Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Tesco's 2024 Annual General Meeting. As we've clearly got a quorum, I'd like to declare the meeting open now. I'm Gerry Murphy, Chair of Tesco, and on behalf of my fellow directors, I'm pleased to open this year's AGM. I'll be chairing today's meeting, but I will of course call on other directors to help answer your questions where appropriate. Nothing is more important to us than your safety, so I ask you please to spend a moment studying the fire escapes as shown on the screen. There are no scheduled fire alarm tests today, so if the alarm is activated, please make your way carefully to the nearest fire escape located on either side of the room. In that event, as you leave the building, marshals will direct you to a fire assembly point located just beyond where you enter the building outside. Today, the lifts are disabled during an evacuation, so anyone who might have difficulty using the staircase should use the evacuation intercom and someone will come to help, I think. As you heard just now, photographing or recording the meeting is not permitted, so please ensure that your phone is either switched off or is on silent. I'd also like to welcome everyone joining today's meeting online. A full recording of the webcast will be available to watch on our corporate website for four weeks after the meeting. First, I'd like to introduce you to my board colleagues. With us here today in the room, starting from my right, your left, Byron Grote, our Senior Independent Director and Audit Committee Chair. Imran Nawaz, our Group CFO. Then my namesake, our Group CEO, Ken Murphy, and no, we are not related. Robert Welch, our Group Company Secretary, Alison Platt, our Remuneration Committee Chair, and last but not least, Stewart Gilliland, our Sustainability Committee Chairman. We also have our remaining non-executive directors, Melissa Bethell, Bertrand Bodson, Carolyn Fairbairn, Thierry Garnier, Caroline Silver and Karen Whitworth, joining us virtually today. And hopefully they are visible on the screen behind me. Yes, they are. Good morning everybody. We have announced a few changes to the board since last year's AGM, of which I will remind you now. Last September we welcomed Dame Carolyn Fairbairn as an independent non-executive Director and a member of the Remuneration and Sustainability Committees. Carolyn is an experienced director with deep understanding of our macroeconomic and political environment. Obviously a very timely addition to our collective wisdom at this time. At the conclusion of this year's AGM, Byron Grote will step down as Senior Independent Director after nine years service, Carolyn Fairbairn will succeed Byron as Senior Independent Director and Karen Whitworth will replace him as Audit Committee Chair. I want to thank Byron for his outstanding contribution both to the board and to the committees for almost a decade. Thank you, Byron. I'd also like to thank my fellow directors for welcoming me to Tesco and for their hard work and dedication during these challenging times. Now to turn to the business of the day, which of course is the opportunity for you as shareholders to consider the group's performance, to ask questions and to vote on the resolutions before this meeting. I'm sure many of you will have questions to ask and we'll try to answer as many of them as possible. Now, we have invited shareholders to submit questions at the registration desks before the start of the meeting. If you have already registered a question and made yourself known to the steward, you should be seated in an area behind one of the two question points. The steward will let you know when it's time to move to the question point and to ask your question. You're still able to ask a question that hasn't been registered. If you want to do so, please ask a steward who will be able to help. One final point. If you do have a question about your own experience in a store with a product or frankly, anything that does not relate to the business of the meeting, then please could I ask you to speak to our colleagues at the customer service desk after the meeting and they will be able to help and follow up as appropriate. Our main purpose here today, as I said, is to vote on the resolutions set out in the notice of meeting. But before we get to that, I'd like to share with you my own thoughts on Tesco's developments over the past year. And then I'll ask Ken, our CEO, to share some of his reflections about our performance and the progress we're making in delivering our longer term strategic objectives. Now, I do really feel honored to have taken on the role of chair of a well managed and well governed company with a simple and clear purpose to serve all our stakeholders a little better every day, whatever economic weather the day brings. That all-around approach to performance was clearly evident in our full-year results announced a few weeks ago, which showed Tesco delivering on all fronts for its customers, its colleagues, suppliers, communities and of course its shareholders. The dominant theme in our business last year was again the relentless cost of living pressure faced by our customers, making it more important than ever that Tesco stepped up to deliver great value. Ken will go into this in more detail, but I'm really proud that we've been the cheapest full line grocer in the U.K. for well over a year. Our customers are recognizing this compelling value proposition with market share growth both in the U.K. and in Ireland. Importantly, we're also continuing to invest in our colleagues. We made our largest ever single investment in hourly pay, bringing our U.K. hourly rate to more than GBP 12. That's up over 9% from April and awarding a thank you payment to recognize the contribution they've made in delivering such a strong overall performance last year. We've also stood by our suppliers with more than GBP 75 million worth of support for key agriculture sectors that have faced pressure over the year, including chicken, pig and beef farmers. Most particularly gratifying for me as a former supplier to see Tesco ranked number one retailer in the independent Advantage survey for suppliers over the last eight years no less. Our communities remain at the very heart of everything we do and the launch of our new Community Grant Scheme. Stronger Starts will ensure that tens of thousands of kids across the UK and Ireland get access to healthy food and to sports equipment. Finally, turning to our shareholders, as part of our ongoing commitment to return cash, we announced a final dividend of GBP 0.0825 which will be paid to shareholders on 28th of June. Combined with our half year dividend of GBP 0.0385, this makes a full year dividend of GBP 0.121 which is up 11% from last year. This year we took the decision to review our banking services and we announced a new long term strategic partnership under which our existing banking operations in credit cards, loans and savings will be sold to Barclays. We will keep our insurance and money services operations, things like ATMs, travel money and gift cards as these remain an attractive and important part of our relationship with our customers. This decision allows us to step away from the complexities of running a regulated bank and unlocks more cash to invest in our core business, our customers and our colleagues. Taking into account the GBP 250 million special dividend paid by Tesco Bank last year, we expect to receive around GBP 1 billion from the deal in addition to regular payments as part of our ongoing future relationship with Barclays. I would like to thank our Tesco Bank colleagues for their hard work over the years and I look forward to seeing the next chapter unfold for Tesco Bank. Finally, I'd like to thank our own management team and our colleagues for their hard work and commitment during, I think, a very successful year. As I said earlier, in a challenging environment, they delivered an exceptional all around performance for all our stakeholders. We head into 2024 as a business that is fit for the future, one that is growing market share, leading on value and investing in colleagues at record levels. With that I'll hand over to Ken. Thank you very much, Gerry. On behalf of all the management team and the business, I'd like to add my thanks to Byron and our appreciation for the fantastic guidance leadership he's shown over the last nine years. We're really, really going to miss him. Gerry has actually shared with you a lot of the headlines of our performance and some of the key things that we've achieved this year. I'm going to go a little bit deeper on some of the key progress we've made in looking after all the stakeholders who depend on Tesco as a business. As Gerry said, it's been a really strong year. It's a year that we've been winning with customers, that we have driven sales growth ahead of the market and that has been underpinned by fantastic value, great product innovation and quality and a great shopping experience in store, strengthened by the investments we've made in that shopping experience. That track record and momentum that we've built has really carried on into the first quarter of this financial year. We have every intention of maintaining that momentum as we go through the rest of the financial year. In terms of numbers, you'll have seen the annual report, you'll understand that we showed some great top line growth, over 7%, nearly 7.5%. That's translated into GBP 2.8 billion of operating profit, up almost 13%. Then the cash conversion has been really strong at just over GBP 2 billion for the financial year. And that's enabled us to pay progressive dividend, maintain the buybacks and invest even more in the business. So our movement in terms of capital investment over the last four years has gone from a base of about GBP 800 million to this year just gone, investing almost GBP 1.3 billion and we'll invest GBP 1.4 billion in this financial year. So you can be reassured that we are constantly investing for the future. Gerry touched on it. We've of course completed the sale of part of our financial services activities. So our loan books, our credit card book and our savings book to Barclays. We're retaining just over half the business in terms of insurance, travel services, ATMs, et cetera. And we think that long-term partnership with Barclays will deliver an even better customer proposition to Tesco customers. It does so in a way that de-risks the Tesco balance sheet and will deliver, in our view, even better long-term shareholder value. So it's something we're very excited about and we think has a really strong future. So how are we doing with our stakeholders? Let's start with the most important people, our customers. As you can see, on almost every metric, every brand metric, we have made significant progress versus the market and versus year-on-year. So in terms of value perception, quality perception, quick and easy to pay, friendliness, cleanliness, we have made significant progress in every single metric you can think of. This is exceptionally important to us and really underpins the success we've had in the market. Moving on to the next slide, you can see that that translated into a very strong outperformance versus the rest of the market. On the right hand side, what you see are the switching gains which month in, month out. For the last nearly 12 months now, we have been consistently on a net basis winning customers in the market and this is exceptionally important. What have been some of the things that have underpinned that? I think the first is our value proposition. We've extended Aldi Price Match now on over 700 products. We've maintained low everyday prices over 1,500 products across the group, so on over 2,000 products every day. You can get a reliable low price by shopping at Tesco. On top of that, we've overlaid the Clubcard Prices proposition which gives great offers on over 8,000 products a week. And that really has been the winning formula in helping us to be the cheapest full line grocer in the market. On top of that, we've added a little bit of spice to the Clubcard, running double Clubcard points from January through to the end of February, effectively investing GBP 15 million worth of extra points, which have really given customers a kicker when they need it the most in those early months after Christmas trading. When I look at innovation and quality, it's probably one of the things I'm most proud about. The movement we've made on quality over the last two years has been exceptional. We have massively driven up the intrinsic quality of all the key quality lines such as berries, fruits, vegetable, meat, fish and poultry. And that's really reflected in the feedback we're getting from customers, particularly relative to the market. On top of that, we have trebled our product innovation, really going after that value-added proposition through our Finest range, really trying to win that dine-in option on a Friday that some of the premium retailers rely so heavily on. We've been really rewarded with that with over double-digit, nearly 13% growth in the Finest brand over the last 12 months. We've maintained that momentum coming into this quarter with 12.5% growth in Finest and most of that will have been volume. Given that we've seen obviously inflation falling dramatically in that first quarter of the current financial year. That gives us great confidence. Finest as a brand is now over GBP 2 billion a year in revenue. If we then briefly touch on our non-food business, the highlight for me has been the launch of our activewear range in F&F. It's been really well received by customers. It's a fantastic product. If you haven't tried it, I strongly urge you, although I would ask the men to stay away from the tight sweatpants. I would have, having personally tried it, doesn't work. But the range is really high quality and is selling incredibly well. On top of that, we've really looked to invest for the future. So we have reset pretty much every category in the business. Some of the highlights hopefully you will have seen in your local stores. In terms of what we've done with our fish proposition, what we've done with our deli proposition has really moved the game on and we're very, very excited by that. We are using artificial intelligence extensively to improve our end-to-end business model. I would though like to really emphasize that first of all, AI has been around for a very long time. It's only hitting the kind of highlights of the press recently because of Generative AI. We've been using it in almost every aspect of the business for well over 10 years. And what it does is it enhances people's ability to do their job rather than replacing the job. I think that's a very important point. We finished the year with a net additional 1,000 roles in stores and we've added over 1 million hours to the shops this year. So just to reassure you, this is really an enhancer of performance. It's really helping us improve our forecasting, driving down food waste, helping us put the right products in the right stores, helping us solve customer queries and customer problems, and helping us over time target the right offers to the right customers so that we can be relevant and convenient for customers all the time. Of course, nothing that we do as a business is possible without our colleagues. They are absolutely at the heart of our business. They are phenomenally important. They are the brand. And as a consequence, we've been investing very heavily in colleagues over the last two years with over GBP 800 million invested in colleague reward in total and as Gerry just mentioned, a record pay award in the latest pay negotiations with our unions. On top of that, we seek to be a leading employer in many other ways. So we have enhanced our maternity benefits, our paternity benefits and leave benefits for a number of other causes which are very important to our colleagues. In addition, last July we introduced free virtual GP consultations for all our colleagues, which has been incredibly well received and we feel very, very proud of that. As I've said many times to people, not a lot of people necessarily think too deeply about Tesco as a brand from a national perspective, but when it comes to their local store, it's actually very important to them and it is often at the heart of the communities they serve. They have personal relationships with our colleagues at store level and our support of their community is exceptionally important, which is why we invest so heavily in trying to be connected at that community level. We work so closely with the likes of FareShare, The Trussell Trust and Olio in redistributing food, having hit a milestone of over 200 million meals redistributed. It's why we personally invest money in helping the supply chains of these food redistribution services, why we have launched Stronger Starts, something that is particularly personally important to me, where we're seeking to make sure that all primary-age children get a great start in life by making sure they get a meal in the morning, they get access to learning equipment, to sports equipment, such that we give them a bit of a leg up as they start out in life. In addition, we have worked very closely with our health charity partners, Diabetes UK, Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation. We've raised over GBP 30 million for those three charities in our relationship with them. And in addition, we are now really proactively working with them to enhance our pharmacist capabilities in our stores, to become experts in those three conditions that are so critical to the well-being in our local communities. Of course our suppliers are essential to us and our partnership with them is the reason why we have not only survived all the craziness of the pandemic, the supply chain crisis, the cost of living crisis, but the reason we have thrived. We really pride ourselves on the long-term relationships we've built with our suppliers. As you see here, we invested in over GBP 75 million in our suppliers when they needed it most. But more importantly, we provide them with long-term contracts, great visibility, which has given them the confidence to invest in their businesses, improving the reliability and the efficiency of their supply chains, reducing waste and very importantly, improving the sustainability of their farming and production techniques. We also seek to lead in health you will see in-store, leading to this constant effort to nudge customers to live healthier lives through our Better Baskets initiatives, through our Food Love Stories, and through constantly working with suppliers to reformulate their products to be that progressively little bit healthier every day. We've set ourselves a target of being considered 65% sales as healthy as validated by an external body by 2025, and we're currently at about 63%. So we're within touching distance. Last but not least, how are we doing on sustainability? You will remember those of you who were at last year's AGM, that we were one of the first to get accreditation by the Science Based Targets initiative for our Scope three targets of being carbon neutral across our entire footprint, which includes, by the way, all our suppliers, all our customers by 2050. It's an enormous undertaking. Within that, we are committed to being carbon neutral in our own operations by 2035, and we're well on track to achieving that. We have already 60% of the way there and we're on the glide path to achieve it over time. We have fantastic collaboration with our suppliers and it's making a big, a big, big impact on our progress and that includes things like decarbonization of our stores through the refitting of our refrigeration, includes the electrification of our fleet with over 500 vehicles now fully electric, and a number of other initiatives around the sustainability of farming, the reduction in carbon emissions right through the supply chain, deforestation, our commitment to clean water and a number of other areas. Before I close, let me just touch very, very briefly on quarter one trading. So it's been a strong quarter. You can see that we've shown growth right across the piece, with our total retail business growing by just around the 3.4%, clearly a lot lower than the number you saw for the full year last year. But the good news is that it is based on the fact that inflation has fallen dramatically and really what's driving the quarter one growth has been volume growth. So we're winning more customers and customers are putting more items in their baskets. So we feel like that's the healthiest form of growth you can have. We continue to materially outperform the market and so we believe that this is a strong performance in that context. So with that, I'll finish and hand over to the Q and A session. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Ken. Before we go to the Q and A session, just a little housekeeping around the next stage of the meeting. The business of today's meeting, of course, is to vote on the resolutions as set out in the notice of meeting published on 14th of May. There are 22 resolutions contained in the notice which I propose to take as read with your consent. Do I have your consent? Are there any objections to doing that? No. Thank you. Resolutions 19- 22 are proposed as special resolutions requiring a 75% majority in order to be passed. The remaining resolutions are proposed as ordinary resolutions and require a simple majority to be passed. The registrars are required to check the votes at the end of the meeting, including the votes cast using the paper poll cards. Voting on each of the resolutions will be by way of a poll. I hereby appoint the registrars, Equiniti Limited, to act as scrutineers. Before I invite you to ask questions, I would like to open the voting on registration. You will have been given a voting card. Once you've completed your voting, please put your voting card in the box located to my left outside the exit doors within 10 minutes of the close of the meeting and your votes will be included in the final figures. If you've got any problems, please raise your hand and an Equiniti colleague will come to help. At the end of the meeting, provisional voting figures will be displayed on the screens behind me, and these figures will include only the proxy votes cast by shareholders ahead of the meeting, but will not include the votes cast using the paper poll cards during the meeting. These votes will be added, as I said, after the meeting, and the final voting figures will be set out in an announcement to the market, which will be released as soon as possible after the close of the meeting. Right. As we now turn to the Q and A session, please direct any questions you have to me, and where appropriate, I will ask Ken Imran or indeed other board members where I think they can give you a better answer than I can. Before I invite questions from the room, we will take questions submitted by shareholders before today's meeting. Robert, could I have the first question, please? Yes. The first question is from Philip Clarke, a shareholder. Now that we have a change in chairman, can we please return the AGM to London to make it easier for shareholders to attend the meeting? Okay. I'm not sure what that has to do with the change of chairman, but the short answer is probably no. This is, as you see, it's a very good venue. It's one that Tesco owns and uses week in, week out for internal meetings with colleagues and suppliers. I think it's a very good venue. To replicate this in London would be very expensive. And I think actually it's good for shareholders, where possible, to come and be in the same place where lots of Tesco people work. So for those reasons, we think it's appropriate to maintain the practice of having our meetings in this great venue. Thank you. We have a second question from Philip Clarke. Note seven discloses a GBP 732 million loss on writing down the Banking Disposal Group to fair value. Am I wrong to be astonished by the magnitude of this loss? Given other historical write-downs, is this not evidence that Tesco should always stick to its core business geographies and avoid expensive wasteful diversification? I think there are two parts to the question, Robert. The first part is the write down, which I think is a function of the fact that on disposal there's about GBP 200 million of goodwill to be written off. And secondly, just the very fact that these days the market value of banking assets in the U.K. is typically about half the book value. So combine those two and you get the write down that you've seen. As Ken explained, selling Tesco Bank, or at least that aspect of the bank which is highly regulated to Barclays, is a good deal for Tesco. It will liberate about GBP 1 billion for shareholders and it will enable us to provide the same suite of products to our customers, but in a more efficient way and in a capital light way. So I think it's been a good deal for Tesco. On the bigger question of what does the write down mean for strategy, I would say that in fairness to our predecessors decades ago who went into banking, it was the right decision at the time. Just as we think for the reasons Ken mentioned, it's the right reason to exit today in terms of the mainstream banking operations. Things change. Very good, thank you. We have only one other question that's pre-registered from the Friends Provident Foundation. We welcome pay increases over recent years in recognition of the cost of living crisis. However, we encourage Tesco to go further as we believe the company's reliance on low pay represents reputational and long-term financial risks to our portfolio. Will Tesco take its first step towards accreditation and guarantee a Real Living Wage to all of its third-party contracted staff? Well, let me just set out the context. I mean, our overall approach to pay at Tesco is that it should be simple and fair and competitive and sustainable for everybody who works in Tesco or for Tesco. And those are our guiding principles. As you've heard from me and from Ken, in recent years we have made record levels of investment in colleague pay over the last couple of years, GBP 750 million in colleague pay and a record settlement with our unions in the pay round just concluded. So our overall approach to pay, I think, is balanced and is pragmatic and it's ethical as far as contractor pay is concerned. Our approach to contractors is that we work with a small number of carefully chosen contract partners. We apply the same ethical standards to them as suppliers as we do to our own employees, but it's up to them to manage their relationships with their employees. That's the approach that we've taken. We do expect them to adhere, as I said, to our high ethical standards, including the ILO or ETI standards in all respects. Any more questions, Robert? No doubt. Was it? So it's really open to the floor. Right, take questions from the floor. Hi, I would firstly like to thank. Sorry, I should have said before asking your question. Could you please just give us your name and whether you are here in your own capacity or as a proxy or as a corporate representative? My name is Frances Weeks. I am here as a proxy and I'm representing the Wildlife Trusts and Save the Wye. I would firstly like to thank Tesco for attending the Wildlife Trusts' roundtable on river pollution last year and continuing to engage with the Wildlife Trusts on this issue. Industrial intensive livestock units, in particular those housing chickens supplied to Tesco, litter the beautiful Wye Valley and are responsible for much of the nutrient pollution of the River Wye. Last year, the river, designated a Special Area of Conservation, had its official status downgraded to unfavorable declining by Natural England. The Wildlife Trusts, as part of the Save the Wye Coalition, this year published a manifesto which calls for the establishment of a Wye Recovery Fund to resource a fair and fast transition to river-friendly farming and nature-based solutions and supermarket pricing that rewards river-friendly farming and for consumers to be empowered with honest labeling. At last year's AGM you told us that you were addressing the pollution crisis that is decimating the River Wye through working with WWF and WRAP, though you gave no detail on specific actions being taken. Please could you tell us what changes you have made in the last year to ensure Tesco produce and profits are not at the expense of a devastated landscape? And if you would support our manifesto by contributing to a Wye Recovery Fund and labeling your products clearly to reflect their origin and method of protection. We would also like to reissue our invitation to you to visit the Wye Valley to see the extent of the problem and discuss practical solutions that we could collaborate on together. Thank you. Thank you for your question. I think there are a few points. I'll ask Ken to address the specifics as they relate to Wye Valley, but really I want to reemphasize the point that Ken made in his presentation. We take the environmental impact of our business very seriously, including and critically the impact of our suppliers business and our growers business on our environmental impact as an overall business. Only last week, the board spent the first few days on a field trip, literally a field trip, I mean, standing in fields in East Anglia with key produce partners, looking at their engagement with Tesco in all aspects. I think we spent as much time talking about sustainability and environmental impact as we did on things like innovation and quality and resilience and price. So it is a really important topic for us and one that is top of mind when it comes to thinking about our supply base generally. But Ken, on the specifics of the why? Yeah, Frances, thank you very much for the question. I think the first thing in terms of specific action is that we fund WRAP, who are part of, obviously a body that are charged with, among many things, really improving the water quality across the industry, and therefore we fund them as part of a multi supermarket, multi industry program to improve water quality. Specifically in the River Wye. They've made over 200 farm visits, they've agreed over 40 farm management plans to improve farm management techniques to reduce the pollution effect of fertilizing in the Wye Valley. Specifically as it relates to Avara, which again is a supplier into the grocery industry in general. They have, as you will know, I'm sure, now committed to stop selling the manure to farmers in the Wye Valley and instead transport it to areas where there isn't the risk of water pollution. And they've also reformulated their feed to the chickens, which has reduced phosphorus levels by 40%, which we think makes a big, big difference. And then separately, all our UK produce supply chains are now certified under the LEAF Marque, which, as you know, among other things, looks at water standards and the maintenance of clean water in the supply chain. So I think we've made quite a bit of progress since we spoke last year. We're very conscious of the urgency and the importance of this specifically for Wye, but actually much more broadly in the food supply chain for water quality in the UK. Thank you again. Good afternoon, I'm Sheryl Cuisia. I am an individual investor and I'm also a representative of The Engagement Appeal, which is an organization looking to align companies and individuals on inclusive engagement in financial literacy. First, I have been following Tesco in a professional and personal capacity for some time now and I recognize how committed you guys are to good governance. So thank you so much for all that you're doing for us. My questions relate to Tesco stakeholder engagement and Section 172 of the Companies Act about promoting the success of the company for the benefit of all its members. As we're seeing in the States in companies like GameStop and Tesla, retail shareholders are affecting massively impact on companies' corporate decisions and even share prices. In your opinion, what impact could retail shareholders have in the success of your company? What do you think you could do more to engage individuals? Your retail shareholders, your consumers as well as the younger generations, particularly Gen Z. Thank you. Great question. Thank you, Sheryl. It is a good question. I think. Generally, I would take the view that all interactions with shareholders are helpful to the board, whether they're institutional or private individual shareholders. We learn from our shareholders, not least because our shareholders in most cases are also our consumers. They are the same people or indeed they're our colleagues. So the more interaction we have with the markets that we serve, the people and communities we serve, the better, including with our shareholders. The engagement with shareholders is pretty intense, as Ken and Imran will attest. But it is mostly with institutional shareholders who do tend to reflect frankly the high-level concerns of individual shareholders too because they're reflecting the concerns of society specifically as regards young shareholders. I would say it is really important for businesses of the size and scale, breadth of Tesco to engage with consumers, people, citizens right across the age spectrum. We all learn in different ways from the different interactions that we have. We absolutely learn from our younger consumers. Any of us who are a bit older, and there are a few of us who are a bit older in the room, know how much we can learn from our children and indeed our grandchildren. So I think it is really important for business, especially big business, to have active engagement right through the age spectrum, including with our young consumers and our young shareholders. So thank you. Good morning, my name is Jill Clark and I campaign with Cancer Watch. As a shareholder, I am requesting today that Tesco should remove cigarettes from its shelves and ban the selling of tobacco products completely from its stores in order to comply with the Smoke Free 2030 campaign. I'm not talking about children and vapes here, I'm talking about adults and tobacco products. Smoking is the biggest cause of preventable ill health and death in this country. Tobacco smoking is a major risk for 15 different types of cancers, including cancer of the lung, cancer of the esophagus, cancer of the bowel, cancer of the pancreas and cancer of the bladder, to mention just a few. Tobacco is responsible for up to 25% of all cancer deaths each year. And of course, smoking is also responsible for many other illnesses, including respiratory disease, heart attacks, strokes, stillbirths and dementia. Smoking is also considered to be responsible for up to 50% of all health inequality qualities, reducing the lifespan of many people lower down in the social scale who are already disadvantaged. Here is a packet of cigarettes that was purchased in your store in Tenterden in Kent. A shop which would normally be an exemplar of excellent retailing were it not for the cancer sticks that it sells at the front of the store. At first I thought it had given up success selling tobacco products, but when I asked them if they were still selling them, the shop assistant opened the sales cabinet behind her and there was a whole wall full of tobacco products. Have you ever watched somebody dying from lung cancer? I fully grasp that not everybody in senior positions feel that they need worry very much about ethics or morality. But do you not have any sense of common humanity about you and sense of responsibility to the health of your customers? You don't even make any worthwhile profit out of cigarettes because cigarettes are pretty well all taxed, which goes to the government. Selling tobacco products is particularly shameful for Tesco. Bearing in mind that you include pharmacies in your stores whose main interest is the promotion of health. I believe that banning the selling of tobacco products in your stores would be very popular with your general customers, certainly with your shareholders, the vast majority of whom are very sensible and don't smoke themselves. I and Cancer Watch, the organization with which I campaign, are asking you to remove all tobacco products from your stores and show signs some responsibility towards the health of your customers that you serve and indeed for the nation as a whole. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Clark. Look, I think as Ken highlighted in his presentation, we are very interested in promoting healthier living generally and specifically for our customers and our colleagues. We do support the drive towards a smoke-free future for the country and for our children and grandchildren. But you know, we do also recognize that there are, there is a minority, it's a dwindling minority, but nonetheless a significant minority of our customers who do still choose to smoke. And choice, here is the operative word. We aim to give people better choices generally as regards their health, whether it's smoking or in relation to what they eat. By giving them better choices. Specifically in this case we want to make sure that in our stores whilst we give them the choice to buy tobacco if that's what they want to do, it's done in a responsible way. And you described how the cigarettes are out of sight behind the cash desks. That actually is a regulatory requirement, a legal requirement. But also in our stores we want to make sure that people have access to nicotine replacement therapies in our stores. Ken mentioned the training we're providing to our pharmacists to ensure that they are equipped to deal with some of the most common health issues, some of which are smoking related like obesity and respiratory conditions. So what we're trying to do is achieve a balance between giving people choice. Our role is not to arbitrate our customers choices for their lifestyle, that is not our role but to give them good choices, not to make the choice for them. Hi, I'm Peter Taylor and I've got a proxy to come here though I own shares in my own right. Are the board members aware how unhappy local residents are with the proposed 504 apartment tower block development of the Harrow London Superstore? How will the store continue in its present size with the GLA restrictions on parking at the store currently 365 spaces which in the GLA review they want it to be reduced to 120 spaces. Harrow already has 2 smaller Tesco stores within walking distance so Harrow's already well Tesco's already well served serving that market well. The current Central Harrow London Superstore London is unique in the area and provides a weekly shop destination to a large number who use their cars for large purchases. Demographically for London, Harrow has an above average number of families. There are no other large supermarkets with parking in central Harrow. A more suitable smaller residential development would suit this site. Thank you for your question Mr. Taylor. I mean that is a very specific question which we only learned about a little while ago. So the detail in the response might be perhaps less than you want. But as I understand it the site in Harrow is a joint development with the housing association Notting Hill Genesis and the design development and the configuration of the site has been the subject of extensive consultations with the GLA and local communities. We also understand that this is currently in consultation, so there is an opportunity to continue to discuss the impact of the development on the locality as you described it. But as I said, this is a joint development with the housing association. There are other conflicting demands in any complex development. For example, I understand that in this case about a third of the housing in the proposed development is social housing or affordable housing, which is more than is normally the case with any commercial development. But look, I think, as I said, it's an example of a very specific question that might be better addressed on the fringes of the meeting and we're happy to have a chat about it afterwards. Thank you for your question. Thank you, Dr. Murphy. My question is partly a continuation of Peter's. My name is Mary Warner and I live in Harrow. My question is part of this development. In the financial year 2024/25, Tesco expects profits of GBP 2.8 billion, even after launching a series of employee benefits and salary increases. This suggests that Tesco enjoys its profitability, but not at any price. It has a corporate conscience. Could you please explain then why it has embarked on a questionable partnership with a 1.3-star property developer called Notting Hill Genesis at your supermarket site in Harrow? Read the Trustpilot reviews of this company you're aiming to do business with. They'll make your hair curl. A proposed development between Tesco and Notting Hill Genesis has been submitted to Harrow Council to build 10 tower blocks in a small footprint which will dwarf surrounding properties, including the retirement home Rosen House, which is 100 meters from its store. Rosen House is home to vulnerable people of mainly South Asian ethnicity enjoying what will be their twilight years. If this development goes ahead, life will be blighted by five years of building works destroying air quality, noise, traffic chaos. Because of some residents' clinical vulnerability, lives literally are at stake. Where is that corporate conscience now? Tesco's profitability doesn't need this development. The town doesn't need this development. It needs a well run, well stocked store on our doorstep, not a looming light destroying nightmare. Because of some residents' clinical vulnerability, lives will be put at risk. Premature deaths are inevitable. Has Tesco's main board decided, perhaps even after some discussion, that this risk is acceptable? That this is an unimportant group of people who can be safely ignored? We have just celebrated the 80th anniversary of D-Day when we recognize the indomitable spirit of those veterans. If some of them lived in Rosen House, would we even be having this conversation? I urge the board and the shareholders to dig deep in their conscience and withdraw this development application. Thank you. Thank you for your question, Mary. I don't have a lot to add to the answer I gave to Peter. This is a very specific question about a specific development. It is open for consultation and we can have a chat about it afterwards, but your concern is noted and we've heard you. Thank you. Good morning, I'm Alan Smith and I'm a shareholder. My question is on electrification of Tesco's vehicle fleet. Last year I asked about your vehicle fleet and its progress towards green aims. I ask that a table of your different types of vehicles showing how many are electric powered, not hybrid, should be included in your annual report. You and your board members agreed this was a good proposal. What progress has been made? That was my question when I arrived. I then picked up an annual report and tried to find any kind of reference to this. I couldn't find any, so I asked for help. A pleasant young lady pointed out on page 40, under decarbonized transport, it said there were 571 vehicles. These turned out to be local delivery vehicles. What it doesn't tell me or didn't tell me is that that's out of 2,000. Well, it's good progress, but what I wanted to know was for all your classes of vehicles from store transporting vehicles in store, like a little trolley that is already electric, that's a good score down to the huge vehicles which you have, it turns out, got some on trial and so on. What I want is a table setting out for each sort of vehicle, how many are now electric and how many that are altogether. This same table could be published each year showing us the progress from year to year. No such table exists, it's figures scattered throughout the report and throughout an additional document which he gave me a pointer to. There we are tescoplc.com/climatechange face. No, whatever it is anyway, 2024, but there's no table still. Could we have that please? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Smith, for your question. We're perfectly happy to be complete, completely transparent on this. I think Ken mentioned the figure of 500 local delivery vehicles. This is still a work in progress. As I mentioned our field trip last week, one of the areas we spent time on as a board was physically walking around and climbing over different forms of concept vehicle. It is relatively straightforward to convert vehicles to electric. The size and weight ratio compared to the payload means that electrification as it stands today in terms of the state of the art works quite well. It gets more and more complicated the bigger the vehicle and the relationship between the weight of the batteries and the payload makes that rather complicated. So as you said, we've got a number of trials in development in terms of full electrification of big trucks to mid-sized vehicles to alternative lower carbon solutions that might not be electric just yet around recycled vegetable oils and we're looking at natural gases as opposed to diesel and biofuels. So there's a whole range of trials going on. The short answer is we don't have the final solution yet because it doesn't exist, but we're very happy to be completely transparent with the work we're doing and if a table is helpful, then we think about that. Thank you. Hello, my name's Peter and I'm here as a representative of ShareAction and I want to ask a question about the Real Living Wage. Well, the first thing I'd like to say is I noted the answer you gave to the Real Living Wage question at the beginning. I think it was from Provident or somebody. Yeah. And part of the answer you said, well, of course your suppliers have independence and you can't dictate terms. And to a certain extent that's true. But as any buyer knows, and certainly of the magnitude and significance of Tesco, if you ask a supplier to maintain certain standards and conditions, they will do that. And suppliers of security and cleaning service are increasingly including in their options for bidding Real Living Wage options. First thing I'd like to say is, can Tesco take a more active role in that and a leadership role and start putting in that request to its suppliers? Because of course they'll comply. Who wouldn't? The second thing I'd like to ask, and I also looked at a copy of the annual general report and on page 62 I noticed that one of the three values that Tesco espouses is that we treat people how they want to be treated. So can the board explain why it is comfortable with the CEO's pay doubling last year to 430 x that of the average Tesco employee and not comfortable with providing third-party contracted workers such as cleaners and security guards with a real living wage? Thank you. Thank you for your question, Peter. Ken, do you want to take the Real Living Wage part and I'll deal with the relativity? Yeah, absolutely. Very happy to do that. So I think as we said earlier, we have made record level investments in pay over the last two years, over GBP 800 million in colleague pay and colleague well-being outside of that. We have a few trusted relationships with third-party contractors and for every one of those contractors we require them to comply with the Ethical Trading Initiative. So effectively they are compelled to comply with the same ethical standards as we do. And we consider that a very important part of being a partner and a supplier to Tesco. We don't dictate the individual terms to them, but we do expect them to operate at the same level and standards of ethics as we do. On the pay the ratio question, we don't manage to a ratio. We apply the same principles to the pay of senior executives as we apply to everybody. That is that our pay should be simple and fair, competitive and sustainable. In the case of very senior executives like Ken, as you mentioned, our CEO, the key word is competitive. Ken was recruited from the global market. He came from one of the world's largest pharmacy chains, as was his predecessor who came from Unilever. We do recruit from time to time at very senior levels from the global market. Frankly we just have to be competitive with that market. We benchmark pay for our senior people, those under the direct purview of the Remuneration Committee, against a number of different comparators to make sure that we are being competitive but also fair. The comparators for someone in Ken's position would be people running similarly large, complex public companies, global businesses of scale. Typically the FTSE sort of 20-50 would be the benchmark in this case. We look at the comparators in terms of what our global competitors are paying for senior executives doing a similar kind of role. That produces the answer that you saw in the annual report. Likewise, at the other end of the scale, so to speak, our approaches to people, simple, fair, competitive and sustainable wages. The ratio is just a function of the two answers. But it's not something which we manage. Okay, thank you for your answer. I'd just longer term like to see Tesco applying the same terms in terms of living wage that it's delivered. Congratulations for that. And the pay increases to colleagues or direct employees. But it is possible to apply it to contractors and I look forward to that being in the future. Thank you very much for your comments. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Amelia, and I'm here as a proxy, and I'm representing Feedback. In January, we published a report alongside a coalition of West African and Norwegian organizations looking into the Norwegian salmon industry. The report, titled Blue Empire, reveals how the Norwegian salmon industry's appetite for wild fish to feed farmed salmon is contributing to food insecurity and a lot of livelihoods in West Africa where food insecurity has hit a 10-year high. This research was also front page of the Financial Times with Tesco named right at the start of the article. The salmon industry's extractive business model is moving wild fish from the Global South to feed salmon in the Global North, which then sold as a premium at supermarkets such as Tesco. This movement of food from the Global South to the Global North is creating a new type of food colonialism in which Tesco is an active participant. When Tesco customers go for their weekly shop, they do not expect or want to be contributing to the loss of livelihoods malnutrition in some of the world's poorest countries. This is a simple yes, no question. Will Tesco commit to removing farmed salmon from their shelves, which is known to contribute to food insecurity and loss of livelihoods in West Africa and other vulnerable communities? Thank you. Ken, you want to take that? Yep, absolutely, I think. Thank you very much for your question, Amelia. I'll be honest, this is new news to me, so it's very recently come to my attention, as in, in the last 30 seconds, so I can't give you a specific answer. What I can tell you though is we're absolutely committed to sustainable fishing and sustainability, sustainability in the food chain in general. So it's very worrying to hear that we are inadvertently or even indirectly causing an issue in the southern countries of the world. So let me take it away, let me work it with our sourcing team and our sustainability team and then we'll give you a more comprehensive answer once we've had a chance to study it. But rest assured, we take it super seriously. Great, look forward to hearing. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Hello, my name is Sophie and I'm here to ask a question on behalf of ShareAction and the Healthy Market Initiative. The Healthy Markets Initiative is a group of nearly 50 investors with more than $5 trillion of assets who are committed to encouraging the food industry to help shape a healthier society. Diet related ill health is the main cause of death worldwide, claiming the lives of 11 million a year in the U.K. Diet related sickness accounts for almost a tenth of overall health care expenditure, costing the NHS GBP 18 billion every year. It is in the interest of the food and drink sector to steer their sales towards healthier options. As consumer demand for healthier food grows and the regulatory and legal risks of relying too heavily on the sales of less healthy products become increasingly evident. We commend Tesco for prioritizing public health by eliminating multi buy promotions on less healthy foods and advancing healthier options through the Better Baskets initiative in its larger stores. We also commend the company's work to ensure that 65% of sales in the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland come from healthier products by 2025. However, the company's progress to increase the proportion of sales of healthier products in Central Europe appears to have stalled in recent years. We are keen to hear what concrete actions you are planning to take this year to make sure you are on track to deliver on this target by 2027. ShareAction would like to thank the company for its continued engagement and its last meeting with the coalition in May 2023. We look forward to a subsequent meeting in upcoming months. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Franklin. I think you'd have seen in Ken's presentation the prominence we give to thinking about and acting on the whole proposition of giving our customers everywhere better choices when it comes to their health. The same answer I gave in relation to the question about smoking. It's very much front and central in the way we think about Tesco for the next 10, 15, 20 years. It is one of the key mega trends for which we have to solve to be a responsible supplier of more than a quarter of the food in this market and a bit less, but still a huge proportion of the food in Central Europe. So it is very much front and center of our thinking about Tesco's development as a business, as a brand, and not just from a commercial point of view, but also from a responsibility point of view. Specifically, Ken, on Central Europe. Yeah, I think, interestingly, Central Europe in many ways has quite different eating habits to the UK, so it cooks a lot more from scratch, has much bigger fresh food counters in terms of meat, fish, poultry, but also very, very much so in bakery. And the issue, though, is that that Central European diet is also relatively heavier in fat and dairy content. So we've taken more or less the same approach to Central Europe as we have to the UK, which is that commitment to hit 65% of healthier sales in our stores by 2025. I think, reassuringly, the battleground in terms of value in the grocery sector across Europe has really moved to fresh food. So if you think about, we were all competing 10 years ago on who had the cheapest petrol. Now really the battleground is who has the cheapest fresh produce. That is very much the case in our Central European businesses. I think the last thing I would say is that we're making extensive efforts, both in own brand, but also with our suppliers, on reformulation, to constantly remove the unhealthy, unhelpful fat content, salt content and sugar content of our products. So, you know, I wouldn't see a lot of difference between our approach in the UK to that of Central Europe. Thank you. Just to echo that I've just come back from the Czech Republic last week and our whole competitive stance in the Czech Republic is being driven by the quality and breadth of our fresh offering. So Tesco's trying to differentiate itself from other players in the market, a very competitive market, by emphasizing fresh and healthy as our core proposition in that market. Just before we carry on, I'm not sure if we have more questions, but I'd just like to remind you, everyone, that the voting on the resolutions is now open and you can submit your votes by completing your paper polling card. If you're having any issues with that, please let us know and we'll be happy to help. Hello, my name is Rowan, Campaign Officer at ShareAction. ShareAction's Good Work Investor Coalition, which represents $6.6 trillion in assets under management or advisory, is expecting the retail sector to demonstrate progress towards real living wage accreditation. Tesco can demonstrate this progress by extending its guarantee of the real living wage, both nationally and in London to all of the company's third party contracted staff. 1,000 people have signed ShareAction petition calling on Tesco to do exactly this, including many of the company's own employees. Will Tesco listen to its consumers, workers, investors and other stakeholders and commit to extending its guarantee of the real living wage to all of its third party staff and provide a timeline to do so? Finally, is the board willing to meet with ShareAction and the Good Work Coalition to discuss this issue further? Thank you. Thank you for your question. Look, I think this is the third time it's been raised. I don't think we have a lot to add to the answers we've already given to your colleagues. And to the first question from Friends Provident. I think we have an approach to pay for our own colleagues and for our contractors that is ethical and responsible and balanced. And we think it serves both the company and our stakeholders well. Thank you for the question. Hello, my name is Paddy. I'm here as a proxy representing the High Pay Centre. We are a small think tank looking at executive pay, inequality and workplace democracy. Given the current cost of living crisis affecting both Tesco employees and customers, how can the board justify CEO Ken Murphy's pay package more than doubling to GBP 9.9 million, meaning he's now paid 430 x more than the average Tesco employee? Can you please explain how this aligns with Tesco's commitment to treat its stakeholders fairly? Especially considering that Tesco's substantial increase in profits from last year appears to be partly driven by higher food bills for customers, while pay increases for the average Tesco employee lag behind the CEO's substantial raise. I appreciate you answered a similar question earlier stating needs be competitive but this is one of the most extreme pay ratios in the FTSE 100. Thank you, thank you for the question. As you said, I think we at least I had tried to address the question earlier in relation to the pay ratio. I've explained how that's come about. It's not something that we managed to. I think I also explained that we have to be competitive in what we pay our people at all levels, trading at the very top level and the fact that we operate in an environment where pay is related to performance. Now the specific level of increase in Ken's pay reflects the fact that this is the first year where his pay awards that he received, his share awards that he received when he joined have crystallized. So the absolute level of increase is not a like-for-like comparison just to make that point, and that the long-term pay is the result of years of value creation for Tesco and its shareholders as delivered through the long-term incentive award which is what it's designed to do. So I have no difficulty in defending Ken's absolute level of pay given the complexity scale of the business. But also protecting particularly is performance and I don't have a lot more to add to it than that. So thank you. Thank you. Good morning, my name is Anthony Lee. My family investment company are long term happy shareholders of Tesco and I think I'd like to say what hasn't been said by any of my colleagues here to congratulate the chairman, the chief executive and the board on the performance of the company that we see today. We will already long term shareholders during the Philip Clarke era when Tesco as a company suffered on so many levels. I just think congratulations are due that today we see a company which is healthy financially and equally importantly with a reputation restored because a company's reputation is as important as the income stream. I think that should be said. It doesn't mean to say I don't have a few questions which don't necessarily mean criticisms. The issue of salaries have been dealt with. I'm not going to go over that. So let me begin with the issue of Tesco Bank. I understand the reasons for selling it, but you're keeping the insurance side. Yet you say one of the reasons for selling the bank is because banks are heavily regulated and you feel a bank that is already under regulation could deal with that side of things more successfully. Absolutely understood. But you're keeping other bits and bobs like the ATMs and the insurance part. I assume that you've done your sums and that it's still worth it for Tesco to be in that field, but to an outsider it seems a little puzzling. Okay, thank you for your question and thank you for your compliment. As I said at the start, having just joined the board, I'm particularly pleased that Tesco's performance is an all around performance. Doing the right thing by our customers, by our colleagues and by our shareholders and doing the right thing for the planet, as we've been trying to explain. So thank you for that, I think. I absolutely agree. It's really important that we have a balanced performance, not one that's focused on any one stakeholder, even the shareholders. Ken, on the specifics of the insurance. Yeah, so look, it's a good point. I think I would start off by saying that the banking assets that we sold, so the loans book, the credit card book and the savings book are regulated in a very specific way and in our view represented an asymmetric risk to the business relative to the return they were yielding. We think they belong in the hands of a tier one bank like Barclays. I think that makes eminent sense. Insurance is different, it is also regulated, but it is regulated in a different way. From our perspective, it's a much more manageable regulated environment and it is performing exceptionally well. Our aim has always been to not to limit but to enhance the level of financial services that we could provide to Tesco customers and we could leverage the Clubcard to reward customers for using financial services with us. So we're very comfortable that the insurance business is not only sustainable under the kind of ambit of Tesco, but is also a business that we can grow and improve over time. Thank you. Can I ask about the proceeds of the sale? You've announced that you're going to do a share buyback. Yes, I think the debate about share buybacks has been done to death. But I could still question on it. But why totally on a share buyback? Could you not have split it and given the poor shareholders a special dividend and still use some of the proceeds for a share buyback? Ironically, of course, now is not the time to buy Tesco shares because they're on a high. So I wondered whether you ever considered, well, let's split. We don't think we're on a high, just saying. So we judge buybacks based on what we believe to be the value of our shares, of our business performance relative to our share price. And if you think over the last three years. In fact, since Brexit, U.K. public listed companies have typically seen, suffered or lagged behind their international peers in terms of valuation because of the drag effect of Brexit and its perceived impact on the U.K.'s performance. And therefore, in relative terms, we believe our shares are good value. And that means that a share buyback makes sense for shareholders because it effectively improves the earnings per share over time. That will be true up to a point, and we monitor that point on a dynamic basis. If we ever hit the point where we believe that they no longer represent good value for shareholders, at that point, we will then look at other ways of returning surplus cash to shareholders. You mentioned the Clubcard. I started life as a lawyer and then spent 35 years in factual television. And if I was looking for a story, you provided a brilliant story with your battle with Lidl. However, it does raise certain serious issues. And I have a question. Was what happened prior to going to court, which you fought at first instance and in the Court of Appeal? Was it a D-Day cock up? Nobody realized, in effect, if you left D-Day early, people would notice. I wrote down the possible reactions to the similarity in the marketing, whether with your legal advisors or whatever. Well, that's naughty, but you'll probably get away with it. No, don't risk it. No problem, squire. Well, actually it may cause a lot of problems, but think of the publicity at the end of it. Nobody will be unaware that Tesco is doing this offer. Now, I don't know how much you spent in legal fees, but I do wonder, did that action to defend it or did the original plan of the color scheme and everything go before the board? It preceded my time, the launch, just. But what I have understood is that honestly, the colors of Clubcard have always been blue and yellow, so there was never a change. The circle, I think, was very unconscious and I think people really thought there was no risk of litigation because it's frankly ridiculous. In my honest opinion, I don't believe that can be a trademark over a color. And I won't get into the specifics of the case, but I would read the judgment on the Court of Appeal because I think that gives you some indication of how the Court of Appeal really felt about the case in the first place. What I would say to you is, I'm even happier with the latest logo of Clubcard Prices. I think it's even better and stronger than the previous one. So, you know, frankly, it is what it is. There was no sense that we were risking any litigation at the time it was launched. We're still a little bit incredulous that our competitor would waste the court's time with such a case, but there you go, that's life. Okay, I have two other questions. You're about to launch Tesco Marketplace, which is, as I understand it as a punter, is going to be an online marketplace where you'll sell about 9,000 items, most of which Tesco, but not all of which Tesco. Now, you've done online marketing, online sales before, but not very successfully. What is going to be different this time? And what is the point of actually offering somebody else's produce as well as Tesco produce? Okay, so the work we've undertaken over the last three to four years has really been to streamline and optimize the range that we service through our stores. The reason for that is we want to hit the sweet spot between the lowest cost operator, which allows us to be the lowest price full line grocer in the market. We carry on average 20,000 stores, SKUs in our large stores against a competitor like Aldi, who will carry 2,500. But we want to be within touching distance of them on price. That's really hard to do without being exceptionally efficient and rational about your SKU count. At the same time, we understand one of our points of difference is choice and range. We want to use the marketplace to enhance our range and our choice in everything that is food and food related. I would extend that definition into clothing and home because I think that's an important market we service today. We haven't set any limits on the number of SKUs, but we don't want to be in Amazon. We want to curate the range to be relevant for customers as possible. There are two critical differences between what we're doing today and what we used to do when we had Tesco Direct. The first is that Marketplace is completely integrated into our website. So if you're doing your grocery home shopping, you can shop Marketplace products on the same website. So it's completely integrated. The second thing is we do not hold the stock ourselves. So it's all fulfilled through third parties. That means that we have invested and embarked on Marketplace in a very capital light way, which I think hopefully will avoid the pitfalls that we experienced in the previous incarnation of Tesco Direct. So you would deliver Tesco stuff, but if I want to buy another product in that sense, you're simply putting it on the website. Correct. Okay, one last point. I talked about reputation when I arrived today. I was given my voting card and I was given a Tesco pen. When I came into the room and I tried to use the Tesco pen, it was non-functional. I don't want this to go outside in case it affects the share price, but maybe Tesco should test the pens it gives before even shareholders are given them to use to mark their cards. Fair point. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, my pen's working, by the way. Gary George, shareholder in another retailer. I've seen three examples recently, blatant examples of shoplifting. To what extent does shoplifting affect Tesco? What measures are you taking to address it? Thank you, Mr. George. Yes, it is a big issue for all retailers and a growing issue in recent years, as has been widely reported. Can all the specific countermeasures and protective measures we have in place to protect our colleagues. Yeah, so I mean, ever since the pandemic we've seen a meaningful rise in antisocial behavior and that has a wide range of definitions. Our number one priority, if I'm really honest, has been around colleague safety. So we've put an awful lot of emphasis on keeping colleagues safe. Safe protecting colleagues. We've invested many, many millions of GBP in things like body cams, in things like screens, in some of our more challenged express stores and we have also invested a number of anti-theft measures. So we've increased our guarding coverage. We have a new technology such as anti-pushout trolleys that effectively stop you pushing your trolley out if you haven't stopped for the right amount of time to pay for your groceries in a checkout. We also have much more sophisticated spider devices that we attach to high-value items to prevent theft. It's an ongoing challenge, it's something that we continue to invest in. We're also investing in more sophisticated technology trials to reduce the impact of shoplifting on our business, but more importantly ensuring colleague safety. Right, just a second question. I buy newspaper every day but it's. Not always the same one. Now I find the way that Tesco displays newspapers as not user friendly, i.e. They're upside down down, so you. Have to bend to look at it. Now, as a result of this, I don't go into Tesco very often. I mean Sainsbury's and Co-op the right way around. You know, have you sort of, are you sort of changing this or what? I can understand why you may not. Display them the right way around but. To stop people looking at them and not buying them. But I don't think that needs. I still think it's unhelpful. We have operating procedures for a lot of things, but I'm not sure we've got one for the display of newspapers. I put that in the bracket of common sense and it appears perhaps in your local branch. I go into more than one Tesco and it seems to be common throughout. Them, whereas in Sainsbury's it isn't. You know, I look into it for you. I'll be honest, I haven't clocked it myself, so it's probably a deficiency on my part. I will look closely at that for you. All right, thank you. Thank you for the suggestion. Am I on? Thank you. Good morning, Board. Thank you for having me here today. I'm so pleased to be here. I am a longtime shareholder from my grandfather who inherited shares from John Irwin's way back, so I'm so proud to be here today. I perhaps represent the older generation and my concern is digital inclusion and I want to see how we can start using Tesco in the community. Because two years ago we established the Tea Talk Tech Cafe in Ashbourne in Derbyshire to help people to understand computers and computer language. We have so far helped over 1,100 people in 12 months to understand computer literacy. That has only been done because we have a voluntary services coordination, Rural Action Derbyshire, Derbyshire Dales Council for Voluntary Service, Connex, which are voluntary service and Platform Housing, who are responsible for council house tenancy, coming together, working together to provide that common community service. Sadly, they don't have the funding to pay the staff on a regular basis. We enjoy that service that we get. And although I have coordination with Public Health, the NHS, and The Volunteer Services, for example, NHS charities gave GBP 100,000 two years ago for the continuation administration of the Digital Support Derbyshire Network. And this year Public Health Derbyshire County Council gave GBP 100,000. But they're small bits of funding for very small, specific organizations. We're looking to see how we can develop this in the community by Tesco, working in the community, for the community. Because one of the things we looked at as an older person, older people need five T's: time, tea, talking, toilets and transport. And if you've got those toilets and transport and talking, they come out on a one-to-one basis. We need two more T's, that's tech: technology and the other one you all should know is Tesco. We need Tesco in the community far more to fund what we are trying to achieve because those services are being cut. Only on Tuesday, Derbyshire County Council announced the withdrawal of funding for voluntary services in the community. And it's those sort of things that you could have a greater impact on serving the community. Because once you start learning how to use a computer, you in turn get the business. You're selling mobile phones at your big stores and when you go online, how do you go online? How do you shop? Who do you want to shop? Where do you want Tesco? Tesco online. These are the sort of rewards you will get by helping the people in the community. So I'm asking the question, could Tesco create a funding policy to fund the cost of employing voluntary service personnel to run community service, in particular computer learning and digital inclusion? And I'll finally say that we had a report in the British Medical Journal in January on the success of the Tea Talk Tech Cafe and how it is helping patients to understand their conditions, how to get online doctor's appointments and pharmacy and return in that manner. And it's one of the things that we understand from. I also sit on the policy review board for Age UK. Last week it was announced older people can't read. It isn't that they can't read, they don't understand the language and they're not as numerate as they could be. But once you start talking to people, you understand what they need and how they need it and where the services are provided and who provides that service. Thank you. Thank you for your question, John. Thank you for your loyalty to Tesco and for your engagement with the business over the years. I gotta say, as a, as a fellow pensioner, I'm becoming more and more interested in the issues that you raised with every passing year. But Ken, specifically on the question that John asked. Thank you, John. We have, as I think I mentioned, some of them, but I'll get into a little bit more detail, three levels of charitable work with our communities. The first is the one I spoke about, our three big health charity partners who are national scale and of course the FareShare and Olio. The second level is what we call Stronger Starts where through a store-based system we look to support local schools, particularly primary schools, to make sure they get a stronger start. We within the Blue Token system in our stores, typically we have three different charities that we support locally through that Blue Token scheme model. Two thirds of them go to Stronger Starts, one third is for basically causes voted for locally by the team in the Tesco store. My advice is for you to apply to the local store for recognition as one of the three and then that will drive contributions to what sounds like a very worthy initiative by you locally. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other questions? We do. Ladies and gentlemen, the board of Tesco's. Thank you to the board of Tesco's. I have been a shareholder for several years and was caught up in a mob thanks to Tesco. The philosophy of feeding people with difficulties made it possible for me to live. Thanks to the board of Tesco's, I am alive today. I have been a general registered mental nurse, staff nurse, certified midwife, and I also have a postgraduate. I'm a graduate of King's and University College London and a postgraduate of King's College London. So my regards to the board of Tesco's for helping me to live. Thank you, board and workers of Tesco's. That's all I have to say. Gentlemen, thank you. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. Thank you for your kind remarks and thank you for your service over all those years. Thank you indeed. Before we go on to the next question, just again remind you to please fill your polling cards if you haven't done so already. Next question, please. Peter Asprey. There's a report on the BBC website that Ken Murphy received GBP 4.7 million plus bonuses while staff working nights are on GBP 12 an hour. That's nighttime. Staff with their sleep disrupted. Is this fair when the business is run by artificial intelligence algorithms controlled by the government? There's no real price competition between the supermarkets. It's agreed centrally. Also, why is Tesco selling Sensodyne toothpaste which contains an ingredient called titanium dioxide? According to Wikipedia, titanium dioxide is banned in Europe. Tesco appears to be more interested in profits than customers, health and well-being. Okay, thank you for your questions. Peter, on the second one, as I understand it, titanium dioxide is not banned for use in toothpaste. I think it is restricted for food but not for toothpaste. There's no evidence of toxicology, as far as I'm aware, for use for that application. It's a perfectly legal product that is available in most supermarkets in most countries in Europe. It's a product, obviously, for which there is demand, otherwise we wouldn't stock it. It's a whitener in paint. I know what it is. But it isn't up to Tesco to formulate food regulations. The EU has the strictest food regulations in the world and the EU food regulator has deemed titanium dioxide safe for use in at very low levels in things like toothpaste. Are you selling it in Cork? In Dublin? I believe so, yes. By the way, that's under EU, is it? Sensodyne is made in Dungarvan, which is one hour away from Cork and it is sold extensively in all the EU markets that we serve. But it's banned in EU. It's not banned in the EU. It's not banned for food, it's not banned for toothpaste. For toothpaste. It is restricted in use for food. As I said, we don't make food regulation nor do we make pharmaceutical regulation, but we apply by the rules and Sensodyne is a perfectly legal product sold all over Europe. On the second question, I think I've answered it a few times in relation to Ken's pay. I don't have a lot to add to. Doesn't seem fair when people are working nights and they're not getting a decent wage for doing that. As I said, we try to make sure that our pay is fair and competitive at all levels. Well, I don't agree with you. I accept your disagreement. We can agree to disagree. Do we have any other questions or comments? Gentlemen, here. Hello, my name is Clive Johnson. I'm a shareholder representing myself. My question is simply why won't Tesco talk to me? Almost 10 years ago, I was made redundant by Tesco. Throughout that period, most financial announcements and all marketing communications to my email address appear to have been blocked. I believe you don't actually send them. I know these emails exist because I know others who get them. I've been raising this periodically throughout the last 10 years. I've had some success. I've done everything you asked me to do. I've now been told by the CEO customer service people that they will not discuss this further. Why would you not communicate with a shareholder? Why is this and when will you fix it? I have no idea what the issue is, but there's absolutely no reason why we would ever not communicate with a shareholder. So if you come to us afterwards, I'll see what we can do to help resolve this. I have no idea what the issue is. I emailed this question to Shareholder Questions exactly one month ago today and had no reply whatsoever. No acknowledgement, no nothing. They're just ignoring me. I'm sorry, I can't give you any more comfort than to say, well, let's have a chat about it afterward and see if we can help. Okay, thank you. One more add on question about responsibility and prosperity because remuneration has been brought up a few times. So in the US the average CEO pay is $14.4 million and in the UK it's GBP 3.4 million. So there is a big disparity there. You talk about competitiveness and it must be a really hard job being the chair of the Remuneration Committee. So, as a board, could you inform us shareholders what would be the best solution for companies to indeed have the best talent running their companies while also fulfilling their responsibilities to society? Oh, thank you. It's a big question, a big philosophical question. Almost as a practical matter, we have to pay at levels that are market competitive. As I've explained a few times, the market we operate in is the U.K., not the U.S. And the norms that we apply, the comparisons we apply, are those that would be relevant to this market and those are those for the bigger FTSE companies, companies of a scale and complexity similar to Tesco. But bearing in mind the societal norms in this country, the attitude of institutional investors, we've got to find a balance that works for all of our stakeholders, for our senior executives, because I think the question is about executive pay on the one hand and for our shareholders on the other, many of which are institutions owned by pension funds, ultimately there to serve pensioners. So there's a balance that we have to strike and we try to strike that balance in a way that's fair and sustainable. By sustainable, I mean sustainable in terms of getting the talent that we need. Thank you. I think there seem to be no more. Quite. Just about to stand up, gentlemen. I've got a difficult one for you today. My name is Mr. Nangle and I was just asked, are there any reason? Why you stopped doing the Health Lottery in your shop? Sorry? The Health Lottery. The lottery. Are there any reason why you stopped doing the Health Lottery? Health Lottery, Ken? No idea. I'll see if I can find out, but I have no idea. You could ask Stewart there too. Do you know, Stewart, when you got the answer? I have no idea either. Thank you very much. We'll find out. We'll find out. Having made a premature move, we have another question. I can't sit down now again until everybody's done. Oh, good afternoon, everybody. My name's Stanley Gould, a long-time shareholder. If I mentioned this at other meetings, it's very nice to see it in person. It's got respect for individual shareholders and not institutions. Be interested to know how many questions were put online. Robert, do you know how many for. This AGM we had. We had three questions put online. Just three? Yeah. These voting cards, years ago, it was by a show of hands. I would like to see these cards issued to those people who attend the AGM in person. They are. That's what we are doing. So every shareholder that's come to the AGM has exactly one of those cards. Yeah, but everybody gets one of these from the registrars, so they don't even have to come here. They just fill it in and post it off. Yeah legally, we have to. I think the way that the law works is that if you're a shareholder, you're entitled to a vote. We have to offer electronic voting as well as voting at the general meeting. I'd like to see the old-fashioned way of it being done. We both remember those ways. I'm not going to stand up again until I'm sure there's nobody else there. Okay. Do I do my Jack in the box? Go for it, Gerry. I'm going to go for it. Going, going, gone. Okay. There are no more questions as far as I can see. So we will now move to close the formal voting on the resolutions. Please ensure that you place your poll card in the voting boxes outside. When you leave the room again, if you're having any issues, let us know and somebody will help. Okay. I now declare that the poll is closed and the provisional voting figures for each resolution will be displayed shortly on the screen behind me. Any additional votes cast through the completion of the polling cards here today will be added to the voting figures. Yes, they are behind me. So you can see the results of the poll of the votes that were submitted before the meeting just behind me. Well, look, that concludes the formal business of this AGM and I declare the meeting now formally closed. I'd like to thank all of you for coming today. And to everybody listening on the webcast. As I said earlier, the final results of the meeting will be announced through Tesco's Regulatory Information Service and posted on our company website as soon as it's practicable in the next few hours. Thank you very much for coming.