Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
20 October 2026
Contents updated on 20 Oct 2026
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Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee House of Commons
Follow its sittings00:07 - 00:48
Speaker 6
Order, order. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this meeting of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. We return to our ongoing inquiry this morning into reform of the water sector, and we shall be dealing today with questions around ownership of companies within the sector. We've three panels, so we're going to try and keep a good pace. Welcome to you all, gentlemen.
Just for the benefit of those who are following our proceedings and for indeed for our own official record, can I invite you just to introduce yourselves to the committee, and we'll start with yourself, Hugh.
00:48 - 01:15
Speaker 7
Yes. Good morning, everybody. My name's Hugh Goldsmith. I am currently visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, where I teach infrastructure economics and finance. But before that, I was head of the water and waste management division at the European Investment Bank.
That's my background.
01:15 - 01:54
Speaker 1
Hi, good morning. My name is John Abraham. I'm the Chief Operating Officer for industrial water and energy at Veolia, covering the UK and Nordics. I'm a civil engineer, Fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineers and the Chartered Institute of Environmental Managers. Spent nearly 40 years in water and wastewater and energy across design and build, operations and maintenance.
And my responsibilities include several major PFI contracts for Scottish Water, Northern Ireland Water, the Ministry of Defence. I've a few other words about Veolia, but maybe later on. Thanks.
01:54 - 02:08
Speaker 3
My name is David Lloyd Owen. I have been following the water sector since the late 1980s, firstly as an equity analyst and for the last three decades as an independent consultant.
02:08 - 02:45
Speaker 6
Right. Well, listen, thank you all very much for your attendance. And that's a timely prompt, David, to say that your experience goes back to the 1980s, because that's where I want to start, back in the mists of time. Believe it or not, I was still an undergraduate in 1989. But I want just maybe to take for yourself, David and Hugh, but John, feel free to chip in if you feel moved.
02:45 - 02:59
Speaker 8
The logic of privatization as it was carried out in 1989, what were the problems? If privatization was the answer, what was the questions that were posed at that point? David, I'll start with yourself.
02:59 - 03:27
Speaker 3
I think when you look at privatization per se, it's not that it was very well expressed actually quite recently by the new head of Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, that it's not necessarily the management or the model that matters, it is the regulatory model that matters. And there has been a clear and present failure in regulation, most definitely for the last 15 years, arguably for the last 20 years.