you could still be doing something in a very efficient way that does not stack up in terms of benefits. Are you confident that this layers up to having a way of looking across the whole organisation and saying, “Yes, we are maximising the benefit potential across all the work that we do”?”

“I brought up the ORR’s critique of the need for a company-wide standard of benefits management approach earlier. It is easy to think that that applies to new big schemes and having standardised those, but renewals are a little tricky because the benefit arguably could be the road does not fail. Are we on track for havi…”

“Then it is the productivity of the undertaking, not the asset or the pound invested; the productivity of the works, the programme, even the contractor, or what are you measuring the productivity on?”

“The ORR report made it clear that it is concerned about RIS3. Are there any obvious lessons you have reflected on? I know you were not here at the time, but coming into the role, are there lessons already learned that you think will improve your prospects? Please feel free to defer to your colleagues if you need.”

“1. What steps she is taking to help ensure the illicit finance summit 2026 will tackle international economic crime.”

“On heating oil, members of the Chancellor’s Treasury team have been keen to point out that the small amount of funding—the equivalent of about £35 a household—was just the first step. Can she outline when the next step will come to support houses that are dependent on heating oil?”

“The summit is an opportunity for global action on the dirty money that flows through our financial systems, but the Foreign Secretary might rightly be asked by our international partners why overseas territories, who fly our flag and have our King as their Head of State, are preventing transparency and accountability f…”

“The hon. Member is perfectly entitled to upgrade his geographical reference to “fellow Member from Norfolk”, as a decent quarter of his constituency is in the same county as mine. He will know that a disproportionate percentage of the population in Norfolk is older. There is a tragic, understated reality. When I visit …”

“A couple of years ago, I recall a senior former Secretary of State from the Conservative party, who shall remain nameless for the purpose of this anecdote, saying how annoying it was that the Liberal Democrats had gained 72 seats. Previously, they knew we would work out the right answer to these complicated challenges …”