Examination of Witnesses (Questions 369
- 380)
MONDAY 16 APRIL 2007
MR SIMON
ROBBINS, MR
DEL BRENNER
AND MR
JOHN KEYES
Q369 Chairman: Welcome, gentlemen.
We are very pleased that you are able to join us. You know the
format. We will do exactly the same thing, starting with Simon
Robbins, then Del Brenner and on to John Keyes. If you could keep
your remarks to about five minutes, that would be very helpful
so we can get as many questions in as possible. Over to you, Simon.
Mr Robbins: Good afternoon, Chairman
and Members of the Committee. I will get on with it. I would like
to put a couple of suggestions to the Committee this afternoon.
The first thing I would like to suggest is that it is time to
consider permanent independent scrutiny of British Waterways and
all its activities. The reason I think it is time to consider
such serious measures is that I find British Waterways' approach
to many matters to be defensive, secretive, inefficient and bullying.
Their attitude towards the public and their representatives increasingly
seems to be, "Leave us alone and ask no questions, we know
what we are doing". Another reason to apply such rigorous
scrutiny to British Waterways, as was touched on earlier, is that
if, for example, English Heritage said, "We are going to
start selling off assets and will be redeveloping some of our
sites because we can't afford to pay for those we've got",
there would be a national outcry. Well, this seems to be precisely
the position that current funding policy forces British Waterways
into and that, in my view, has been happening for over a decade.
I believe it is also time to appoint more canal users to the British
Waterways Board, specifically as constituency representation for
the boaters and the boating businesses who are being asked to
put an increasing share of their income into British Waterways.
If this trend is to continue we should at least be entitled to
have an active say in how that money is raised and what it is
used for. Thank you.
Mr Brenner: I will get straight
to the point: are our canals in good hands? My answer is no, not
if you are talking about top management, that is British Waterways
and Government. I include Government here up until now maybe,
we will see. Concentrating on BW, British Waterways' role has
become too dominant and too controlling, almost obsessive, there
is a control freakery about it. BW has too much of a stranglehold.
What this means is that the waterways have been taken out of other
hands, that is obviously boaters and core users but also commercial
and freight interests, marina and boatyard owners, residential
moorers and so on, there is a long list of users and interests
and they are sidelined. An example is the initiative for freight
should be coming from industry and commerce but it seems that
it cannot develop without the behest of BW, and this is the wrong
way round. I would also like to identify at this stage the local
authorities. All the canals obviously run through one or other
local authority area stretch and that stretch of the canal should
be in their hands on behalf of the community. It is gratifying
that this Committee has homed in on the importance of local authorities,
who have not come to the surface. I do not think it is a lack
of interest on their part, it is all too often a lack of knowledge
and expertise within the councils, they do not know what to do
with the canals. To a great extent they have been disenfranchised,
they do not think they have a right or the responsibility to become
more deeply involved with the speciality of the waterways. I think
this is made clear in the UDPs in the London area anyway which
in most cases are very sound on waterway issues but the councils
do not know what to do with their own policies, which is a bit
sad really. Local authorities must be drawn in again and your
Committee's concern is most welcome, Chairman. There is a point
in passing, that we would like to scrutinise the BW local authority
road shows that are travelling around the country—BW mentioned
them at a previous meeting—about which there is very little
information available, surprise, surprise. We need to confirm
that BW is not taking any more into their own hands, thus disenfranchising
councils even further. Also at that level, the local authority
level in the London region, we had the London Plan in 2004. A
whole section of the London Plan, chapter 4C, is on the Blue Ribbon
Network. The waterways in London are categorised by that name.
The London Plan is the best thing that has happened to the canals
and the waterways in London for the last 30 years, that is no
exaggeration, regardless of Acts of Parliament and government
committees and so on. I commend the Blue Ribbon Network policies
in the London Plan to this Committee and I think every region
of the country, without exception, should have its Blue Ribbon
Network policies along similar lines. What did British Waterways
London do about the Blue Ribbon Network policies in the London
Plan? Of course they ignored them. They do not suit BW's schemes.
There are a number of examples where policies have opposed British
Waterways head on and BW carry on regardless. This also raises
a very good example about consultation. The London Plan took years
of discussion and drafting and we were involved in the drafting
process. There were endless meetings and months of consultation
followed by a public inquiry, too right. However if you look at
BW's Waterways and Development Plans, which went to every local
authority in the land, that was produced behind closed doors by
BW in 2003 without one word of consultation. In fact, no-one seemed
to know about it at all. I can confirm that the first IWAAC knew
about it was when they received the printed copy, and IWA likewise.
This is typical of BW. The same goes for their so-called water
space strategies and guidelines and things of that nature which
suddenly appear from nowhere. To get back to whose hands the canals
are in, the takeover as suggested, we need to look at this very
closely to see what has taken hold and also ask why. It is not
just about the operational financial framework of British Waterways
itself that I am referring to, it is the way in which this is
being operated and who the main protagonists are. The line of
inquiry is in whose interest is this? Who gains out of it? We
do not know the answers because BW have built a shell around themselves,
as you have heard. Why has this shell been made so impenetrable?
We have made cracks in the shell undoubtedly but the cracks need
to be widened to reveal what has been hidden. There is something
driving this and I am sure it is to do with money; it has to be.
In conclusion, we, that is the wider waterways' interests, have
got to take things into hand. The drive in initiative should come
from the bottom up. We also want a culture to develop that it
is okay to speak out about the canals and waterways, and that
would benefit everyone but we are going to need a lot of help.
To finish on a positive note, in London very recently TfL has
got water freight in their grasp and are developing a number of
very important initiatives for waterborne freight without British
Waterways. BW are engaged as a navigational authority just as
with freight initiatives on the Thames, for instance, the PLA
are involved, but it is a very encouraging example. One overall
comment to end, Chairman: we want our canals back, please. Thank
you.
Mr Keyes: Good afternoon, Chairman.
Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to give evidence
today. The usage of the canals has evolved from heavy goods haulage
to being enjoyed by millions of people. BW are to be congratulated
for their part in this transformation but, from the perspective
of a waterways user, BW do not look capable of becoming self-sufficient
on the incomes that the waterways alone can sustain. The radio
mast company has gone, as has the cable network business, the
online holiday booking website has been losing money and the marina
group has run into competition issues. Mooring fees and licence
groups only account for about seven per cent of BW's income. The
two pubs are apparently doing satisfactorily but none of these
will be capable of turning BW around financially to the point
of financial independence. However, management's challenge to
try and prove that the latter is possible, together with the pressing
need to keep the organisation afloat, seems to have resulted in
a damaging conflict of interest between BW's role as custodian
of the waterways and their drive to liquidate public assets in
order to raise money. Even as BW's financial crisis deepens, and
whilst this inquiry has been underway, we have learned that BW
are to put a further 80 pieces of canal side land on the market
and that most of these are currently let on a short-term basis
and house boatyards and warehouses, which is rather an all too
familiar story. When BW to decide to sell off some waterside land,
do they agonise over the paradox between their role as custodian
and steward and their need to raise income? The latter usually
takes priority with the justification put down to insufficient
government funding. It somehow gets left to planning departments
and concerned individuals to defend a thin brown line of canal
against BW's drive to eliminate waterside assets and convert them
into developments that will only satisfy land oriented demand.
Should BW not be the first to ask searching questions about the
operational value of the land, access to the water, potential
freight usage and the effects of their proposals on local communities
and businesses? This does not seem to be the case. So how efficiently
do BW generate income from their property portfolio and in what
way does all of it get ploughed back into the waterways? For a
member of the public it is almost impossible to know because BW
consistently deflects such questions on the grounds of commercial
confidentiality. BW's business as a publicly funded organisation
remains disturbingly private as more waterway assets fall under
private control with agendas not regulated according to the core
BW policy guidelines. If the network under BW's control is costing
£124 million a year to maintain, and there are 2,200 miles
of canal, then that works out at £56,363 per mile per year.
Robin Evans tells us that a huge amount of expenditure goes under
the water, which is worrying, but implies that the public do not
get to appreciate it. However, as a waterways user I find it extremely
hard to equate the claimed level of average expense with the poor
levels of maintenance evident along the track. It is very much
hoped that one of the actions of this inquiry will be to engage
in a very detailed and penetrating audit that will finally ventilate
the truth about how sustainable this particular incarnation of
BW really is. We believe that British Waterways grant-in-aid funding
should be restored, but not before there has been a root and branch
overhaul of the whole management system and senior personnel at
British Waterways. The membership of a restructured board should
include user group representatives serving upon it so that the
organisation can get some feeling back into its extremities and
the property development culture that has arisen moderated. Funding
should be paid at a level where BW are able to manage and maintain
and modernise the waterways in their charge and attract investment
without resorting to selling off public assets. As income streams
start to grow again in a less commercially stressed environment
funding could be reduced proportionately. Finally, may I say perhaps
a new Waterways Act of Parliament could be called for that properly
reflects the way in which the uses of the canals and rivers are
really evolving and includes legislation to protect these waterways
from pressures that currently threaten to overwhelm them. Thank
you.
Q370 Chairman: Thank you, gentlemen.
Can I just ask the initial question, and that is how much engagement
do the three of you have with BW? Are you involved in any of the
formal bodies that have taken evidence or are you basically working
off your own bat?
Mr Robbins: Maybe if I can start
that. I am a council member of the National Association of Boat
Owners and I am the National Association of Boat Owners representative
on a thing called the British Waterways Moorings Contracts Working
Group. I was a consultee to the then Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister on residential boating issues, so I have a very active
engagement with British Waterways, but I cannot speak for my colleagues.
I am also a member of the London Waterways Commission.
Mr Brenner: I have a fairly active
involvement with Waterways at the lower level. At the moment I
have not got a very active engagement with the executive at the
higher level and I have made it clear that I will not have regular
meetings and discussions with them until they start listening,
and that is how things stand on that. Nevertheless, on a day-to-day
basis in the locality I deal with British Waterways. I am an active
member of the User Group Association of Boat Owners. I am also
a member of the London Waterways Commission, which is a GLA advisory
group that engages with BW at that level.
Mr Keyes: I, on the other hand,
am a relative newcomer. I have only been involved with British
Waterways for the last 18 months through having been elected to
be a spokesman for the residential boaters, People of Jericho,
in Oxford. Through negotiation, sometimes at quite high level,
I have got to know quite a few BW managers and to interact with
them, which I have to say is a task that has been very, very trying
at times because you can engage with them and they will be perfectly
agreeable and make promises but they never materialise. That is
about the extent of my involvement with BW today.
Q371 Chairman: You heard the previous
evidence session where there were some fairly stark opinions on
the degree to which BW as a developer should be distinct from
BW as a manager of the network. You have touched on those issues,
but what fears do you have if BW becomes much more orientated
towards developing its waterside sites as a way in which it could
generate sufficient income to be able to bridge this gap at the
moment?
Mr Brenner: I think our fears
have already been realised. There is enormous neglect on British
Waterways' part of its navigation duties, its stewardship duties
on the waterways and its property development, and a very serious
conflict of interest. There is one that has just arisen with which
I am dealing on Limehouse Cut where British Waterways has two
sites very close together, one where British Waterways objected
to a five storey building which they thought should be set back
from the water because of the negative impact on the water, and
they then were involved with a 12 storey building just a few hundred
yards down the Cut that they had no objection to and no comment
about whatever because they were involved with a company called
H2O Urban as a partner, so they made no comment about the development
in any way at all. That is one example but there are many others.
I can give you the rather tragic situation at Brentford where
there was a total compromise. There are many examples like that
where there are serious conflicts of interest and this is a matter
that is already influencing the situation.
Mr Keyes: Personally I do not
have an issue with British Waterways developing genuinely brownfield
land. There are cases like Diglis Wharf where you have got a central
location which has been used for the trans-shipment of goods and
it is clearly not appropriate in this day and age but when BW
developed that site they did not replace those facilities which
are probably now going to be needed if they carry forward with
their intentions of putting freight back on the waterways. Similarly,
at Castle Mill Boatyard in Oxford, the local plan stipulated that
the lost facilities should be replaced and the Government inspector's
report upheld this at appeal and those facilities are supposed
to be replaced at an equally accessible and suitable location.
We have been working with BW for the last year or so with a view
to helping them achieve this aim so they can get their planning
permission and they can get on with selling the site, however
they have sold the site on without planning permission for considerably
less than what it was worth, which I understand is in breach of
one of their founding statutes under the 1968 Transport Act which
insists they get the best value, and the community in Oxford still
does not have a boatyard. It is not so much a development problem,
it is inappropriate development and failure to replace facilities
which are, after all, waterways facing. The other issue I have
is that a lot of their developments are very much land-based,
in other words offices and housing, and do not reflect the character,
heritage or use of the waterways.
Q372 David Lepper: Mr Robbins, in
your evidence you say: "My impression is that British Waterways
are relying far too heavily on local authority planning processes
to do (or not) the sorts of consultation that they should ideally
be undertaking from the outset".1[9]
I think you suggest that either an unwillingness or cack-handedness
in dealing with those who might be their partners might well have
jeopardised some of the kinds of property dealings that we have
been discussing this afternoon. Could you just say a little more
about that?
Mr Robbins: There is a whole lot
more I could say about that.
Q373 David Lepper: Within the time
constraints available.
Mr Robbins: Certainly. I draw
a comparison with the sector I work in professionally, which is
the public housing sector. I work as a management consultant specialising
in regeneration and stock transfer of housing estates. If I compare
the lengths my clients go to when they are proposing to knock
down something as small as a 1,000 unit housing estate in terms
of the consultation they do, the contact they make with users,
the extent they all do that, with the way British Waterways approach
property development, there is no comparison. That is why I have
said in my submission it seems to me, and one of the other witnesses
touched on this a little bit earlier on, British Waterways just
from a purely business point of view should be doing that sort
of preparation on their schemes in advance and they do not do
it. John Keyes can talk more about that. The worst case example
is the Castle Mill situation in Oxford.
Chairman: That is an invitation to John
Keyes. We have got your written evidence but just pithily explain
to us what you think went wrong.
Q374 David Lepper: Does Mr Keyes
feel it is a lack of the right expertise within British Waterways
or is it what others have described as an overbearing attitude
which makes them fail to see what they ought to be doing?
Mr Keyes: I think it is a lack
of the correct expertise. I do not think that British Waterways
have attracted the right kind of staff. There is an increasing
number of property specialists who clearly have interests which
are understandably very different from those that we hold dear
concerning the waterways and we believe they have an overweening
interest. I put it down to serious mismanagement. We took the
view that it is a great shame that a boatyard is going to be lost
after 170 years but times move on, you cannot put industrial smack
bang next door to residential any more, and all BW were asked
to do was to comply with the local plan, not to comply with the
wishes of a few distressed boaters. Support came from the city
council and even from the judge who eventually evicted the boaters
from the site. There has been massive mismanagement, they have
squandered a large proportion of the four million quid they got
for the site in legal fees struggling with Oxford City Council,
alienating the local community and completely mismanaging the
whole thing. We have been trying to encourage them to take the
steps to get their planning permission and they have fallen down
100 per cent, I am sad to say. We have looked for glimmers of
hope and taken it to various different managers, gone to the board,
gone to senior managers, but it has been like a stick of seaside
rock, and my contention is that the incompetence seems to run
right through it, up to and including the board and senior management
itself.
Mr Robbins: Very briefly on that
situation, the Committee was asking about my contacts and involvement
with British Waterways. I have made various attempts to broker
contact between British Waterways at director level and the community
in Oxford and I have to say it was like a phrase I call cutting
treacle with a railway sleeper. I think you get the general impression.
Q375 Mr Jack: In your evidence, Mr
Robbins, you say: "There is also a fear amongst some stakeholders
that BW are currently so financially fragile that they are unduly
commercially exposed".[10]
Can you give us some further solid evidence to support that? What
are the consequences of that statement?
Mr Robbins: The honest answer
is I cannot give you solid evidence for reasons that other people
have touched on. When we try to seek solid evidence of what is
going on financially with British Waterways we seem to keep meeting
with hurdles. I have got some papers in a file here, and I will
not go through them because I do not think there is time, but
it took approximately 18 months for British Waterways Advisory
Forum—this is supposed to be the senior consultative body
in British Waterways that directly reports to the board—from
them asking British Waterways to produce a document explaining
the basics of how their property portfolio worked and even that
did not go into the financial details. The other thing I would
point to is I think it was in the transcripts of British Waterways'
evidence when Robin Evans made a very interesting point about
how British Waterways' income is reliant on dividends rather than
rent. You were talking earlier on about risk, and dividends are
a risk and that does not seem to me to be a very stable or reliable
financial basis on which to proceed.
Q376 Mr Jack: Are you able to substantiate
paragraph 43 of what you put in as evidence to us where you say:
"However, I believe BW have reached the point where most
of the family silver on which to base such activities has been
exploited (not always successfully). There is therefore a fear
and increasing evidence that BW are becoming engaged in much more
speculative activities."
Mr Robbins: I am not sure I can
provide you with much evidence on the first part of your question
for the reasons I said: to get such evidence I rely on British
Waterways and I do not find them at all forthcoming on this point.
On the speculative side of things, I touch on what I was saying
before. The section I referred to was where it was the Chairman
of British Waterways who talked about reinvesting capital into
other capital projects and not being able to take capital out.
Again, there is no real scrutiny of where and why particular sums
of money are being invested. There was an example about two years
ago where British Waterways reportedly spent £25 million
or thereabouts buying a wharf building next to the canal in Camden.
That may be a sensible idea as a speculative property development
but apart from the fact that the building is next to the canal
I am not quite sure what it has to do with the waterways.
Q377 Mr Jack: Mr Brenner, in your
evidence which focuses, I think understandably, on matters connected
with London, would you like to say a word or two about the freight
potential? If you could just park the Olympics project for one
moment because I think we have been pretty well advised on that
and we are going to have a look at it; in a major metropolis like
London what potential exists for meaningful development of freight
traffic?
Mr Brenner: I think it has got
enormous potential. I am an optimist but realistically you have
got to look further ahead than most people look. They say, "There
is a niche opportunity for freight" but I think it is a great
deal better than that with a bit of vision. In London there is
a 30 mile stretch without any locks at all and that is a wide
waterway for 14 foot barges, so there is the potential for a very
substantial highway right through one of the greatest cities and
if it cannot be taken advantage of then I do not know what is
going on. It also runs straight through Park Royal, which is one
of the largest industrial sites in Europe, and, again, if it cannot
take advantage of that I would be very surprised. It is more than
a niche market, it is more than aggregates or waste/recyclates.
Waste/recyclates is a big issue in London and there is a great
deal of upheaval at the moment with the Mayor deciding to reorganise
the whole of London's waste, a great deal of which is already
taken by the water, not on the canals, down the Thames to Mucking
in the Thames Estuary. Nevertheless, there is a great opportunity
which will spread on to the canals. Containerisation is a great
opportunity. That has revolutionised freight since the demise
of the canals and I do not think how containerisation can be taken
advantage of on the canals has been considered carefully. As an
example, there is a huge industrial site at Tottenham Hale up
the Lee Navigation, which is a commercial waterway, and it is
one of the seven largest waterways in the country. An enormous
number of containers go from Tottenham Hale to Tilbury. There
is a direct route from Tottenham Hale to Tilbury down the Lee
Navigation through Bow Locks and down the Thames on a direct line
to Tilbury without going near the roads. It needs to be looked
at in a broader way and with a bit of vision there is great potential
for it. Not long-haul. I suspect that something like Tottenham
Hale to Tilbury would be considered a long-haul. There are not
many locks so it is quite a suitable route, but generally on the
canals it would be short-haul, and certainly not like in the city
or anything like it was in the old days, certainly within the
London region. In fact, with the development of King's Cross,
which I have been involved with for the last three or four years
almost on a weekly basis, we are developing a route for supplying
supermarkets with food in King's Cross. People believe it probably
takes weeks to get there but we can supply supermarket goods from
Park Royal to King's Cross within four hours, which is not quite
as fast as a truck but not far off. Including even refrigerated
goods because there is no reason why there should not be refrigerated
containers. We have taken that example which we are still developing
and I am afraid that the authorities at King's Cross and Camden
have not taken it up, we are still developing the idea, but it
provides an exceedingly good example. Whether it comes off or
not is another matter.
Q378 Mr Jack: Can I just ask who
the "we" are?
Mr Brenner: I am the Vice-Chair
of the King's Cross Forum, so we are dealing with the matter on
behalf of the community in the area. I very often use the term
"we" because I work with other organisations, very often
running what is called the Regents Network. It is not an organisation,
it is a network, and I call myself the spokesman of the Network,
very often voicing other people's points of view. The information
I give to you, where do you think I get that? I get that from
the operators and other people. I act as a spokesman in that way.
"We" means me expressing it but very often with the
engagement of other people.
Q379 Mr Williams: Mr Brenner, you
have given us some examples of good practice from local government
in London in terms of the users of the waterways network but in
general perhaps it is thought that the relationship between British
Waterways and local government is not as good as it should be.
Could you give some examples of how that relationship could be
improved? As I understand it, at the moment local authorities
have a power to work as partners with British Waterways but there
is no duty and in that sense no initiative. I do not know whether
you have any thoughts on those matters?
Mr Brenner: I would rather put
it in the way that British Waterways does not work with local
authorities, which is very seriously lacking. I go round to an
enormous number of local authority meetings, planning meetings
particularly, probably fighting last ditch battles against planning
applications which are detrimental to the waterways, and I am
not always a lone voice because there are other waterway people
there, local residents and so on, but who is never there? British
Waterways is never there, and I mean never. You never, ever see
them at planning meetings. Very often the written input into the
planning consultation is either very meagre, not there at all
or "no comment". It is very rarely of any practical
use or informative. When we respond to planning applications we
do make it informative because with the local authorities who
do not know a lot about the waterways we want to assist them to
acknowledge the waterways and understand the waterways so that
they can take the decision rather than us telling them what to
decide. Informing the local authorities is very important, it
is crucial, but BW does not do it, they are just not there. What
are they up to? They have 140-plus staff in London and increasing,
we do not know what half the staff do.
Q380 Sir Peter Soulsby: Can I just
return briefly, Mr Brenner, to the example you gave of potential
for the use of freight. I was very taken by the figures Sir Adrian
gave us earlier about the economics of freight. Is it not true
that use of the sort you described, while superficially attractive,
is never going to add up? Even the example you gave of four hours
there and four hours back to serve supermarkets is never going
to make commercial sense to anybody, is it?
Mr Brenner: Four hours there and
four hours back with a barge which will take four lorries off
the road. A lorry might take about half the time to get there
but that one barge is doing four lorries worth, so there is an
economic issue there. This does need to be thought through. We
are coming across a lot of problems on the economy of scale and
to do a one-off setup for that King's Cross example is not perfectly
viable, although it is pretty good. What we really want to do
is to prime some sort of freight initiative in London so that
everybody sees the freight working on the waterways and hopefully
they will see the example and want a bit of it. From all of the
industrial people we have talked to, all the people on the waterways,
there is no ill-will at all, they want to have a part of it, but
say, "We don't do freight any more otherwise we would love
to be involved". Once something kicks in I think it will
snowball. We need to have some sort of vision to try to see if
we can make it work somehow. I have not got the answers, I am
quite honest about that. We have dealt with it so much and talked
to so many people that it has got a lot of people behind it.
Mr Robbins: Just a very quick
comment on freight. I agree in part with Sir Peter's query that
freight in itself is not likely to save the waterways, and I think
other speakers have said that to you pretty much throughout. What
I do object to is it is something that I would call a bread and
butter activity, it is not exciting, it is not going to save British
Waterways, but it is navigation. They are a navigation authority
first and foremost and they should be encouraging it. They should
not necessarily be subsidising it. That is what concerns me, that
I do not even see that encouragement where it is possible being
followed through. A very quick example: there was a whole story
about a planning application for the wharf in Willesden where
I heard from the local authority that they were completely confused
by British Waterways' presentation of the scheme but it was campaigned
for and at least two of us at this table worked with the local
community and planners to explain what it was about. That is the
sort of thing that alarms me when it comes to freight.
Mr Keyes: I do not think you can
put freight back on to the narrow gauge canals any more than you
can revert to a horse and cart because it is low carbon, but in
areas of high congestion where lorry loads travel extremely slowly
and cause quite a lot of damage to the carriageway and you have
got the whole traffic problem I think freight has a part to play.
I also believe it is sustainable and it is quite possible, I would
imagine, to get some kind of carbon credit or something in return
for the fact that a barge uses nine times less fuel or carbon
per tonne than a lorry does. I imagine it could be financially
sustainable even if, as Simon says, it is not producing a huge
amount of money. I think the waterways authority have an obligation
to facilitate it wherever it is possible.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much
for your evidence. You heard what I said previously, that what
has been said is said and cannot be unsaid but there may be some
additional points you wish to emphasise or enhance and we are
willing to receive them. I thank you for your evidence and for
coming all this way in some cases. It will be written up and published
and will play a key part in our evidence and our eventual report.
Thank you very much. If you could exit stage left we will get
in our final three witnesses.
9 Ev 142 para 53. Back
10
Ev 142 para 49 Back
|
