Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the National Grid full -year results presentation. I'm Nick Ashworth, Director of Investor Relations, and I'm here with our Chief Executive, John Pettigrew, and CFO, Andy Agg. I'm pleased that we're able to join you this morning by video and that we'll be able to see you ask questions by video. Instructions are on your webcast screen. Before we start, I'd like to draw your attention to the cautionary statement that you'll find at the top of the presentation. After the presentation, as usual, the IR team will be available by phone to help if you have any further questions. With that, I'll hand over to our CEO, John Pettigrew. John? Thank you, Nick, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call. As usual, I'm joined by Andy Agg, our CFO, and following the presentation, we'll both be happy to take your questions. A lot has happened over the past year. We performed strongly during the pandemic and delivered solid financial performance, testament to the resilience of our businesses and the commitment of our people. It's from this position of strength that we announced our acquisition of WPD in March. This is a transformational development for National Grid, increasing our focus on electricity, putting us firmly at the heart of the energy transition, and enhancing the long-term growth profile of the group. This transaction, alongside our decision to sell a majority stake in our U.K. gas transmission business, combined with a greater level of regulatory certainty, underpins the new five-year outlook that we're announcing today. First, let me start with the financial performance for the year. On an underlying basis, that is, excluding the impact of timing, major storms, and exceptional items, operating profit of GBP 3.3 billion was 3% below last year at constant currency, driven by the financial impact of COVID. Consequently, underlying earnings per share was down 7% to GBP 0.542, and group return on equity was 10.6%. Excluding the increase in cost due to COVID, financial performance across our regulated businesses was in line with last year. Andy will cover the impact of COVID in more detail shortly, but as I've said previously, we expect to recover the majority of these costs over the medium term. Despite the challenges brought about by COVID, we've delivered another strong year of investment in critical infrastructure. Capital expenditure was in line with guidance at GBP 5 billion, similar to the prior year at constant currency and adjusting for the Geronimo acquisition. This has driven group asset growth of 6%. In line with our policy, the board has proposed a final dividend of GBP 0.3216 per share. This takes the total dividend for the year to GBP 0.4916, an increase of 1.21% in line with U.K. RPI. Looking forward and reflecting the move from RPI to CPIH in our U.K.-regulated businesses, the board announced in March our aim to grow the annual dividend per share in line with U.K. CPIH. Turning next to our safety and reliability performance. Safety is at the heart of performance across our businesses. FY 2021 saw our Lost Time Injury Frequency Rates reduce, with the U.K. delivering the best-ever year of safety. In the U.S., we also saw a fall in our Lost Time Injury Frequency Rates, while in National Grid Ventures, we've seen a small rise in minor incidents and are redoubling our efforts to reverse this trend. Turning to reliability, performance has remained excellent across our U.K. and U.S.-regulated networks. In particular, I'm really pleased with how the teams have adapted to the change in demand patterns we've seen over the past 12 months. In the U.K., the electricity system operator developed new innovative services to manage periods of very low levels of demand, coupled with high levels of renewable generation. We implemented learnings from the storms in 2018 to manage the highest gas demand seen in a decade without incident or disruption to our customers. In the U.S., our electricity network reliability remained excellent at over 99.9%. However, the significant number of severe storms we experienced throughout the year, particularly in Massachusetts, led us to incur a service quality penalty of $14 million. We're continuing to take action to improve performance during storms as well as to realign our regulatory frameworks, which I'll talk about shortly. Overall, I'm pleased to say we delivered another good year of safety and reliability against a challenging backdrop, and this outcome underpinned our resilient operational performance, which I'll cover now. Starting with the U.S., where we've made good operational progress against our targets. Our financial performance has been impacted by the additional costs of COVID and a greater number of storms, with our achieved return on equity decreasing by 210 basis points to 7.2%. Adjusting for these headwinds and the impact of rate case delays shows our return on equity at 8.6%, or 92% of our allowed return. As we highlighted at our half-year results, and as the slide shows, we've seen a greater number of storms across our regions in the past year. However, we've made strong progress to minimize their impact through upgrading our infrastructure and undertaking weather impact studies, as well as introducing new digital technologies in areas such as vegetation management. Our success at reducing their impact means more storms are being categorized as minor, which do not qualify for cost deferral and recovery. We're therefore developing new mechanisms for future rate cases that will both incentivize improved storm performance and provide a greater level of upfront cost recovery. During the year, we increased investment in critical infrastructure by GBP 200 million to GBP 4.3 billion, with our single largest area of investment continuing to be our gas pipe replacement program. Despite challenges due to COVID, we managed to deliver over 350 mi of mains replacement, exceeding our initial target of 300 mi. This means we're now well over halfway through the 20,000 mi we've identified that we need to replace. This enabled us to continue to deliver strong rate-based growth of 8% in FY 2021. On the regulatory front, we made significant progress this year. We've reached a joint proposal with the New York Public Service Commission staff for KEDNY and KEDLI in Downstate, New York. The three-year settlement, which includes an allowable ROE of 8.8%, will see us invest $3.3 billion to modernize gas infrastructure and enhance network safety and support a sustainable and affordable path towards a low-carbon energy future. In Upstate New York, the new filings for our Niagara Mohawk business are in settlement discussions. We expect an outcome sometime this summer. In November, we filed a five-year rate plan for our Massachusetts gas business. Hearings are underway, and we expect the new rates to be effective from October this year. Finally, it's also been a good year for our electricity transmission business. With increasing focus on delivering greater levels of renewable energy, the New York Power Authority has selected National Grid as its partner in the Northern New York Priority Transmission project. This project will see us invest an estimated $500 million over four years to rebuild a 100-mile transmission line, supporting the state in meeting its clean energy goals. Moving to the U.K., where FY 2021 marked the end of a very successful RIIO-T1 period. Through the eight years, our total investment reached over GBP 12.5 billion and generated over GBP 850 million of savings for customers. In our last year of T1, we achieved a return on equity of 12.6% within our target range of 200 - 300 basis points of outperformance. I'm really pleased to say that this year, in both our electricity and gas transmission businesses, we saw our highest customer and stakeholder satisfaction scores of the T1 period. We continued our capital program with GBP 1.2 billion of investment, leading to 2.2% asset growth. Spend was driven by significant progress on our Hinkley-Seabank connection and the second phase of our London Power Tunnels project. This was partly offset by lower spend in gas transmission following the completion of the Feeder 9 project. We're also investing in new technology that's helping support connecting increasing levels of renewable generation on our electricity transmission system. Working with a Californian company called Smart Wires, we're installing smart power flow control devices that increase our network capacity without the need to build new lines. This is the first time this solution has been used at transmission voltages, and we've already commissioned three circuits with a further two expected this summer. On the gas side, we've made significant advances with hydrogen. For example, our ambitious Future Grid project, which is the largest of its kind in the world, will test the options for repurposing the existing transmission network to hydrogen. Finally, our focus in the U.K. over the last 12 months has very much been in reaching a successful outcome for RIIO-T2. Over the five-year price control, we expect substantially higher investment levels than in RIIO-T1, particularly in electricity transmission, where we expect to spend around GBP 8 billion on asset health, system reinforcement to connect offshore renewable generation, and other new onshore system connections. While we were pleased with the improved package around investment levels in the final determination, we still believe there's a strong technical argument for a higher overall cost of equity and view the outperformance wedge as conceptually flawed. The CMA has recently granted permission for our appeal, and we'll work closely with them as this process moves forward through the summer. Looking now at National Grid Ventures and our other businesses. Investment of GBP 576 million was primarily focused on delivery of our interconnectors. IFA2 was commissioned in January. The North Sea Link with Norway and the Viking Link with Denmark are on track to come online in 2021 and 2024. Working in collaboration with Elia and TenneT, we're continuing to assess the feasibility of offshore multipurpose interconnectors and believe they can play a key role in enabling the U.K. government's ambition for 40 GW of offshore wind. We've been successful in our Humber Carbon Capture project, receiving a contribution of GBP 56 million from government to develop a system to capture, transport, and store carbon emissions from industries in the Humber and Teesside areas in partnership with a number of oil and gas majors. Moving to the U.S., our onshore renewables business continues to grow following the completion of our acquisition of Geronimo last year, now named National Grid Renewables. The business operates over 400 MW of renewable generation, with another 600 MW currently under construction, including Noble, our solar and battery project in Texas, which we expect to begin operations in the first half of 2022. With regard to our other businesses, year-over-year profitability was lower as a result of fewer land development sales in our property division. To summarize, we've delivered strong performance across our operations in a very challenging year. With our announced transaction in March, we further strengthened the resilience of our business as we look to the future. Having spent some time reviewing the year just gone, and before moving on to talk about our new five-year outlook, I'd like to spend a moment talking about why I think our portfolio mix is the right one. National Grid is one of a handful of FTSE 100 companies to have consistently grown its dividend for over 20 years, helped by the balance between different regulatory regimes in the U.S. and the U.K., and the ebb and flow of CapEx requirements as we've seen growth rise and fall at different times in different jurisdictions. The geographic and regulatory diversity has been key to delivering strong returns with an annualized total shareholder return of nearly 10% over the past 10 years, versus the FTSE 100 delivering just under 6%. Following the completion of our transactions, I'm confident that this diversity will continue to underpin our performance in the years ahead, given the exciting opportunities we see, including the connection of offshore wind, the infrastructure requirements for EV charging, the critical investment in safety and clean gas growth; and, in our National Grid Ventures business, the opportunities with interconnectors and renewables. As you can see, our portfolio places us firmly at the heart of the energy transition. It's against this backdrop that today, for the first time, we're setting out our longer -term expectations for the group. The next five years will see us increase our CapEx to between 30 billion GBP and 35 billion GBP, the highest-ever level of investment for National Grid. As we finalize the purchase of WPD and crystallize our planned asset sales, together with this higher level of investment, we expect to deliver group asset growth of 6%-8% per annum on average to 2026. We'll deliver this growth whilst maintaining a strong balance sheet with comfortable headroom at our current credit rating level throughout the period. Growth in our assets drives growth in our earnings, with group underlying EPS expected to grow by 5%-7% per annum on average through to 2026, and to be at or above the top end of our range in the early years of this period. This will continue to support our policy of growing the dividend in line with CPIH. With that, I'll now hand over to Andy to go through our full -year results as well as provide a little more detail on our five-year plan. I'll then come back and talk about our priorities and outlook for the coming year. Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Before covering the group's full year performance, I'd like to provide the details of the COVID financial impacts we've experienced during this year. Firstly, I'd like to start by saying that I'm really pleased with the performance we've delivered. Our teams have done a great job in mitigating direct COVID costs against a tough operating backdrop while continuing to deliver the service our customers expect. Against our guidance of a GBP 400 million underlying operating profit impact from COVID, we've seen an impact of GBP 355 million. Additionally, in the last few weeks, we've recognized GBP 59 million revenue recovery in FY 2021 for the commodity portion of some of our COVID bad debts. Therefore, our year-end underlying operating profit impact from COVID is GBP 296 million. This is made up of a residual bad debt cost of GBP 120 million, a shortfall of revenue under existing rate plans of GBP 78 million, net direct COVID costs of GBP 28 million, and a GBP 70 million impact from delays to new rates being approved in KEDNY and KEDLI. We also guided to a cash flow impact from COVID of up to GBP 1 billion for the full year, with our final cash impact being around GBP 600 million, with some elements ultimately being smaller than initially estimated. As our regions emerge from COVID during FY 2022, we continue to expect an impact to be felt from weaker demand and reduced cash collection from our U.S. customers. As I said before, in the U.S., we remain confident that we'll be able to recover the majority of these COVID-related costs, either through the usual regulatory mechanisms or through separate filings. Turning now to the overall group performance for the year, which was resilient in the face of COVID, delivering a solid financial performance. As John has mentioned, underlying operating profit was GBP 3.3 billion, down 3% at constant currency versus last year, mainly reflecting the impact of favorable net income from rate case increases across our U.S.-regulated businesses. Lower controllable costs in our U.K.-regulated businesses, which altogether were more than offset by higher depreciation in U.K. electricity transmission and the impact of COVID, including the bad debts in our U.S. business. EPS was down 7% at GBP 0.542, reflecting COVID-related costs, a weaker U.S. dollar, and lower property sales, all partly offset by lower financing costs. Our resilient operational performance was also reflected in the 10.6% group return on equity, and our value added per share was GBP 0.513. Our asset base grew by 5.6%, reflecting capital investment of GBP 5 billion, in line with our guidance. The full-year dividend of GBP 49.16 per share is up 1.2%, in line with our policy, and the board has recommended a final dividend of GBP 32.16. Now, looking at the performance of each of our segments in detail. UK Electricity Transmission delivered another year of strong operational performance, achieving a 13.9% return on equity, 370 basis points above the allowed. TOTEX incentives contributed 240 basis points from our streamlined capital delivery processes in load and non-load projects savings. Other incentives and legacy allowances contributed 130 basis points, 50 basis points above last year. Underlying operating profit of GBP 1.1 billion was down 4%, largely due to the impact of COVID and higher depreciation. The UK efficiency program continued to deliver savings, with a further GBP 34 million was 3% higher than last year, primarily due to continued spend on the second phase of the London Power Tunnels project and the Hinkley Seabank project. This investment, along with the inflation-linked growth in the RAV, increased our year-end regulated asset value by 3.1% to GBP 14.6 billion. UK gas transmission delivered a return on other incentive performance at 90 basis points was below last year due to lower shrinkage performance. Underlying operating profit of GBP 438 million was up GBP 36 million, or 9%, compared to FY 2020. This is primarily due to higher revenues year-on-year RPI uplift and lower controllable costs. Capital investment was GBP 176 million, GBP 73 million lower than last year due to the completion of several large projects and lower spend on compressor projects and IT infrastructure. including inflation, the regulated asset value was flat year-on-year at GBP 6.3 billion. Turning now to our U.S. business. The return on equity excluding COVID, high levels of non-deferrable storm costs, and the impact of rate case delays that John mentioned was 8.6%, 92% of the allowed level. After taking account of storms and incremental COVID costs, the return on equity was 7.2%. Underlying operating profit was GBP 1.5 billion, driven by an increase in net revenues of GBP 216 million at constant currency, reflecting rate increases in capital trackers, more than offset by an increase in controllable costs due to higher IT costs and inflation, high depreciation due to growth in the rate base, and a year-on-year increase in COVID costs. We've increased investment in our U.S. networks to $4.3 billion, driving strong rate base growth of 8% to $27.6 billion. Assets outside rate base, excluding working capital, grew year-over-year to GBP 3.2 billion, reflecting our investment in several multi-year projects that we expect to be coming into service in future years. National Grid Ventures contributed GBP 354 million, an increase of 5% on last year, including the first period of operation for IFA2, our second interconnector to France. Grain LNG profits were higher than last year due to the extension of asset lives in line with our new contracts. Metering profits fell less than expected, reflecting a slower decline in our legacy meter population. Capital investment decreased significantly to GBP 509 million, mainly driven by the non-recurrence of the acquisition of Geronimo and lower investment in our interconnector projects as they progress towards completion. Our other activities had a net charge of GBP 61 million, GBP 34 million higher than prior year, reflecting fewer property sales and slightly higher insurance costs. Our venture capital business, National Grid Partners, invested GBP 38 million, GBP 21 million lower than FY 2020 at constant currency due to reduced activity at the start of the year in the early months of COVID. Financing costs decreased by 8% at constant currency to GBP 942 million, mostly due to lower RPI and favorable borrowing rates. The effective interest rate for the year decreased from 4.1% to 3.2%. The underlying effective tax rate was 21.2%, 130 basis points higher than FY 2020, primarily as a result of a smaller impact on tax credits relating to prior years. Underlying earnings were down 5% at GBP 1.9 billion, and underlying earnings per share decreased 7% to GBP 0.542. Operating cash flow was GBP 4.6 billion, GBP 300 million lower than last year, driven by increased storm costs, lower U.S. customer collections, and reduced U.K. revenues. During the year, we raised over GBP 5.6 billion of senior debt, and the year-end closing net debt was GBP 29.7 billion, including a GBP 1.6 billion favorable movement from exchange rates. After adjusting for Rhode Island as an asset held for sale, the revised closing net debt was GBP 28.6 billion. Our regulatory gearing for the year was at 65%, and the RCF to debt and FFO debt metrics were 6.6% and 11.7%, respectively. These both reflect lower revenues and COVID costs, and as we have previously said, the credit agencies have signaled they are willing to look through any short-term COVID-related weakness. Going forward, we expect to be comfortably positioned in our new rating band, and this rating position, coupled with our regulatory frameworks, means we're well placed as we look to the future. Turning to our guidance and starting with the current year. As usual, business-by-business detail is given in our forward guidance section in the results statement. This forward guidance is based on our existing businesses for the entire year. Given this scenario, we expect FY 2022 underlying EPS growth to be towards or above the top end of the 5%-7% growth range as set out in our five-year guidance. Our earnings outlook will change as the transactions move forward through the course of the year. We expect to provide guidance on WPD by half-year results, and WPD's earnings will be included in group results from the point of deal completion. We expect to commence the sale process for a majority stake in Gas Transmission in the second half of this financial year. Therefore, under accounting rules, we expect this business to be classified as a discontinued operation. This means we'll have to remove all of its contribution to the group results when this change in disclosure is made. For Rhode Island, we would expect to include it in earnings in our FY 2022 results up to the point of sale completion. Putting this together, we still expect to deliver FY 2022 underlying EPS at or above the top end of the 5%-7% growth range as set out in our five-year guidance. Turning now to that longer-term guidance. As you'll have seen earlier, our five-year financial framework is presented based on WPD being a full member of our group, the sale of Rhode Island completing by the end of the financial year, and the sale of a majority stake of Gas Transmission completing during FY 2023. We're confident in the visibility that the GBP 30 billion-GBP 35 billion group investment levels in FY 2026 gives us, and I'd like to give a little more detail about this. In the U.K., we expect investment levels of around GBP 8 billion in electricity transmission will be needed during the RIIO-T2 period. As we explained when we accepted the majority of the T2 package, this will cover asset health, anticipatory and system reinforcement to facilitate offshore generation, and other new onshore system connections. We expect the WPD networks to be investing GBP 4 billion-GBP 5 billion over the next five years in asset maintenance, facilitating the infrastructure for electric vehicles, and directly connected generation. In our U.S. businesses, we expect investment of around GBP 17 billion over the years to FY 2026. As we've previously explained, this includes safety-related projects in our gas networks, storm hardening, and other net zero investments in our electricity distribution networks, as well as incremental investment in electricity transmission projects. Lastly, we expect that National Grid Ventures will invest GBP 2 billion-GBP 3 billion over five years, focusing on our interconnector program and continued investment in U.S. renewable generation. As we complete the WPD purchase, subsequent asset sales, and deliver the capital investment program, while taking into account the broad economic protection our businesses have against rising macro variables such as inflation, group asset growth is expected to be 6%-8% per year on average to FY 2026. I've said previously that while we settle the WPD, Rhode Island, and Gas Transmission transactions, group gearing levels will be above current levels. Over the five years to FY 2026, under our central assumption of CPI at 2%, we expect regulatory gearing to increase through the transactions and then to settle above 70% once all three transactions are completed. However, throughout the period, we expect our long-run gearing levels and the other standard metrics we monitor to sit comfortably within our current BBB+/Baa1 corporate rating band from S&P and Moody's. As a result, we do not expect any further rating action at a group level. The changing mix of the group, coupled with the strong growth opportunities we see across our businesses in the coming years, is expected to deliver compound annual growth in underlying earnings per share in the 5%-7% range through to FY 2026, including our long-run average scrip take-up assumption of 25% per annum. As we work through the transactions, together with recovery from the impact of COVID, we would expect earnings growth to be at or above the top end of our range in the early years. This will continue to underpin our sustainable dividend policy into the future. To summarize, we've performed strongly in mitigating the direct cost of COVID and continue to work with regulators on cost recovery mechanisms. We've delivered GBP 5 billion investment in critical infrastructure and achieved a solid underlying financial performance. The recent acquisitions have enhanced the long-term growth profile of the group, and our confidence is reflected in the new five-year financial framework we have set out today. Now John will take you through the priorities and outlook for the coming year. Thank you, Andy. Hopefully you can appreciate from what Andy and I have covered this morning, it's been a very busy year for the group, and I'm pleased with the significant progress that we've made. Within the five-year framework we've outlined today, in the coming year, our priorities are to complete our proposed transactions, maintain our regulatory progress, build momentum through stakeholder engagement, and continue to lead the debate on climate action. Turning first to our transactions. Our first priority will be to complete the WPD purchase this summer and then file the final business plan for RIIO- ED2 by the end of the year. Preparations for the sale of gas transmission business are well underway, and we still expect to launch the process in the second half of this year. Regulatory clearances regarding our Rhode Island business are also anticipated by the end of our financial year. Our intention is to host a capital markets event in Q4, where we'll provide more detail on our longer-term plans and the growth opportunities we see across our businesses. Alongside this, we'll continue to progress our regulatory agenda. In the UK, with regards to our RIIO-T2 appeal to the CMA, we expect a final determination at the end of October. While not a direct read across, we were encouraged by the CMA's recent decision on the water PR19 review and continue to believe our strong technical argument should lead to a higher level of return. In the US, in our Upstate New York filings, we're working on agreeing on a multi-year settlement, which will include investment to support decarbonized heat while maintaining a focus on managing customer affordability. New rates are expected to become effective in July 2021. In Massachusetts Gas Distribution filing that we made in June, it proposed a new performance-based rate mechanism that will link annual revenue increases to inflation. It also proposes funding for projects that decarbonize the gas network, including hydrogen renewables, natural gas, and demand-side measures. We expect new rates to become effective from October 2021. While working with regulators on these filings, we're also excited to see greater levels of political and stakeholder engagement across all aspects of the energy transition. In New York, we've recently published a joint report with Con Edison and the mayor's office on pathways to a carbon-neutral New York City. This study highlights the critical need for continued investment in gas networks to maintain system safety, reliability, and affordability as we continue the energy transition through the gas distribution companies that will help the state to achieve 2050 net zero targets. We'll use our experience in developing scenarios for the energy transition in the U.K., as well as our recent study in New York, to develop these pathways that can meet these targets in an efficient way for our customers. 2021 will also be a very busy year with U.K. political engagement. We're expecting to see a transport decarbonization bureau of governance and further thoughts on the offshore transmission review, and we'll be engaging across all of these topics and more. As you've heard me say many times, our ambition is to enable the energy transition for all, and we'll continue to lead the debate on this. This November's UN COP26 conference in Glasgow provides us with a perfect platform to do just that, and I'm proud that National Grid is the principal partner of this event. That is vital to meet the ambitious net zero targets set by governments, regulators, and businesses. This summer will see the first publication of our responsible business report alongside our annual report. This will showcase the priorities we've set and the actions we're taking in delivering our climate and responsible business goals. It'll enable people to track our progress, bringing all our sustainability reporting into one place. I'm pleased to announce that this report will include our new Scope 3 reduction emission targets, aligned to the Science Based Targets initiative to reduce carbon emissions by 37.5% by 2034 from our 2019 baseline. In the years ahead, we'll invest to accelerate the energy transition for all of our customers in regulated electricity and gas networks and adjacent infrastructure that supports the goal of energy decarbonization. To summarize, this is shaping up to be a defining year ahead as we make a significant strategic pivot towards electricity with the integration of WPD, reach an outcome on the CMA appeal on RIIO-T2, and agree on new rates for Upstate New York and Massachusetts Gas. Work on defining net -zero roadmaps across both the U.K. and the U.S., while also using our voice to influence climate change action in the run-up to COP26. We're in a strong position to enact this change. Our geographic and regulatory diversification will continue to underpin the stability of the business as it's done over the course of the past 20 years. It provides the platform to build on the huge number of opportunities that we see ahead. This attractive asset growth will drive sustainable long-term earnings growth, maintaining and underpinning our dividend policy. I'm very excited about delivering the ambitious five-year plans we set out and the increasingly important role that National Grid is playing in the energy transition. Now, before we come to questions, I'd just like to take a moment to thank Nicola Shaw, who is stepping down from her role later this year. Nicola has helped to drive the U.K. business forward in her five years with the company, and we wish her very well for the future. After over nine years as chairman, Sir Peter Gershon will be retiring from the board at the end of the month. Sir Peter has made an outstanding contribution to National Grid during his tenure. Thanks, John. Now it's time for our Q&A. As a reminder, the instructions to ask a question are on your webcast screen and on the Q&A slide that you can see in front of you. I'm going to hand back over to John now, who will start with the video questions. John, over to you. Okay, thanks Nick. I can see there are lots of hands up. Shall we start with Dominic and then go to Chris Laybutt? Dominic. Hi. Within that, you've obviously given us quite a tight range for ED, electricity distribution. The draft, can you just give us a bit of color there? Is the draft business plan being submitted before completion of WPD? How involved have you been on developing that plan? Do you think Ofgem will adopt a number of scenarios similar to the RIIO-T2 transmission program? Basically, the question leading into is premise. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Dominic. Let me just pick up on the CapEx question first. As you hear today, what we're trying to set out is a range of GBP 30-35 billion, I think, to reflect the confidence that we have in the transparency of the regulatory frameworks that we now see. As you know, in electricity transmission, we accepted the vast majority of the RIIO-T2 price control, and therefore we've got good visibility of what we expect the investment to be. We just agreed KEDLI and KEDNY, $3.3 billion over the next three years with a potential extension for a fourth year. With regards to WPD, obviously, they've submitted their first draft business plan. They received feedback from their stakeholders. They're about to submit their second draft business plan at the end of July. That will go through the usual iteration that you'd expect under these types of price controls, and they make a final business plan submission in December. We set out in our outlook that we expect it to be GBP 45 billion. I think we're reasonably confident with that level of investment. Ofgem usually will look at various scenarios, but when we look at the fundamentals, in terms of asset replacement, connections for distributed generation, and new customers, and then supporting EVs. I think the range that we set out for the group of 30-35 looks very sensible, and we're very comfortable with that. With regard to RWE and the announcement on that, as you know, over the last few years, we've always looked to use the capabilities that we have in National Grid to look to adjacent markets. More recently, over the last three or four years, that's been in our interconnector business, as well as onshore solar renewables with the acquisition of Geronimo, which is now National Grid Renewables. Over the last few years, we've built a fantastic capability of being able to develop these offshore cables. Add to that the local knowledge we have in the Northeast and the RWE disciplined approach to any investments that we take. We're not expecting there to be significant CapEx in the short term. As you know, development of offshore wind has a long lead time, both in terms of the seabed lease process and then ultimately the construction. Modest CapEx in the next three to four years, but we do see it as a natural extension of our National Grid Ventures business. Follow on from that. Is it a JV that covers RWE for all offshore in North America, or is it just that single. We take that forward, Dominic. It's not just a single project. It is a relationship for offshore wind in the Northeast and U.S. Thank you. Okay. Shall we take Chris's question and then turn to Jenny? Good morning. Thank you very much. I guess a thank you from me also for providing five-year guidance at EPS. That's very useful for us. In terms of that guidance, our immediate thoughts this morning went to the impact of COVID on 2021, which was GBP 0.06-GBP 0.07 pence at EPS on our calculations. Reflecting on your recent experience with the PSC, do you think that might be a little bit more challenging than previously thought to recover that amount? How long do you think that might take to recover that lost ground? Just on storms, it looks like non-deferrable storm costs have increased fairly significantly in the period. Do you think that's a trend which will be ongoing? If so, how long do you think it will take for your proposed mechanisms to be in place to recover these costs? Are they in specific areas under the mandate of specific regulators, or is it quite widespread? Just some more detail would be very helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Chris. Why not take the second then, Andy, if you want to pick up the first? In terms of the non-deferrable storms, what we actually saw in the last 12 months, Chris, is probably a doubling of the level of storms that we normally see at this time of year. At one level, we're sort of victim of our own success, which is the storms, when they do happen, are having a lower impact on our customer base, and therefore, rather than being classed as major storms, which we can then defer and get recovery on, they're being captured as minor storms. We've recognized that issue in terms of our improved performance when we have storms, and we've started to engage with regulators in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York about how we can ensure that the rate filings that we do going forward capture fairly the actual cost of minor storms as they come along. I think it's too early to assume that we're actually seeing more storms every year going forward. We are doing some work looking into weather and whether there is an impact that's more sort of permanent. At the moment, we're engaging with our regulators to make sure that when we do our rate filings, we get some upfront recovery as well as being incentivized on the performance of storms. Andy. Yeah. Thanks, John. In terms of the recovery, I think, as we said previously, the recovery of the COVID costs, particularly the bad debts that we've incurred to date, we still expect to recover the majority of those, but as we previously said, we expect to be over a period of time, so into the medium term, years rather than months. The element that we reported today, the GBP 59 million of commodity recovery, is, if you like, the first installment, but we expect that to come back in over a period of time. I think in terms of FY 2022, absolutely, we expect a much smaller impact of COVID. As we mentioned this morning, some ongoing minor impacts in terms of U.S. collections and bad debts. In terms of the overall guidance for FY 2022, as well as COVID, you also need to look at the impacts of the electricity transmission business moving into T2 and also the higher interest cost that we guided to this morning as well. Andy, in terms of that COVID impact, which gets a little bit, I guess you're paring it back in 2022, but five years you've recovered all of that lost ground, and so that sort of GBP 0.06-GBP 0.07 comes back to you in the form of earnings. Is that the assumption underpinning the guidance? Yeah. It's hard to be precise until we've agreed all of the specific mechanisms, but I think it's fair to say that over the period of five years, we would anticipate recovering the majority of it, but we'll be able to firm that up once we get the specific mechanisms in place. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. [inaudible] From Dominic's question in terms of the RWE JV, is this a venture for Geronimo that's specifically focused on the northeast of the U.S., or are you thinking of going into offshore wind more globally, sort of really making inroads in entering that market? First question, and then secondly, just on your ventures' business, you talk about a CapEx of GBP 2 billion - GBP 3 billion predominantly linked to the interconnectors because the GBP 23 billion - GBP 29 billion that the U.K. government is talking about to connect the 13 GW and, more specifically, beyond the two to three billion CapEx that you've highlighted, what is the potential scope and also timelines of when we can hear from the government on this? then linked to that, I guess, is you're talking about 70% debt to RAV. Does that mean you need to raise additional equity, or is the hybrids possibility cover that? Thanks. Okay. Thanks, Jenny. It's quite a few questions there, so let me just work through all of that. In terms of the JV with RWE, and our thinking about involvement in offshore wind, then this is very much around the Northeast of the U.S. As I've said previously, we look for opportunities where we've got capabilities and that we can create value for our shareholders. We have fantastic expertise in offshore cables, and we have fantastic expertise in understanding onshore transmission and distribution in the Northeast. That capability means that we're a strong partner with RWE in that region, but we're not looking to expand beyond that. We will focus on the regions that we know best. In terms of National Grid Ventures and the GBP 2 billion-GBP 3 billion, we have a great pipeline of investment opportunities. As Andy and I have said many times, we'll be disciplined around that. Those opportunities include potentially things like MPIs, multi- purpose interconnectors, as well as onshore solar and wind in the U.S. With regards to the MPIs, at the moment, it's a relatively early concept. We think that it has potential in terms of mitigating some of the cost impacts of connecting offshore wind while taking advantage of the benefits of connecting the U.K. with the rest of Europe. Hence, we're working with TenneT and Elia to think through that. In terms of the broader sort of CapEx to connect the 30 GW of offshore wind, then I think the current review that's going on with BEIS on the offshore transmission review is incredibly important. I think everybody recognizes that the concept of every single individual offshore wind farm connecting to the East Coast is going to be problematic from a planning perspective, and therefore a degree of coordination is needed. From our perspective, clearly, when we understand exactly the timing of that investment, then we'll be able to have better [inaudible]. One of the things that National Grid has been advocating for and others in the industry are is to have a clearer blueprint of what the networks look like, both offshore and onshore, by 2030. We'll continue to advocate that. I know that Ofgem has recently started to engage in this issue to try and get a better understanding of what infrastructure investment is needed. Andy, do you want to pick up the second point? Yeah. just, Jenny, in terms of the, I guess, investments, I think as John said, the timescales may be slightly further out, given the elements that need to be worked through. we're comfortable in terms of funding the range of investments we've put out. as we've always said, to make disciplined decisions about investing in additional projects, we want to make sure we have the right regulatory or other frameworks to it to ensure appropriate funding for those and recovery of those investments as well. we'd make those decisions down the track, but at this point, we're very comfortable with the framework we've set out this morning. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Should we take to Mark, and then should we go to John Musk after that? Hello. Mark Freshney from Credit Suisse. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two major questions. The first one is on the Ofgem report on system operator independence that they have sent to BEIS. We've heard very little on that since then. When you meet with BEIS ministers, what are they saying and how likely is it that you may be forced to look at independent ownership there? just secondly, on the gas transmission business returns, we know the RIIO-T1 price control was just inappropriate for that business eight years ago. We know that. in the final year of RIIO-T1, the ROEs were almost unacceptable. The outperformance was almost unacceptable. in terms of RIIO-T2, how is that review looking for that business? what steps have you and Nicola and the MD of that business made to turn around performance ahead of sale? In terms of the electricity system operator, you're quite right. The last key piece of news was Ofgem's consultation that looked at its thoughts on the future role of the ESO. Since then, things haven't hugely progressed. The next step in the process is that BEIS is due to issue a broader consultation around the institutional arrangements that will support the energy transition to net zero for the UK. National Grid's position hasn't changed either, in that we continue to work with Ofgem and BEIS. We believe it is important to look at the institutional arrangements, and inevitably, as part of that, you get into the role of the ESO. Until you do that broader piece, looking right across the industry, it's difficult to decide whether it's right that the ESO should be further separated from National Grid. We're participating in that. The exact timing for BEIS to do their consultation, I think, is slightly unclear. I know it's due this year, but whether it's before the summer recess or after, I'm not yet clear, Mark, as we said at the half-year results. In terms of gas transmission, as you know, as part of the price control for RIIO-T2, we accepted the vast majority of the price control, both for electricity transmission and gas transmission. You'll recall that when we had the session on that, we talked about GBP 10 billion of investment across the UK. Eight of that relates to grid as part of RIIO-T2, compared to T1 for gas transmission. We were comfortable that that base level of CapEx, together with the uncertainty mechanisms that were put in place to deal with things like compressor replacement for environmental issues, was sufficient for us to be able to agree to those levels. Given that, we remain confident that we've got the right levels of CapEx to support the business going forward. In terms of the sale process itself, we believe it will be a competitive process. The gas transmission business is a strong business. It's got a great reputation, and with the clarity of regulation that we now have, we expect that that will be a competitive process. Thanks, Mark. Should we go to John, and then we'll go to Ajay after that? Yes, morning. Two questions from me. Firstly, on the CMA process. Just wanted to understand what sort of input you've had into that. Very much so that you've submitted your files and you're just waiting to hear back? secondly, I did have a question on ESO as well, but Mark took that. can you just give the numbers for the system operator this year? sorry, in FY 2021, what did that contribute at EBIT and what is it as a share of RCV or a number for the RCV? Yeah. Thanks, John. I'll let Andy pick up the numbers on the ESO. In terms of the CMA pro, the cost of equity and the outperformance wedge was agreed. Actually, this week, there were clarification sessions with the commission, so Nicola Shaw and the team were actually in front of the commission this week. it was very much around clarification and understanding of the submission that we've made. The next steps is there will be sessions around cost of equity, outperformance wedge, and for the other networks, of course, they refer to other aspects. the timing is, I think, August for draft decision, and then we are engaged with the commission, and this week really has been the first step when we've been in front of the commission to be able to make some points. Andy. Yeah, John, just in terms of the ESO, its operating profit for FY 2021 was GBP 70 million. That's significantly down on last year because we had some specific one-off recovery amounts last year around some of the data center work, in particular. GBP 70 million this year, and I think that's consistent with what we've said for many years, which is Thanks For that. Good morning, and thank you very much for the presentation. I had two questions. Firstly, the one on earnings growth and over the next five years. Is there any chance we could unpack that a little bit? What proportion of synergies is there from the WPD deal, or is that not yet included in any sort of broad proportion of the U.S.? Maybe another way of looking is what sort of cumulative bill increases do you think you need over the five years to attain that earnings target to give us a sense of what may be required in rate cases? On the, sort of more strategically, there has been a sizable change here away from gas and towards electricity as a function of the announced deals that we've made. I'm just wondering, is the journey finished? As we set out in March, the opportunity for us to participate at scale in the U.K. came along with the WPD transaction. It did allow us to shift the overall group to around 70% electric and 30% gas. We feel that gives us the right sort of geographic and regulatory diversity that actually has delivered the sustainable returns that I talked about in my remarks this morning. If you look over the last 10 years, we've been able to deliver total shareholder returns of just under 10% against the FTSE of 6%. Over the 20 years, we've been able to deliver sustainable increases in the dividend. I think when we look at the overall shape of the group in terms of diversity and regulation, we feel very comfortable. Added to that, it really reflects, I think, a sort of broader view we have about how we see the energy transition. There is no doubt we're going to see significant growth in electricity, important role in this energy transition. When we put all that together, I think we're very comfortable that the shape that we've got in the group is the right one. Andy? Yeah. Thanks, John. Ajay, just in relation to the five-year guidance. As you can imagine, a group of this size over a period of that time, that there's many different parameters evolved in that. What we've set out this morning is a range that we're very comfortable with, in terms of the set of balance assumptions, allowing for the fact that some of those will change. You called out and so forth. I think what I'd say is we're comfortable that we've made a sensible set of assumptions, based on the regulatory frameworks we have, and that it converts into a sensible bill profile. As you've seen just in the KEDNY-KEDLI joint proposal this week, we'd be very focused on that with our regulators in New York. For example, agreeing on zero and then two and two for the outer years. We're comfortable that with our focus on driving cost efficiency, as we always do, that is something that we can convert through to the appropriate level of earnings growth. We know that these are incremental to come, or is some quantity already in the numbers? It is just so that we have a reference point to start from. Yeah. Again, I'm not going to get drawn into specifics. I think as we said back in March when we announced the transactions, when we think about the opportunities going forward, we're confident there are opportunities to continue to deliver value for our customers through the WPD transaction and for all our stakeholders, and I think as we go ahead. We'll have to continue to work on those. I think I'd say again, we're confident we've set out the right range to allow for many different outcomes in those parameters at this point. Okay. Fair enough. Thank you very much. Okay. Shall we go to Sam and then go to Martin after that? Hi. Hi, Sam. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I have a question for Andy on the guidance and then maybe a bigger -picture one for you, John. Andy, let me start with the guidance question. I am always a bit nervous when I am way down the line of questions and nobody has asked my question yet, which makes me worry perhaps I misunderstand something. This seems to me something very important changed on gas today. Can I just check, you have given us a five-year guidance now, which is working back from a 2025, 2026 number that includes zero contribution from gas at all. You are confirming, I guess, that not just the 51% sale, but 100% of the gas is out of the result by 2025, 2026. If I heard your comments correctly earlier on in the voiceover, you might be taking 100% of gas out of the result from the second half of this year. Not even keeping a 49% associate holding, and yet you still think in the early years of the five years you'll beat the 5%-7% EPS range. That sounds quite bullish and good to me. Can I just confirm, Andy, that I've understood that correctly? Not quite. Let me just take you through the two bits quickly. In terms of the five-year guidance, as you said, the CapEx that we've set out, the GBP 30 billion-GBP 35 billion, you're absolutely right that that doesn't include an element in relation to Gas Transmission. Effectively, because that is relating to how we will be reporting our CapEx. When we have a minority ongoing stake in that business, that will not show up, if you like, in our CapEx. That will be included within our minority interest that will be reported through the dividend stream that we would expect to retain. It's not in the GBP 30 billion -GBP 35 billion, but it is included in the earnings trajectory and ultimately asset growth, obviously our retained share in that business through to FY 2026. The point that I made this morning in my comments around the accounting rules is you are right that effectively, as soon as we get to the point of the sale becoming highly probable, which we would expect to happen once we've launched the process and worked through some of the separation work that we need to get stepped through. That absolutely we will have to report the whole income of Gas Transmission as discontinued through this period, even though ultimately we expect to retain, as we said, a significant minority stake. That's just unfortunately how the accounting rules require us to report it. Okay. Can I just confirm, in the 5%-7% EPS growth, that's including a 49% gas minority in the 2025-2026 year, or is it including nothing from gas? In terms of the EPS guidance we've given this morning, it continues to assume a retained minority stake. Yeah. Right. about the size. Yeah. Okay. Well, that kind of triggers a follow-on question. Apologies, but I suppose, and I think it was a great package that you put out today and a really good presentation. The only thing that we thought there might be questions on is the sort of implication, you said 5%-7% earnings growth over five years, but you might be at the top of that range or slightly above in the earlier years. If I just look at where consensus is for this coming year, consensus is looking for nearly GBP 0.62, which is what? 14% including basically half the gas at the bottom line. I wonder if maybe that means consensus is overcooking the WPD contribution for this year. Could there be some other explanation? I'm assuming, I guess, Andy, that 14% would not be within what you're saying about early years' EPS growth being above the 5%-7% range? Analysts. I think as we set out this morning, it is a complicated story. I understand that. Obviously, over the next few days, I'm sure the team will be very happy to help you through that. What we've been clear on this morning is, as we said, in the early years of the five, we do expect to be at or potentially above the top end. We do have to take account of the discontinued operations. As I said this morning, we're comfortable with that range, even with including that accounting impact that we've set. Very good. Thanks for your help on that. John, if I can maybe turn to you with just my bigger -picture question. I can't resist asking because you did mention the climate conference at the end of the year, and I know you're very close to the powers that be organizing that conference this year. Can you just share with us any sense that you have of what actually might be achieved at that conference? I suppose Madrid was the last one, and there was a great disappointment that nothing was actually signed. What do you think might actually happen? An increasingly ambitious target has been set from various countries, including the U.S. I think there is a sense of optimism that something significant can be achieved at COP26. I know that the U.K. government is very keen to be able to lay out roadmaps by sector for what net zero will look like going forward as one of their objectives. I'm pretty optimistic. I'm pretty optimistic, actually, that it could be a very significant UN conference, given what I've seen in the run-up over the last six to nine months. Okay, thanks, Sam. I'm going to go to Martin, I think, and then I'm going to go to Deepa. Good morning to everybody. I've got a couple of questions, if I may, please. The first relates to the high-level thinking about risk this morning. I don't think there's any validity whatsoever to the idea of the outperformance wedge. Let's assume that goes and transmission returns get positioned higher. If you step back and think about where the action really is likely to be over the next five, six, seven, eight years plus, it's going to be in electricity distribution with heat pump deployment, EV charging deployment, et cetera. Given the CMA comments around knowing that the distribution rate of return should be higher than what ultimately gets awarded for transmission. The second question gets back to the five-year guidance. I note that you've based that on an exchange rate of $1.3 to the pound. Obviously, we're above that level at this juncture. If we were to market that at $1.4 or a little above $1.4, what would that do to the guidance that you set out this morning? Thanks. Okay. Thank you, Martin. I'll take the first question. I'll ask Andy to take the second. In terms of distribution returns, I'll start with just reflecting on where we are with the CMA process for gas distribution and the electricity transmission companies. I think we took some heart from the PR19 process in that there was an awful lot in there that I think reinforced our view that it was right to make the technical referral that we did. I think, although, as I said in my remarks, you can't do a direct read across. I think if you just apply some of the logic that they've taken for the water companies to the energy companies, you will end up with a higher return than where Ofgem was in their final determination. I think added to that, I sort of concur with your thoughts in terms of electricity distribution. Clearly, over the next five years, there's going to be a significant need for investment to support EVs, given the acceleration of the government's target, together with the need to continue to connect distributed generation. Therefore, it does need to be an environment that attracts investment. I think Ofgem themselves, about 12 months ago, talked about the fact that they felt that electricity distribution was where the action would be over the next five years. Therefore, if you take that logic, you would suggest that you would want to see a higher return for transmission. Having said all that, it's early days. WPD will be putting its draft business plan in at the end of July, and then it will listen to its stakeholders before putting its final plan in at the end of December. I definitely agree there is an awful lot to be done, and we want to create the right environment if we're going to meet these targets that the government has set. Andy? Yeah. No. Thanks, Martin. In terms of FX, as you'll know, we continue to run a significant hedge of our dollar balance sheet and our dollar assets. That continues to give us a significant level of protection in terms of earnings volatility as well. Broadly, as we've seen this year, around a GBP 0.05 swing in the average rate was just over half a penny. It's that sort of range if you wanted to do something for your modeling. Thanks. Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to Deepa, and then I'm going to go to Ahmed. Deepa. Thanks. I have a few questions. The first one is on U.S. business. Next year, you've guided to 100 basis points improvement in ROE, which would still only get you to 8.2%. I was wondering, what is the medium-term objective? Do we still aim for 95% of the allowed ROE, so towards that 9% number? Any guidance on that? Long term, how should we think about the EBIT trajectory of this business? I think that's one area which is a bit unclear for me. Second question, just on the gas transmission sale process. When do you think the market will have an idea of what valuation the asset will get? Are we talking about Q3 of calendar 2022, or will you already have some indication before that? Just a clarification on Andy, when you said that you expect it to be more than at the top end of the range for this net zero pathway report. I was just wondering if you had any reflections, particularly on the mammoth task of a four times scale-up in renewables in just 10 years. Any thoughts on that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Thanks, Deepa. I think I captured five questions there. Let me have a go at the first, the third, and the fifth, and then I'll let Andy do the second and the fourth. Hopefully, he captured them. In terms of U.S. returns, our position on U.S. returns, my position, has always been the same, which is our aim is to get as close to the allowed return as possible, and that will be the focus of the business going forward. We are pleased that we've now got a settlement in KEDLI and KEDNY, a three-year settlement with an agreed CapEx of $3.3 billion and an 8.8% ROE. And as you know, we've got a filing in Niagara Mohawk to complete this summer and then Massachusetts Gas later on this year. Our focus will continue to be to return as possible. In terms of the gas transmission sale, just in terms of the process, we are still in the position where we're likely to launch the process in the second half of this year. As I've said previously, we've got quite a bit of work to do to separate our gas transmission from the U.K. business. Our base plan is that we will launch in the second half. In terms of valuations, if it follows a similar drumbeat of timings to the gas distribution sale, then it's likely to be around the turn of the year and would be around about then. In terms of the report you mentioned, I think from our perspective, we believe a lot of the targets that are being set are achievable but hugely ambitious. What we've said consistently is that we need to get the right policies and the right regulations in place. Really, 2021 and 2022 need to be the years when we start to really see execution if we're going to deliver the levels of renewables and the levels of decarbonization that have been set out the last six months or so. Andy? Yeah, thanks. Deepa on the two, I think first one was around how does the returns and expectations in the US flow through into earnings and operating profit of that business? I think, as we said previously, on the basis that we are continuing to target maintaining and delivering a good returns performance over time, we would anticipate that the CapEx growth and the asset growth that we're driving will then effectively get delivered through the earnings trajectory for that business as well. As we've seen in the most recent rate cases we talked about this morning, KEDNY and KEDLI. In the short term, clearly there's a focus on customer bills. Again, we've maintained a balanced set of assumptions looking forward. With that, we would expect the earnings and the operating profits of the U.S. business to go on an upwards trajectory in line with the asset growth. In terms of GT, yes, I think is the short answer. As we said, for next year, the discontinued treatment means that we effectively have to report the whole earnings of gas transmission out of our FY 2022 numbers. That's what we've mentioned in terms of the next year with the flow through of the transactions in FY 2022. You're right; then in FY 2026, the five-year frame continues to assume that we earn our share from the retained minority interest in that business going forward. Okay. Thanks, Andy. Should we go to Ahmed and then go to Elchin? Ahmed. This morning, thank you for taking my questions, a few from my side. I think when you originally provided us the guidance for March 2021, you talked about a GBP 1 billion cash impact from various sort of COVID-related issues, and you've sort of come in at GBP 600 million. I just wanted to understand a little bit better the variation there. Then if you could also just talk a little bit about cash collection trends in the U.S. and what at your end you can do to sort of improve those, that would be helpful. Just finally, on the transaction effects that you outlined on page 21, and I'm just really thinking here about the EPS bridge between 2021 and 2022. Are you able to give us a little bit of granularity as to what these mean as the EPS level on a net basis, year-on-year impact? That would be very helpful. Thank you. Okay. Andy? Okay. Yeah, sure. On the first one, I think a few points in terms of what's driving that. I think clearly, in terms of the original guidance, we were deliberately at the time estimating how significant it could be. What we've seen as we've gone through the year is there's a number of elements of that which have actually come in slightly inside our expectations. The impact, for example, on U.K. demand flowing through into the revenues of the transmission business. Also, some of the volume reductions in the U.S. business as well have been slightly less. We've still seen, as you imagine, in terms of the bad debt impact, some lower U.S. customer collections and, therefore, larger outstanding receivables in the U.S. That's still feeding through into that GBP 600. All in all, just some of our estimations come in slightly inside what we were expecting when we set that guidance a year ago. In terms of cash collections, I think a variety of things. To be clear, all three states that we're in still have restrictions on ability to enact some of the specific measures around customer collections and termination for defaults, et cetera. A lot of that is still being pushed out because of COVID, quite rightly. We are working very closely with our customers, a range of measures in terms of, obviously, there's federal support for low-income households and other measures like that, which enable us to continue to collect revenues across our customer base. We're doing what we can, and we'd expect some of those measures to either be taken away or potentially extended, depending on each regulator in the three states that we operate in. In terms of FY 2022, obviously, there's the detail in the results statement. I think what I'd call out in terms of the bridge from 2021 to 2022 is we don't expect, as you said earlier, such a significant impact from COVID next year. There's a small amount still potentially in U.S. bad debts that we anticipate. The bulk of that will come back from an earnings perspective. We've guided to the impact of moving into T2, particularly in electricity transmission. We've also mentioned the fact that the interest rates and the interest charge is likely to increase year-on-year. Those are the three things I'd call out. As I say, the detail is set out in the results statement. Okay. Thank you, Andy. Should we go to Elchin and then to Bartek? Hi, everyone. I have two questions, well, about two topics. The first one is on rising yield and rates. Are you expecting any upward pressure on your ROE in the U.S. business, particularly? Any benefit from that, given your upcoming rate case reviews? Similarly, are you expecting, following the divestments of U.K. GT and Rhode Island, you mentioned that the share of gas will fall to 30% of the assets? Are there any plans to divest the remaining gas business to further improve your ESG metrics? Maybe that may be a minority statement, but possibly. The second part of the ESG metrics question that is not unclear to me is on your CCUS projects. Does that have any impact on your emissions reporting? I don't know how CCS counts when it comes to emissions, so if you could give us a bit more color on that would be great. If I answer, I'll go to the second question, and I'll ask Andy to pick up the first. Regarding the ESG metrics, I think the key message I want to get across today is the new target that we set for our Scope 3 emissions of 37.5% reduction. In terms of it, the vast majority of our emissions in that area are through the sale of gas to our customers in the U.S. We don't have any intention of further divestment for the reasons I said earlier, which is that we're very comfortable with the overall shape of the portfolio. We think it's important that we work with our key stakeholders to work through the energy transition, and that includes really important opportunities, both in terms of renewable natural gas as well as things like repurposing the networks for hydrogen. Our focus is very much in those areas in terms of the actions that we can take to help with climate change and with our ESG targets. In terms of CCUS. CCUS is a partnership that we're working on. As I said earlier in my remarks, we got support from the U.K. government to look at these zero -carbon clusters in the northeast. Our role, the carbon dioxide that would be captured as part of that process. In terms of the targets itself, it's not going to impact the targets that we set out. Clearly it is an important role as we think about the broader agenda in the U.K. about how we decarbonize gas. What we're looking at there is a cluster whereby industry can potentially use hydrogen rather than natural gas. Generation is using hydrogen, either directly to create electricity or that it's being captured at the back end through carbon capture and storage. We transport the carbon dioxide that is captured back to oil and gas fields in the North Sea. I think it's a really positive project. It's got significant government support, as you would've seen as part of the Prime Minister's 10-point plan. We're working with our partners on that, on the sort of early engineering feasibility of it. Andy? Thanks, John. I think in terms of the two areas, in terms of the U.S. ROEs, as you're probably aware, the methodology for setting U.S. cost of equity is well-established. It's a very mathematical calculation and subject to sort of reviews through the litigation process as well. There could potentially be upside if those rates stay high for longer, as we'll have to wait and see. It's not something that we're anticipating, and it's certainly not something we've assumed in the guidance we set out this morning. What I think I would say is that actually cost of equity has held up very resiliently when we've been through such an elongated low -rate period. Yes, there is potential upside in the future, but we're not banking on that today. In terms of gas transmission, I think two things. The debt book within the gas transmission business is a long-term portfolio. It has a good proportion of both index -linked debt and also fixed -rate debt as well. We don't have a significant exposure to short-term rate movements. Obviously, we have the debt tracker mechanism in that business as well, which has served us well. I think going into T2 and beyond, obviously, we've agreed the indexation of the cost of equity as part of the new price control as well. With all those, I'm comfortable that we have a lot of protection against any concerns in the macro rate environment. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Unfortunately, we've run out of time, I'm going to make this the last question. Bartek, do you want to ask your question? Sure. Good morning. Thank you, guys. Two questions. I would like to ask you about this FY 2022 guidance for U.K. You are talking about the 30% revenues increase in both NGGT and NGET. On the other hand, there's also guidance for a quite significant cost increase, which could offset the revenues. I would like to ask you whether you can elaborate a little bit what is the key driver of those costs, apart from depreciation, of course, and whether this could be somehow compensated for regulatory mechanisms. Secondly, I would like to ask you about the inflation protection in the U.S. Of course, in the U.K. it's clear everything is inflation indexed. If we are facing rising inflation in the U.S., how are you protected from the regulatory point of view and from that, and whether this would squeeze your future ROEs? Thirdly, if you don't mind, on WPD, it has quite a lot of high coupon bonds in its portfolio. I just wonder, once you buy it, what are you going to do with this? Are you going to somehow refinance, or will you keep their bonds on your balance sheet? Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Bartek. Why don't I take the second one on inflation? I'll ask Andy to pick up the first and the third. If you look across the group for National Grid, actually, we have reasonable protection against higher inflation. In the U.K. Obviously, we get indexation of our regulated asset base, and as a consequence of that, our revenues will follow it. In the U.S., we have the ability to pass through the costs in our transmission FERC-regulated businesses. You'll probably be aware that last year we agreed a new regulatory formula in Massachusetts for Massachusetts Electric, which is effectively an RPI-X type of regulation. Again, we get indexation there, and we have, as part of our rate filing on the gas side, done exactly the same. With regard to New York, then we're able to project cost increases as part of any multi-settlement, which, of course, we would have done as part of KEDNY and KEDLI, and we'll do in Niagara Mohawk. If we see significant inflation, you've always got the ability in the U.S. to be able to go back in and do a subsequent rate filing. A little bit of exposure when you've got a multi-settlement in New York. Across the vast majority of the group, we've got reasonable protection against higher inflation. Andy? Yeah, thanks. In terms of the question around U.K. costs as we look into FY 2022, and you mentioned depreciation. Obviously, that is one of the drivers of the continued growth in the asset base. I think, remember, that the U.K. also includes the System operator and ceded their price control. There is a significant level of investment in new technology in terms of delivering their program of work over the next five years as part of their price control. A lot of that is passed through. The recovery is assured, but it does flow through our numbers as OpEx costs, which is one of the drivers. Just secondly, across the rest of the NGET, we deliver our increased work programs we talked about this morning, stepping up towards the GBP 10 billion of investment over five years. That clearly comes with some associated OpEx. The important thing, again, those are included in the allowances that have been agreed for T2. On the WPD point, I think I mentioned this when we announced the transactions back in March. Yes, conscious that the debt book does have some higher coupon debt in its day. We don't have any immediate plans for any focused effort on that. We would expect the debt book to churn obviously as we go through the next few years and we refinance, and therefore I'd expect some opportunities as we go through that. Nothing specifically on that at this point. Thank you, Andy. As I said, unfortunately, we've run out of time. Can I just say thank you, everybody, for joining us on the results call today. As you hopefully have got a true sense, we're very excited about what we've set out in terms of our five-year plans to deliver GBP 30 billion-GBP 35 billion over the next five years. We look forward to seeing you all where we'll share a lot more detail with you on each of the businesses at our capital markets event later in the year. Thank you for joining us.