Good morning, everyone, welcome to United Utilities' full year results presentation this morning. I'm Chris Laybutt. Hopefully, you all know me, but I'm Investor Relations and Clean Energy Director at United Utilities. I'm very pleased to see so many people here in person, which is great. Thank you all for coming. We've also got a good number of people online, so thank you all for tuning in. Two things to note quickly before we start. We are not expecting an alarm test, so please don't panic and follow a member of staff to safety points if we do hear an alarm. Secondly, just a cautionary statement, which is at the back of the presentation. Please, all of the materials available online for you, if you need through the day, and please feel free to reach out to Anna or I, if you have any further questions. With that, I'll hand over to our chair, David Higgins, to get things started. Thanks, Chris. Can I reinforce the warm welcome that Chris gave? It's fantastic to be here physically. I haven't had a physical presentation of results at United... These are three years I've been chair, it's always been virtual, so this is a fantastic return to the real world. Excellent, welcome. My task first up is to welcome our new Chief Executive, Louise Beardmore. Louise, as you know, has been with the company a long time. But that's not anything to be concerned about Louise. It's fantastic actually. She's been on the board for a year, someone said to me, "Gee, that's a hell of a long time of a transition." It has been a fantastic opportunity for Louise to, one, to get to know more of the board and how the board operates, but also to take that year with Steve, who's been a fantastic CEO. Steve, not being territorial, has been able to mentor Louise, but it's given Louise a chance to think about where the company's gonna go to ahead. PR24, absolutely crucial new period for the company, but it's given her a chance, and what I can tell you is, Louise is not going to be business as usual. Louise has set a very challenging agenda. The board is right behind all of her plans. We went through them the other day. You'll hear from Louise in a minute, talking about future business plans, investment strategy. She's also going to walk you through the building blocks of the organization. You already see here in the room, Chris and many others, a lot of new hires that Louise's done, which that year gave her the chance to identify and recruit some very important people. You'll also hear more about our clean energy strategy, which is shaping up to contribute to both business and the environment. I'll hand over to Louise now. Great. Thank you, David, good morning, everybody. It's great to be here in this lovely building. I feel somewhat guilty that we're not looking out the great view out of the window and have you facing this way, but we booked the weather for the event. You'll be pleased to know that it's gonna stay for the bank holiday weekend as well, so even better. Great opportunity to talk to you about our results for last year, but also to talk about the plans ahead, and I'll be sharing those a little bit later on with you this morning. I suppose as I take over the reins at United Utilities, I'm acutely aware that this is an important time, and a really important time for the sector. There are many challenges that are facing us, especially around river health. I wanted to start by saying I understand, and I share people's concerns, and it's really important that we lean into the challenges that are facing us. As with any challenge, there is often opportunities, and I think there is opportunities about how the need for greater infrastructure investment to tackle the changing climate that we find ourselves in, can also contribute to greater growth. I am really clear about the pivotal role that we play in the North West. 7 million brilliant customers, home to fantastic manufacturing businesses, brilliant cities, great countryside, breathtaking national parks. I know I'm from the North, and I'm a little bit biased, but I'd also say home to great music and football teams, too. The North West is also in need of significant inward investment, the need for economic growth, and I can see an opportunity for United Utilities to contribute. We're developing a plan that improves resilience and environmental outcomes, at the same time, generates a real opportunity for growth for the North West. It's for that reason that I've reshaped the organization's strategic purpose, because I'm determined that United Utilities is gonna play a much stronger role in the North West, creating a region that's stronger, greener, and healthier. What do I really mean? Well, stronger, because we have a role to play, investing in our local economy, supporting 22,000 jobs, and providing economic growth through improved resilience. Greener, because we need to protect and enhance the natural environment. We need to respond to the challenges of climate change. Healthier, because we provide some of the best quality drinking water across the country. We take it away, and we recycle it responsibly. It's with real privilege and immense responsibility that I take up the role of Chief Executive at United Utilities. I'll show you shortly some of the operational performance, I think it's just important to reflect that that operational performance that's delivered for customers, communities, and for the environment, has also delivered strong financial performance and returns for shareholders, too. You can see here, in terms of our operational framework, strong returns, solid RCV growth, dividends growing in line with inflation, all underpinned by our strong balance sheet. If I take you through some of our operational highlights for the year. We've delivered our best ever performance to date against our leakage performance commitment, with average leakage over the last three years at its lowest ever level, earning a customer ODI reward for the year. We've spoken to you in the past about additional investment and the work that we've been doing to improve water quality, principally investing to reduce water quality contacts. I'm pleased to say that this year we've seen a 26% reduction in customers contacting us about water quality. Our Water Quality First program has been a cultural change right across the organization. I'm pleased to say that we're in the top half of the WaSCs in terms of all of our water quality compliance, and we're delighted that this year, the Drinking Water Inspectorate recognized all of the work that the teams have been doing and the transformation that's occurred. Real testimony to how hard the team have been working. Our customer campaigns on water efficiency have thrown dividends, too. We've been making the link between energy costs and the costs of heating water in your home, and that's resulted in the biggest reduction that we've seen in per capita consumption of just over 9%. Before I explain more about our strategy to address storm overflows, I want to reflect on the progress that we have made, because last year we announced that we would invest an additional GBP 250 million to deliver environmental improvements and to tackle river health. This investment has already helped us to deliver a reduction in reported activations of 39% since 2020, together with a 41% reduction in both the average recorded frequency and duration. We're on track with our commitment to have 100% of storm overflows monitored by the end of the year, to have 100% of storm overflows monitored. There is more to come later on this morning when I talk to you about our program to improve river health. Turning now to our pollution performance, we're rightly proud of this performance. As the graph shows you here, we continue to lead the sector on eliminating serious pollution events. Encouragingly, I can report that in the last year we've had zero serious pollution events. That builds on an improvement that we've been seeing through the AMP, with a 39% reduction through AMP7. I also wanted to take the opportunity to share with you our operational performance on sewer flooding, because up until this point, sewer flooding has been a real challenge for us operationally, due to the size and the configuration of our network and the fact that we have more rainfall in the North West. We're making strong progress in reducing flooding incidents, with some significant reductions achieved since the start of the AMP. Internal flooding has reduced by 46%, with external flooding 14% lower than the beginning of the AMP. Our best ever year on internal and external sewer flooding. That performance improvement has been delivered in part as a result of the additional investment that we've made in Dynamic Network Management, where we've installed thousands of sensors across our network so we can understand what's going on, and more importantly, we can respond ahead of a problem and ahead of a customer experiencing an impact. I'm really pleased to say that we've seen strong performance for customers, too. This year, we've again improved our C-MeX performance, achieving our best ever score for customers and a record GBP 3 million reward. This month, we reached a new milestone, a total of 100,000 WOW nominations. The WOW awards are independently run, and it provides customers the opportunity to give feedback on their service interactions with our colleagues. We are the only company to achieve 100,000 nominations, fantastic feedback for all our colleagues, who are delivering great service day in, day out. We also know it's been tough for families, too. The cost of living challenge has impacted many, I'm pleased to say that we supported over 330,000 customers since the start of the AMP, the package of support worth GBP 280 million. As a result of our affordability support and also some of our innovative use of technologies such as open banking, we've been able to achieve our best ever current year cash collection performance and have held our bad debt charge stable at 1.8%. We couldn't have achieved all of this performance without people. The culture at United Utilities is one where our colleagues, our employees, are focused on delivering. Focused on delivering for customers, focused on delivering for the environment. It's also about safety, and I'm pleased to say that our accident rate continues to show improvements, with our efforts being recognized with a Gold RoSPA award for the eleventh consecutive year. Engagement of colleagues when you're running a utility business is critical. It's great that we've got an engagement score of 82%, scoring above both utilities and U.K. norms. Our graduate and apprentice programs are going from strength to strength, with record levels of recruitment this year. I'm actually pleased to say that we've got a very special guest in the audience today. I'd like you to give us a bit of a wave, Sam. Sam, put your hands up. Sam's a very special guest, and he's here at my invitation, because I'm pleased to tell you that Sam, he's one of our apprentices, has just won National Apprentice of the Year. I think that deserves a round of applause. That accolade is absolutely down to Sam, his tenacity and his brilliance, but it's also a great reflection that we've got fantastic training programs delivered in-house in our Technical Training Academy up in Bolton. I'm also pleased to announce that we're the only U.K. utility company to be ranked in the top 100 companies in the FT Diversity Leaders for 2023. If I'm to turn to our ESG performance and pull those threads together. On environment, the Environment Agency published their annual performance assessment, which covers a range of environmental metrics. In our most recent assessment, which was for 2021, we are awarded the maximum four stars for our performance. We've achieved this top rating in five of the last seven years. We're also achieving against our Better Rivers commitments, having reduced activations by 39% since 2020. I've just reflected on some of the society measures, on governance and our responsible approach, has ensured consistent upper quartile performance on a range of ESG indices. This year, we have returned to Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, along with just three other companies from the multi-utilities and water sector. We've also received the Fair Tax Mark for the fourth year in a row. The weather has always been a challenge, it's certainly been a challenge this year. Despite those impacts, we've seen some real strong performance on ODI, delivering great service for customers and for the environment. This year, we've had our best ever year. 83% of performance commitments have been delivered, and that has resulted in a net ODI reward of GBP 25 million for the year, giving us confidence to continue to target a net AMP7 ODI reward of GBP 200 million. In a year where the sector has been well and truly in the spotlight, it's critical that any company, but especially a water company, is delivering on the things that matter, and matter most to customers. Our best ever performance against our leakage performance commitment, a 39% reduction in storm overflow activations, zero serious pollutions, four-star EPA, leading customer service performance, and supporting over 330,000 customers with affordability support through the cost of living challenges. I'll now hand you over to Phil to take you through some more of our financial details. Thanks, Louise, and good morning, everyone. Here are the key financial highlights for the year. As Louise's mentioned, we've delivered another year of strong performance with a return on regulated equity of 11% real. Our gearing is reduced to 58%, largely as a result of higher inflation. As per our guidance, revenue is down 2% due to lower consumption. Our operating profit primarily reflects the lower revenue, as well as the impact of inflation on our core costs. Higher inflation has also significantly increased the interest expense on our index linked debt, resulting in an underlying EPS of GBP -0.013 per share. In line with our policy, our total dividend per share for the year is GBP 0.4551. Before we get into the detail of this year's performance, I'd first like to set out our financial framework through to the end of this AMP. Turning to the financial framework through to March 2025. We're delivering strong returns in AMP7, and we expect real average ROA for the AMP to be in the range of 6%-8% real. We expect the compound annual growth rate for the RCV across the period to average between 4%-5% per annum. This includes additional investments previously announced, as well as the GBP 200 million of accelerated investment that Ofwat announced in April. Our dividend policy is for growth in line with CPIH inflation. We continue to benefit from a strong balance sheet, with gearing targeted in the range of 55%-65%, resulting in an A3, A- rating at the water company level. As we get more clarity, as we go through the PR24 business plan process, we'll be able to provide you an update of what this means for AMP8. Now let's have a look at ROI for FY 2023. On the left-hand side of this slide, you can see a breakdown of our ROI performance for the year, which the 11% real is our best ever performance. As you can see, on top of a base return, our financing performance has been strong, reflecting locked-in rates on our debt portfolio, as well as the higher inflation environment in the year. On the right-hand side, the chart shows our ROI progression from AMP6 into AMP7. We're forecasting average ROI for AMP7 of between 6% and 8% real. Turning now to the P&L. Underlying operating profit of GBP 441 million is down GBP 169 million, in line with guidance. Revenue is down due to lower than expected consumption, resulting in an under recovery of GBP 41 million, which will be recovered in FY 2025. Tariffs in FY 2024 have been adjusted to reflect that ongoing low consumption, and we expect revenue next year to increase by around GBP 150 million. Now, turning to OpEx. This year, the inflationary drivers have had an impact on our operating costs to the tune of GBP 81 million. Although power increased by GBP 27 million this year, we benefit significantly from our approach to hedging. Next year, we're 90% hedged, taking our power costs around GBP 20 million higher, somewhere in the region of GBP 150 million. Chemical costs are GBP 25 million higher, reflecting the energy-intensive production process. The good news is, we see these costs stabilizing next year. As I've mentioned previously, the Totex allowance indexes with average CPIH inflation, resulting in an 8.9% uplift in the current year. In what is a challenging environment, we're working very hard to manage the inflationary cost pressures on our business, with a focus to contain costs within our inflation-adjusted Totex allowance. Lastly, extreme weather events adversely impacted not only our ODI performance, but also drove adverse operating costs of GBP 20 million in the year. In total, operating costs for FY 2024 are forecasted to increase by around GBP 60 million. Now turning to the remaining lines of the income statement. Underlying net finance expense for the year is GBP 475 million, around GBP 170 million higher than FY 2022, with the increase due to the impact of higher inflation on our index-linked debt. Cash interest, however, has continued to fall this year, reflecting the benefit of refinancing and the competitive rates we're achieving on new debt. For FY 2024, we currently expect underlying net finance expense to fall by at least GBP 150 million, based on latest inflation forecasts. Our underlying tax, we continue to benefit from capital allowance super deductions worth around GBP 40 million this year, resulting in no current year tax charge, while adjustments in respect of prior years have resulted in an underlying tax credit of GBP 25 million. Following the spring budget, full expensing is expected to provide a comparable tax benefit next year, resulting in an expectation that we will have no current year tax charge in FY 2024. All of this results in a small underlying loss after tax of GBP 8.7 million and an underlying EPS of minus GBP 0.013 per share. Turning next to our balance sheet. On the left-hand side of this slide, you can see we have a year on year movement in RCV and net debt. RCV has grown by GBP 1.3 billion this year to GBP 14 billion. Net debt of GBP 8.2 billion has increased by around GBP 600 million, resulting in RCV gearing falling to 58%. We raised around GBP 500 million of funding during the year, providing us with approximately GBP 900 million of liquidity at the balance sheet date. We've raised a further GBP 400 million, including a GBP 300 million 15-year sustainable bond in April 2023. This issuance maintains our strong liquidity position, covering cash flow requirements out to August 2025. To wrap up and to look to the future. Full details of our technical guidance can be found in the appendices. Our return on regulated equity this year is 11% real, and our guidance for AMP7 is in the range of 6%-8% real. We expect RCV growth across the current regulatory period in the range of 4%-5%, you'll hear more on this shortly, but we're anticipating higher growth in AMP8. We continue to benefit from a strong balance sheet, with RCV gearing of 58% at March 2023, and a policy to target gearing of between 55% and 65%. Total dividend per share for the year was 45.51 pence, and our AMP7 dividend policy is for growth in line with CPIH inflation. All of this means we're extremely well positioned for the future, and in a moment, I will hand back to Louise to take you through the opportunities ahead of us. First, a short video. From Cumbria down through Lancashire, Merseyside across to Cheshire, and Manchester in between, water makes the North West. It's part of our history and key to the future of this glorious place we call home. Now is our opportunity to build a stronger, greener, healthier North West, because a stronger North West means opportunities for all. As we invest in the region to build a resilient water system and make our economy ready for the future, reducing leaks and sewer flooding by investing in new infrastructure and technology, contributing GBP 9 billion to the regional economy, supporting 22,000 skilled jobs, and creating opportunities for the next generation with our largest ever intake of graduates and apprentices. All the while, championing those who need extra help with sector-leading support, helping over 300,000 customers in the last three years so that everyone can enjoy water without worry. A greener North West means great quality water for all. We're accelerating over GBP 900 million of environmental investment. We can do more, and do it sooner. With an aggressive plan to reduce the activation of storm overflows and improve the water in our rivers, replumbing our drainage system to drive the step change we need. Using cutting-edge technology to cut the amount of water entering our sewers. Investing GBP 90 million to help protect Windermere. Restoring peatlands, creating wetlands, and planting 1 million trees to boost habitats, support nature, and help build a low-carbon future. A healthier North West means everyone can reach their potential. As we deliver 1.8 billion liters of world-class water to over 7 million people. I thought it'd be useful to take some time this morning just to talk about our plans for the future. The plan for AMP8, what we're doing to address river health, thirdly, to talk about our plans to create a greener future and optimize our land bank. If we think about the water sector, we've seen a steady level of investment since privatization, with levels remaining stable in real terms for many AMPs. It's clear that we're now at an inflection point, that inflection point is being driven by three key factors. The first, customers' expectations are changing, and rightly so. The second, increases in population. We're expecting to see an additional 1 million people in the North West over the next 25 years. Also, the impacts of climate change, drier springs and summer, more intense downpours of rain and flooding. Thirdly, the need for enhanced environmental standards, improved performance, with a focus on the removal of storm overflows and reducing phosphates, all of which have been enshrined into legislation in the Environment Act 2021. This inflection point means that the level of infrastructure investment that's needed in the future is very different than what has happened in previous AMPs. I wanted to take some time to just talk to you about the plan, what's included, and how it's coming together. First, it starts with our base expenditure, the base costs, essentially, of running the business, and then there is a series of four building blocks. The first is the requirements in terms of drinking water. These come from the Drinking Water Inspectorate, but this relates to enhancements around water quality, improving water treatment works, reducing lead pipes, and also upgrading key infrastructure like our Vyrnwy Aqueduct, that takes water from Wales up to Liverpool, improving water quality for over 500,000 customers. The second block is about water resources, and this is basically looking at: have you got enough water? Our Water Resource Management Plan is considering the level of investment that is needed to ensure that we have sufficient supplies, both now and in the future. Our Water Resource Management Plan is gonna see us implement a suite of comprehensive smart meters across the region, 750,000 smart meters, so we can understand more about water usage, and more importantly, reduce leakage and per capita consumption. It will also improve access to water sources, halving the need for a temporary use ban or a hosepipe ban, as they're quite affectionately called. Block three is the requirements in relation to drainage and wastewater. This sees us looking at wastewater treatment, but also looking at how do we reduce flooding, and more importantly, how do we reduce pollutions? This last block, though, is the most fundamental. This essentially is where the requirements sit from the Environment Agency, the environmental enhancement or the WINEP, as it is often called. This is where the reduction in storm overflow sits, the need to reduce phosphates and improve nutrient neutrality all sits as requirements. Those packages essentially all come together to form what will be our PR24 submission that goes in later in October. I just wanted to take a little bit of time to talk about what's included in this WINEP. You can see a sense of what's fundamentally different than what's happened in the past. If we look back to previous AMPs, and we look at AMP6 and AMP7, billion pounds. Our storm overflow plan alone is GBP 3 billion, of which over GBP 900 million has already been recognized, with GBP 200 million accelerated into this AMP, enabling us to get going now. It's not just about combined sewer overflows that are in the WINEP. There are additional requirements, as I've said, relating to removing phosphates, improving bathing waters, and addressing nutrient neutrality. This represents an additional and significant amount of investment that's going to be required for the next AMP. We're continuing to work with regulators. I can't give you any assurance as I stand here now, about what the ultimate size will be, we thought it would be useful to give you an indication of how it's starting to come together. Delivering a plan of this size, making that step change from where we've been in the past to where we need to be, is not without its challenges, and that's where I've been focusing my time and attention. There's going to be a huge amount to navigate, with planning authorities and supply chain capacity and capability that needs to be well managed. We're also very, very mindful of the need to ensure that we're optimizing green solutions, because it's also about sustainable drainage solutions, swales, reed beds, not just concrete tanks. How do we essentially start to think about our wastewater systems fundamentally differently than we have in the past? There's also a need for detailed and robust integration with day-to-day operational activity, because we allowed no allowances while we're completing all of the increased construction, we still need to deliver for customers and for the environment. Mobilizing to deliver such a plan is therefore critical and key to our success. We've been focusing on three things: challenge, capability, and capacity. We think about challenge. I've appointed an independent scrutiny panel, a panel of experienced, heavy-hitting, independent consultants who are actually helping us evaluate our plan. Have we optimized it? Have we built it in the right way? What experience can we take from what else is happening, not just here in the UK, but from across the world? More importantly, I'm retaining that expertise because I want them to be sat there, challenging us and optimizing our plan as we deliver. It's also about capability, because a plan like this is going to require much closer liaison with our planning departments up and down the country. I've appointed five regional stakeholder managers, one for each county. They're already out there now, working with our local authority departments and planning, talking about the schemes, talking about the activities and what's going to happen. It's also about focusing on capacity. The benefit of that transitional funding is that we've been able to get to work now. We've been able to start to optimize our CSO delivery program, and by the end of this year, we will already have a 500-strong team focused purely on nothing but CSO delivery. With such significant investment in AMP8, and potentially in future AMPs, the key consideration has always got to be about affordability of this plan. While our engagement with customers shows that customers support investment and they support improved environmental performance, the recent rises in cost of living are understandably putting pressure on households. We are challenging ourselves to look for efficiencies and to optimize this plan, so we can ensure that we deliver it in the most cost-efficient and innovative way. Clearly, the price, and more importantly, the impact on the bill, is something we need to have front and center. Our current modeling would identify that we're expecting to see bill increases in the order of GBP 20 each year before inflation. The level of financial support that's going to be available for customers is going to be critical. You heard me talk earlier about the support that we already provide, I think the fact that we have really focused affordability schemes, providing that targeted support, is gonna be instrumental as we go into the next AMP. We're gonna be increasing our package of support into AMP8, ensuring that no customer is left behind as we start to see bills move. It's a big plan. It's an ambitious plan, it needs to be, because it needs to deliver for all of our stakeholders. We're clear what's needed, I'm aligning the organization to make sure we deliver it. In terms of what comes next, I recognize that's just a very quick summary, we'll obviously be sharing much further details with you at our capital markets later on in the year. In essence, we're now talking to all of our customers and stakeholders about this plan, shaping it based on their feedback and their inputs into what they want to see in the region. Over the summer, we'll finalize our plan, ready for the submission in October. At the point that the plan gets submitted, we will obviously share more details with you. Then next summer, in May and June time, we're expecting the draft determination ahead of the final determination that's going to be published in December 2024. Now I want to turn, and more importantly, focus on river health and what we're doing to make a step change in relation to the activation of storm overflows. We take our role in the region really seriously, and from a river health perspective, we're committed to building and delivering the changes that everybody wants to see. We've heard what people think. Nobody wants to see sewage discharged into rivers or onto beaches. We understand those concerns. More importantly, we're moving from being concerned to doing something about it. Just like to take a moment to share the following video with you. People are rightly concerned about the state of the UK's rivers, particularly the use of storm overflows by water companies. These overflows might have been a core feature of the sewer network in the UK and around the world for centuries. That doesn't make them right. We need to stop sewage being released into our rivers and seas. At United Utilities, we get it. We are committed to making the changes we all want to see. To stop storm overflows, the government has pointed to the need for around GBP 56 billion worth of investment to replumb the country's sewer network, and around GBP 20 billion worth of that investment falls here in the North West. It's such a problem in our region as we have more rainfall, and we have more combined sewers that carry sewage and rainfall together instead of being in separate pipes. We've got a plan to spend over GBP 3 billion in the next five years, and we've been working with regulators to bring forward over GBP 900 million of that investment, so we can start now, building new storage tanks and making changes to treatment works to increase their processing ability. It's the most aggressive and ambitious building program the North West has ever seen, and most importantly, we've already started. I need to be honest, though, these changes are not going to happen overnight, and just like the transition from diesel to electric cars, it's going to take time as we need to replumb the system. With sewers typically no more than 15% full during dry conditions, it's heavy rainfall that causes the overflows to activate. We also need help from others, too, from developers, from businesses and homes up and down our great region, to stop rainwater from entering the sewers in the first place. I'm clear, and we have heard loud and clear, that we need to step up and go quicker. We will work hard every day, all of our colleagues here at United Utilities, to stop storm overflows entering our waterways and ensure that the North West has healthy, beautiful rivers for generations to come. I want to take a moment to unpack some of the information that was in that video. Storm overflows have been a feature of the system for over 150 years. There are some factors about the North West and our region that places us at the top of the activation list. We have more storm overflows in our region than others, and we've got a very big network. 54% of our wastewater operates in a combined network, so essentially, waste and rainfall combines together in one pipe. That compares to 33% across the rest of the country. As the video says, sewers are typically never more than 15% full, and it's heavy rainfall that causes those activations. Over the next 25 years, we expect more severe rainfall events, and as you know, it's wet up north. We see more rain in our region, that means that we have 28% higher average annual runoff than again, elsewhere in the country. As I said earlier, we're also expecting those changes in population, with an additional 1 million people expecting to be in the North West in the next 25 years. As part of developing the Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan, the government estimates the need for around GBP 56 billion worth of investment, of which GBP 20 billion falls into the North West for the reasons that I've outlined just before. What are we doing? What are we doing that's going to drive the step change that we all want to see? Well, we're proposing an ambitious plan, a GBP 3 billion program of work to improve over 400 storm overflows in the next AMP. Our plan will enable us to make a significant reduction in the number of activations. We're targeting around a 60% reduction against the 2020 baseline, moving us from 59 activations per storm overflow in 2020 to 20 activations following delivery of this investment. We're optimizing our plan. We're working now so we can understand what we can do first and how we can configure the plan to make sure we achieve the maximum benefit as quickly as we can. The map here on the left shows you the locations of the 400 storm overflows that we're tackling across the region in AMP8, all across the five counties of the region of the North West. The benefit of being sat in a designate position, is it allowed me the opportunity to not just focus on our AMP8 plan, but to work with regulators, and that's what we've been doing. Since October, we've been working and talking behind the scenes so that we could accelerate our plan. I'm pleased to say that in April, Ofwat announced the outcome of the request that Defra had made to identify projects to accelerate infrastructure delivery in England. We're really pleased that Ofwat has given us provisional approval to accelerate over GBP 900 million of our AMP8 expenditure from the WINEP program, enabling us to accelerate GBP 200 million worth of investment into AMP7, so we can get going now. As you can see here with the green dots, that's allowing us to get to work on 154 storm overflows now. We've also been granted accelerated funding for a package of work in Lake Windermere as well. What's really, really good about the accelerated funding, is as well as being able to mobilize the team, we're innovating, we're learning, and more importantly, we're making progress now, not having to wait until AMP8. If you also go back to what I said on the video, it's also about how do we take rainwater out of the system? We're doing some things that are a little bit different, too. We're undertaking the largest U.K. trial of smart water butts with schools and homes in Lancashire. Essentially, these are big, big tanks that are controlled or powered, I should say, through solar power and linked into our control room in Warrington. When we know there's a storm coming, we're able to send them alerts, and more importantly, they empty ahead of experiencing heavy downfalls of rain, all putting less pressure on the sewer system and the need to activate storm overflows. The acceleration work that I've just talked about is enabling us to get to work now on this type of innovation. We're also rethinking our network. You've heard us talk a lot about Dynamic Network Management, and as you heard earlier, it's showing benefits, paying dividends in terms of reducing sewer flooding performance for customers. The network of sensors that's optimized from an AI perspective is also helping us to understand how our network is operating and how it will perform under storm conditions. I think what is important, though, is we need to lean into the narrative. We need to do more to get the messages out there about what we are doing and the role that we all need to play in improving our river health. Water companies have a lot to do, but so do others, too, and it's as a result of this that we've installed our River Rangers. Colleagues who are out working on our river banks, talking with communities, working with businesses, working with agriculture, looking at the impact on our rivers, and more importantly, what can we collectively do to make a difference? In October, we're launching our See for Yourself campaigns, where we're gonna allow customers the opportunity to come into some of our sites right across our region to understand how the wastewater treatment works operate, to see some CSOs, because actually, it's only by improving understanding, we're gonna start to make the step change that we all need to see. We're out talking to our communities, in town halls and in community halls up and down the North West. This is our plan, this is what we're doing, and more importantly, this is what we can all do to reduce water usage, to reduce runoff, and remove rainwater from entering our systems. It's going to take time. The accelerated investment helps us to get to work now, and more importantly, it's allowing us to innovate and innovate quickly. Lastly, I just thought it'd be useful to reflect on our strategy as we move forward and our plans to optimize our land bank. At United Utilities, we see clean energy as a natural adjacent opportunity to our core water business. We're the largest corporate landowner in England, 56,000 hectares of land, there is scope for the development of renewables and other clean technologies. We've already identified around 140 sites for development. Our strategic focus will be on resilience and lowering our emissions footprint, which will be more important as our power and our consumption, as you can see, with the plan that we're going to be delivering, is going to increase. Through the sale of UURE last year, we retained the benefits of the long-term power purchase agreement, but have freed up capital, enabling us to accelerate deployment of our clean energy strategy. As you can see on the left, we've got a strong track record of delivery, having already developed and constructed around 70 megawatts of renewables capacity. As an initial step... generation... This will be made up of a combination of solar and battery, and will involve both private wire and grid-connected assets. We will obviously provide further details of both the strategy and the plan later on in the year. I wrap up where I started. I am clear there is a lot to do, but I also think there is a win-win for stakeholders. We're a strong performing business, delivering on the performance that matters to customers. We've got a robust balance sheet, and that's going to enable us to fund the acceleration in the investment that's needed in infrastructure as we move forward. The requirements to improve the environment, the requirement to make that step change, also generates an opportunity for economic growth, which in turn enables us to contribute to a stronger North West, to great jobs, to grow the economy. Along with my colleagues, we are determined to drive the step change that everybody is wanting to see, and we really look forward to having the opportunity to do so. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Both Phil and I, and some of my colleagues that I've asked to join us today, look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. You want to do it first? Hi, James. Hi, James Brown from Deutsche Bank. Had many questions on the CapEx plan, several of them. Firstly, if we're thinking about the overall investment plan, should we be having in our mind something of over GBP 10 billion for the next regulatory period? Secondly, the GBP 20 billion you're talking about for the region, for the CSO plan, should we be comparing that to the GBP 3 billion in the current regulatory period? There'll be GBP 17 billion left to go in the future, which should be pretty huge. Then on the funding of it, do you think you can fund that within the current 55%-65% gearing envelope? Obviously, Ofwat, you know, generally, use my own words here, I wouldn't necessarily expect you to agree to them, but generally has been pretty tough in their allowances for CapEx and on OpEx, and pretty tough on the allowed return on capital. Obviously, the kind of risk involved in doing, like, such a huge program as this is quite different from what you would have for business as usual. Do you feel that when you're talking to them, they appreciate that? Thank you. Okay. A few questions there. Thanks, James. I think the first thing in terms of the size of the investment, you know, what you can see is it's gonna be a significantly bigger plan than we've had in the past. We're still working with regulators in terms of its overall shape and size, what you can see, and the reason that we wanted to deconstruct that WINEP for you today, is that most of those requirements, well, all of those requirements, are actually enshrined in the Environment Act. That's what's driving the significant increase in CapEx that you are starting to see come through in subsequent AMPs. In relation to the question about how does the GBP 3 billion fit with the GBP 20 billion over, you know, what does this look like over future AMPs? The reason that we have optimized the plan to go with the GBP 3 billion pounds worth of investment, and more importantly, just over those 400 CSOs now, is that we focused on two things: How do we maximize the removal of CSOs that are generating harm, and how do we reduce spills? What we want to do is deliver a plan quickly that delivers the step change that customers and communities want to see. I also think that as we get into this and we get better, I'm expecting those costs to come down. Actually, if we can make some of those activities and initiatives that we talked about just before, in relation to removing water from the system, realize, then actually the amount that we need to build becomes less. What do I mean by that? We've put in 750,000 smart meters into the plan. That benefits leakage, but it also benefits CSOs, because customers who are on a meter use 21% less water. That's all less water that we're having to treat in our network. I think what we will see is, once we've delivered that first tranche of investment, James, is that we will innovate more, we will start to understand what we can actually do in removing rainwater from the system. That's why we're really keen, from a UU perspective, that we do both things in parallel. It's about driving the construction so we can improve essentially the capacity and the storage. We've got to focus on removing rainwater from the system at the same time, because if we don't, we're gonna end up having to build additional capacity and additional storage forevermore. In terms of funding for the plan, I think you've heard us say we've got a strong balance sheet. We think we're geared at the right level in terms of funding. In relation to WACC, you know, I think we've all heard the concerns that shareholders have in relation to the level of the WACC. We've provided extensive feedback to Ofwat, as I know many of you have, too. We continue to make representations. I think what I would say is there is 18 months to go in relation to the process before that's actually set. I think what's important when we consider the plan overall, we've got to look at the overall package. You know, WACC is one component, but also we need to understand Totex, we need to understand ODIs, we need to understand RCV run-off. We need to look at it in a holistic way. I think we are very clear that we need to be able to fund this plan and enable returns, and we also need to, you know, we all fundamentally recognize the need to attract investment into the sector to fund the infrastructure change that we all want to see. Phil, I don't know if you'd want to add anything? I think you've covered everything there, Louise. Okay. That answered all your questions, James? Perfect. Thank you. Dominic. Hi there. Hi there, yes, thank you. It's Dominic from Barclays. A couple of questions. I suspect you're going to get quite a few, sort of laboring on from sort of changes, CapEx questions. I've got one on that one, which starts off with the ship. When I look at that chart that you, that you put out on page... You don't have page numbers. Okay. Halfway through, the one that shows the WINEP program. You say there's GBP 3 billion of storm overflow plan in that sort of GBP six-ish billion WINEP number. Then you say that GBP 900 million of that has been moved across to AMP7. Yep. Is it not only GBP 200 million of the Storm Overflow. Mm-hmm. has moved across to seven? I can only see GBP 3 billion in total on that WINEP chart. The second, sort of, lead on from that is that, should that mean that AMP7 CapEx run rate is more like GBP 2 billion on that chart, so it's flatter than we've got for those green portions of it. The second question I've got, going back to your ODI outperformance, which is great, Bearing in mind what happened last week with Pennon Group, you've got an asterisk on it. I wanted to confirm what this is, it says, "Excluding per capita consumption, which Ofwat will be revisiting once there's a better understanding of the impact of COVID. Sorry, Dominic, it's just really hard to hear. Just the last question again. Yeah, sorry. It's on the ODIs. Yep. You've got a an asterisk on it, which is, this will be clarified once Ofwat- Yeah will be revisiting per capita consumption. Of course, per capita consumption leads into leakage- Yeah, yeah. -calculations. Yeah. What's going on there, and is there a risk of? Okay you getting your estimations wrong? Okay. Let's deal with two things. As part of the accelerated funding, Ofwat identified GBP 900 million from our WINEP that they said, "Yes, you can get on with, you know, we've looked at that work, and we think that's work that all needs to be done." What they've allowed us to do is accelerate GBP 200 million into this AMP, we can start work now. That's the GBP 900 and the GBP 200. In relation to your the ODI question, the reason that we've got things asterisked is that we have to go through a process of returning all of that data into Ofwat as part of our return to process. That only happens in June. That's the reason that the asterisk is there. I think the bit that you're also really trying to get at is the announcements this week in relation to leakage. I think there's two things there. One is Ofwat have come out and said they're doing an investigation, I think secondly, there was some news this morning. From what I understand about that news this morning, that was a company that has self-reported themselves to Ofwat in relation to their calculations, that was for previous years. I think just to expand on the PCC point, Ofwat said that will be treated as a true up at the end of the AMP. It's not an in-AMP adjustment, effectively. That's the reason it's asterisked. I think if you remember, one of the ODIs from a PCC perspective that was really impacted with COVID was PCC, because what you actually found was lots of customers were at home using more water. What Ofwat basically said was, "Carry on reducing PCC. We don't want you to take your eye off your ball. We want you to deliver a reduction in terms of consumption," and then they would look at some form of true-up in relation to whatever that may be at the end of the year. That's the reason. Mark? Hi, Mark Freshney from Credit Suisse. Two questions. To break from the storm overflows, I'll ask you, Phil, a question on outperformance. I mean, tax has become a major part of outperformance due to a couple of rounds of changes in capital allowances. Can you tell us what gives you confidence you'll be able to keep some of that? I know there's a legitimate case for you to keep it, but if you could let us know that, and also, what you would expect tax outperformance to be part of within the 6%-8% across the AMP. Flipping back to you, Louise, I mean, I mean, look, in the past where, you know, environmental standards, it's desired for them to be approved, once the boffins and the Green Book get involved, then, you know, it's a lot harder to get things over the line. Clearly, there's a big public debate, but there's also an economic efficiency argument. Some of the departments within EA, etcetera, don't necessarily view things in the same way as the time. I'm just interested to know what your economics department gives you confidence you can get some of that spend over the line? Yeah. Okay. Perhaps if I take the tax first. There's three components really, Mark, to the tax outperformance in the current year. There's the capital allowance super deductions, which everyone recognizes. There's also then the offsetting impact of, as you, as you all know, our index linked debt is a little bit of a drag on our financing outperformance, but actually, the reciprocal of that is a tax benefit that's feeding into the tax outperformance, because it's benefiting from the tax shield effectively. Lastly, there's a prior year adjustment in terms of how losses are allocated around the group, which is bringing back the performance. Going forward, in terms of this 6%-8% going forward, tax will be another good contributor next year. It tails off in the final year. I says, Mark, just picking up your question, I suppose what gives me confidence is I've been doing a huge amount of work with regulators in the background throughout last year and the first quarter of this year. I think what we are seeing is both EA, Defra, DWI and Ofwat working together, and I think that's been instrumental in terms of, you know, the pre-approved funding that we've had in terms of the acceleration that we've seen. That was as a result of lots of working together in terms of identifying a plan and a scope of work. I think the other thing that I'd actually point to is a lot of these environmental changes have actually been enshrined into law as part of the Environment Act. That law has actually been passed, and that's what then the WINEP is reflecting, the investment that is needed to deliver against those legal requirements. I think you're right. I think there is still a lot, you know, you know, a long road ahead in terms of how this will move and shape in terms of the ultimate plan that actually gets submitted. I think the relationship that we've got with regulators and the work that we're doing in the background, and I just think there is a, you know, a huge amount of cooperation amongst everybody in terms of recognizing the challenges that we're facing, and more importantly, ensuring that we've got programs of work in place to tackle the challenges that aren't gonna go away. You know, the impacts of climate change, and we do run a business that is impacted by the weather. You know, we see day in, day out, and it's important that the infrastructure is improved and enhanced to work to deal with those changes that are only going to continue to build and continue to develop. Martin? Hi, it's Martin Young from Investec. I'm afraid I'm gonna go back to the CSOs. I listened to everything that you said this morning about WINEP, about GBP 56 billion, about Ofwat's accelerated spend. A lot of what needs to be done was quite clearly already in train, and will need to be funded ultimately by customers through business plan submission. In certain parts of the media, you know, there's quite a different narrative. There's a GBP 10 billion number out there that's mentioned as a victory for this particular paper's, you know, campaign. Do you agree that that is pushing it a bit to say that that is a victory, 'cause a lot of this was already, you know, in train, and this is not necessarily, at the end of the day, new news? The second question was just to pick up on what you were saying about the potential impact on customer bills. When you say, you know, GBP 20 uplift, is that GBP 20 per year for five years, so ultimately it's GBP 100 by the end of the AMP, which, you know, broadly is gonna be, I guess, about a 20% increase in totality? My final question on CSOs: obviously, the targets are based ultimately on the average number of spills per CSO. You talk, obviously, about duration as well. It never seems to relate to the size of the actual spills, and quite clearly, you know, having one or two spills from a water company's larger CSOs could do more environmental damage than having, say, 20 from smaller, you know, spills. I just wondered if there's any sort of context you can put around that, 'cause ultimately, I think it's about minimizing harm, as you've said. Yeah. Okay, so I suppose there are a couple of things in there, Martin. The GBP 10 billion, and what's that number? 'Cause I just thought it helpful in terms of the context of what's the GBP 10 billion. The GBP 10 billion, essentially, is the cost of the CSO work that's gonna be done by all of the WaSCs across the country in the next AMP. That's the GBP 10 billion that's being talked about, of which that, you know, I've explained, are GBP 3 billion part of that overall GBP 10 billion number. That's, that's where the 10 and the three fit together. Is this new news? You know, I think you are right, Martin. I think, you know, in relation to the Environment Agency had asked us to install the storm overflows, actually, as part of previous WINEP plans, and the view was that we needed to put this monitoring in place and understand how these storm overflows were actually operating. This has been in train for a number of years, it's not just something that's happened. I think when I speak to customers, they sort of say to me: "Well, why is this suddenly happening now?" If you look at the headlines, you know, in terms of, you know, sewage being dumped, essentially, as we know, the big difference is that we can now see how much is happening. Not saying that that makes it right, that's the step change, that's the visibility that we've got. Now we've got that visibility, we now need to do something about it. As I said, the Environment Act had actually been passed in 2021 in terms of storm overflow activations anyway. All of that was in train, I think you saw some of the sort of comments that came out more politically last week on the back of that. In terms of the 20 per year, Ofwat are currently consulting on what the targets should be. At this moment in time, it's not been defined what those targets will be, and I think they will be keen to make sure that those targets are hard for those companies that need to demonstrate a step change in performance. I don't think they will be incentivizing those customers, or those companies, I should say, who've already got, CSO activations at less than 20, to just continue in that position either. This is about driving a momentum and an improvement in performance. That consultation is ongoing, and, you know, many companies, us included, will also be talking about, duration and impact as you've articulated, because spills is quite a blunt number. Because you're absolutely right, each spill is classed the same. As you've said, something from a CSO that is from a large treatment facility may be different than something that's happening in the network. I think proportionality is also really important when we're looking at targets, and that's key in terms of the consultation response that we've been feeding back into. The bill? The bill? Sorry. Thank you. Yes, bill, it is GBP 20 per year. That does build, it is about a GBP 100 increase in terms of customer bills. I think, you know, we've long been, as you know, an advocate for support for national social tariff. We continue to advocate for that, what I would also say is that we're building a comprehensive package in AMP8. We already support 330,000 customers now, which is more than anybody else in the sector, that have received this support through the last AMP. You know, we will be building a comprehensive package. I think it's really important that as we push forward with the infrastructure investment and the changes that everybody wants to see, no customer is left behind. I think that's where looking at innovative tariff options, and support more broadly, is where we're going to be focusing our attention as part of our plan submission that we're putting in in October. Thanks, Martin. Jenny? Sorry, I'm working in that sort of right to left direction. Hi. Thanks very much. Jenny Ping from Citi. Couple of questions, please. Firstly, just continuing on the CSO theme, I just wondered what type of conversations you're having with both the government, the current government and any future governments, on the wider structural changes in terms of how the sector is being regulated, and any discussions there in terms of the optionalities on the table? That's the first. Second, just coming back to Mark's question, Phil, I don't think you quite answered whether some of the tax benefit is kept by the company. I was under the impression some of the benefits that you're getting will ultimately be passed through back to consumers anyway because of the tax pass back. Can you just confirm that? Just very lastly, on renewables, quick check on the achieved IRR of some of the renewable investments that you've done in the past. Obviously, including the sell-down that you've already talked about, and any hurdle rates on future investments would be helpful. Thank you. Okay. I'll ask Phil to pick up on both tax and hurdle rates. In relation to government's views in relation to where we are and sort of optionality more broadly, I've been out there meeting both, you know, with current government and also the shadow benches to understand position. I think what's really clear is that there is absolute clarity, that is, what's needed is a step change in infrastructure and investment, in whatever shape or form that may take. I think, you know, there is an absolute recognition that there is a need to improve resilience. I think regardless of which party and where and who ultimately may end up in government, I think there is absolute clarity that that step change needs to happen. I also think it's important for our region to also consider, you know, there is a national picture, but there is a devolved picture, too. We've been out doing a huge amount of work, both with Andy Burnham and his team and Steve Rotheram, because there's a huge amount of synergy with the challenges that local authorities are facing in relation to flooding and resilience as well. I think there is a dynamic, a political dynamic, that sits at both levels, both a regional dynamic and a national dynamic. I think we are going to continue to see CSOs politicized, particularly as we enter and get closer to the election. I think what's clear, regardless of party, and I've met with them all, is there is an absolute clarity that there needs to be funding and investment in infrastructure to ensure that, you know, we've got a resilient service as we move forward. Phil? Tax. Very complicated, Jenny. I think there's three components, as I said before: the capital and super deductions, and you're absolutely right, that will flow back through the modeling process, and we've talked about that in previous years. The lower profits, because of the index link debt and the shield we're getting there, I think that will be retained by the company. And the prior year adjustment, again, I think that will be retained by the company, but probably better for a more detailed discussion offline, probably. In terms of hurdle rates, we're looking at a lot of different options in terms of Aquin Energy strategy. Different hurdle rates for each of those. I think probably fair to say we'll talk about that more in the future as we put forward propositions of what we're doing and building out. Can you at least confirm what your achieved hurdle rate has been for prior projects? It was in a very different environment, Jenny, as I guess in terms of the UURE package of solar assets that we sold. I think, you know, what's relevant is really the go-forward hurdle rate on new investments, and obviously, the world's a different place today. I think probably best to leave that until we come back and talk more in detail about our strategy. Sorry, Pavan, I feel really bad because your hand's just come up. This gentleman has had his hand up a number of times, so if we go there or do you wanna do. Are you okay if we do? Go that way, and then we'll come back to you, Pavan. Thank you. Nigel Hawkins, Hardman & Co. Can I just ask about index-linked payments? Now, GBP 541 million of index-linked payments seems to have been accrued in 2022, 2023. Bluntly, you seem to be caught very, very short indeed in recent years on that. I wondered first, are you going to reduce your exposure to inflation-linked bonds over the next few years, particularly if you have to raise new money, as suggested earlier? Secondly, I note in your presentation here, we have a figure of 12.4% as the effective interest rate on index-linked debt. That's a 10%+ premium over the normal other debt. It seems a big figure. Have you got a working assumption you can share with us on the projections for 2023/2024 on that 12.2% figure for last year? A few things there. I think just a point of clarification really first, Nigel. The sort of charge for interest in the P&L is not all cash, which is why I talked about. Yes. the cash position. That's an indexation charge on the index-linked debt, and I think it's pretty well understood that, you know, we have an indexed asset base in terms of the RCV and the natural hedge that the index-linked, sort of, instruments provide for that. There's an offset there, and effectively, that's why the balance sheet has delevered a little bit in the current year. The cash interest position has continued to improve because of the refinancing and the new debt we're bringing on at lower rates. The indexation, as I say, is matched with the balance sheet. In terms of whether we sort of are looking to sort of reduce that going forward, I think it will naturally reduce through the fact that, as we bring on more debt and more projects, the sort of proportion will edge down. Those are long-dated instruments, in the context of the portfolio that's there, they sort of go out to sort of 20/50 type maturities. They will sit there matching the RCV for that period, and the cash flow impact is offset and matched against the RCV effect on it. Have you got a working assumption for 2023, 2024 in terms of? Yeah. effective interest rate? In terms of the pack, there's a slide in the back that shows the interest rates, the sort of, for the current year, and it identifies the relevant reference rates for RPI and CPI that are driving the interest charge. Clearly, we all understand the inflation environment is quite volatile. You're all as equally capable as I am as to predicting what the January inflation number is going to be in 2024, but that is what will drive the sort of interest charge on those index-linked debt items. I'm sure you've got a better handle on it than I have, but what sort of number are you using? sort of it's volatile. You know, we had the Bank of England announcing this week on inflation, and, you know, expectations have ticked back up again. That will yo-yo around. I'm not going to give firm guidance on that other than to say you can very clearly work it out for yourself. Thank you. Pavan? Thank you. Pavan from JP Morgan. I have two questions, please. Firstly, for you, Phil, on the RoRE range you're talking about for seven. The 6%-8% seems to be quite a wide range, given we're already three years in. I was just wondering if what the drivers of that are and what you would expect to happen over the coming years that would put you either toward the top or the bottom, given you did 11% this year and 7.9% last. For you, Louise, going back to the CSO question. Some of your peers are talking about 20 activations per year as being a number that companies are expected to self-fund. That seems to be in contrary to something you've mentioned on the slide, where you talk about getting to 20 spills by 2030 instead of 2025, and you talk about, you know, it needing to, I guess, be funded as well. Can you talk about how your targets compare to your peers and whether you expect that you will actually have to self-fund getting down to 20 activations, please. Thank you. Okay, thanks, Pavan. Let's start with that question first, and then I'll hand over to you, Phil. The comments that have been made around companies having to self-fund to get to 20 spills are just simply not correct. I think, you know, if you look at the guidance Ofwat are very clear, customers shouldn't pay twice. We'd agree with that, too. Essentially, what Ofwat are being very clear about is if CSOs are activating as a result of, you know, poor asset management or maintenance issues, that's your responsibility to sort out. Absolutely right, that should sit with us. Actually, what I showed you on the charts and the data in relation to the presentation is there are a number of factors about the North West that are quite unique. The amount of rainfall that we have, the population increases that we've been seeing, but also the combined nature of our sewers. Ofwat have made it very clear that if it is about hydraulic capacity, then that is a legitimate reason for storm overflows to be funded. I think if you look at the acceleration that we've seen of our program, there was a GBP 1.4 billion acceleration program, of which GBP 900 million was to us, and the vast majority of that was combined sewer overflows. That should, you know, give you sort of some confidence in terms of their thinking. I think it's also been clear, and it's what I mentioned to Martin, Ofwat are also consulting on targets. There's no targets that have been defined. I, you know, from a regulator perspective, they're not gonna incentivize any company to deliver a target that they're already delivering. That's not how regulation works. They're always going to incentivize you to deliver improved performance, and rightly so. Any targets that are set, and again, Ofwat have made that clear in their methodology, is for companies to represent on factors that are unique to them, and we are doing that, you know, as you would imagine. I also think, you know, if you ever want any more of a proof point, I think we look out the window, because, you know, Thames Tideway is the biggest super sewer that there is, and that's very clearly been funded. I think it's really important that we're clear. If it's about maintenance, that sits with companies. If this is about hydraulic incapacity, and I think that's what I shared with you today, then that's something that's very different. Hopefully that answers that question. Phil? In terms of RoRE, I guess when we're putting forward that guidance of 6%-8%, you're always very focused on having sort of round numbers Pavan, rather than having decimal points in there. That's part of the driver for why it's got a 6%-8% range. I think in terms of phasing, clearly inflation is a factor here in terms of how that plays through. Both outturn inflation, but also to Nigel's point earlier, which is a very good point, around the sort of when does the inflation fixing happen? In an upward increasing inflation environment, effectively, what you have is an allowance that uses an average rather than the sort of January number for the RPI, CPI. In a downward sort of inflation environment, that reverses. Actually, we'll get You know, the financing outperformance this year is probably depressed as a little bit as a consequence of that. Next year, we'll get the benefit of that flowing into financing. The split is gonna be higher next year and lower in the final year. Okay. Thank you. Any more questions from the floor? Dominic? Hi there, it's Dominic from Barclays again. A couple from me. I think in your presentation, you talked about where there's some pinch points in the big increase in the CapEx spend needed going forward, including, I think, on supply chains and regulation. Could you give some color as to what are the main sort of hurdles that need to be sort of overcome to be able to get this scale of investment into the ground? Second, on tariff reform, I think you mentioned this, and in innovative tariffs. Are you a fan of mandated metering? Is metering gonna also go on wastewater as well as drinking water? At the moment, is there a differential between houses that have rainwater, sort of surface water run off into your drains versus those that do not? Is that something that you could have differential tariffs on? Yeah. Okay, I'll pick up the latter, and then we'll split the question. In relation to tariff reform, you know, I think tariff reform Well, it's exactly what we're looking at as part of our plan. You know, everything from looking at rising block tariffs, but also what are the differentiated tariffs that we can have in terms of supporting customers who are experiencing affordability challenges. We already have some really good tariffs now, so, you know, maximum of GBP 10 a month, so tariffs that are based on customer's ability to pay. I think there's a range of tariffs, and the need for innovation is key into that space, and we're obviously leaning heavily into that. A lot of that is enabled through the meter, as you said, and from a metering penetration perspective, we're just over 50% metering penetration in the North West. you know, a feature of the fact that it rains a lot means that we're not water stressed. you know, it causes challenges with combined sewer overflows, but we're not water stressed, so we can't compulsory meter. That said, as I said before, customers who are metered use 21% less consumption than those that aren't. We've been having a really active shadow metering program that we've been running this AMP, where essentially what we've been doing is working in local areas, installing a meter, dual billing you as an individual, working with you to say, you know, doing some efficiency visits in your home to say: This is what you could do to reduce your usage, and we dual bill you with a guarantee of you don't pay more than you're paying now. That's proving to be very, very successful in giving customers the confidence to switch, 'cause a lot of the time, this is about confidence, about: Am I gonna experience a significant bill increase as a result of making that change? The more customers we can get onto meters... Our program, from a smart metering perspective, has a huge amount of shadow metering in there as well, because that is gonna be key in terms of driving the reduction. It's also about how can we work with others? As part of the plan, we've put some funding in there that we can work with local authorities to, how do we work out in our communities to actually make sure that we are removing water from the system.... Sustainable urban drainage going in at schools, local authorities, but also developers. We currently are incentivizing developers with 90% discounts if they don't put their rainwater into our systems. We're gonna need to do many more of those partnership-type activities to essentially make sure that the water's not coming in the system, because that's the only way that we're gonna solve the problem. Nobody wants to be spending the GBP 56 billion. You know, essentially, we wanna make sure that we are both building the storage, but reducing the need as we go forward. Phil? In terms of supply chain and unpaid readiness, there's a huge amount of activity and work going on there, Dominic. I guess, looking at different delivery pathways, understanding standardization of solutions, effectively tier two, tier three suppliers, et cetera. How that's all gonna come together. Probably a great opportunity after the event closes, Mike O'Neill here on the front row, and Jane Simpson, the procurement director and the capital delivery director, I'm sure, would be delighted to get into the detail. I think just to add to that, Phil, I think, you know, one of the key areas I've been focused on in terms of building the capability into the organization, has been in commercial, engineering, and capital delivery. Bringing in new skills and new expertise into the business. I also think that's where the transitional funding really helps, because it's enabled us to engage that supply chain now with a scope of work that's significant as we move forward. Essentially, you know, we've been able to get the best teams mobilized now. As I said, we're gonna have a 500 strong delivery team on CSOs by the end of this year. You know, they're coming in month on month as we're scaling up to deliver. Any early activity that we can get done is also really advantageous, because there's a number of these dates that we've got to achieve from a regulatory commitment perspective, the more work we can do up front. I think it's not just about the construction capacity. A lot of this, as many of you know, is also about how you get through the planning departments, and that's why we've put the five stakeholder managers in, out there working in the communities and with planning departments, so they know what's coming, make sure we're able to fast-track those You know, those schemes through with pace. Chris, I think we may have some questions online. Okay. Thank you very much. The first question from online comes from Ahmed Farman, who he's focused on the GBP 10 billion figure, which I think you've already unpacked. Yep. The potential impact on customer bills and specifically feedback that you've received from customers and other stakeholders. I guess the question is broadly around engagement, what engagement activities have we undertaken to date? Really great question. You know, we've out, up and down the region, engaging with customers, and we've taken a slightly different approach. We're not just engaging at a regional level, we're you know, engaging at a county level. Why do I say that? Well, you live in Cumbria, you're a very different customer with different needs than you are if you're a customer that lives in Merseyside or Manchester. We've done much more extensive engagement, and essentially, what we've been presenting is not just one plan, but their county plan, because we all associate with the region that we live in. What's the impact, and more importantly, what are they going to see locally as a result of you know, the investment that's happening in their area? I think one of the things that, you know, has come through loud and clear is that customers are, you know, in the main, extremely supportive of the plan. I think we've seen that step change in awareness of environmental issues. There is really strong baseline support for the plan and what it is that we're trying to do. Also, you know, as I said it earlier, you know, affordability is a challenge, and now more so as with, you know, coming through cost of living. That's where the support and the schemes that we've already got in place and are gonna enhance AMP8 are really, really important. I think customers have taken an element of comfort as much as they can in terms of the support that we've got in place, but more importantly, that we're gonna enhance as we go forward and submit the plan. The team at Jefferies, thank you very much for your answer. They have a follow-on. Ofwat announced from mid-May 2023, that UK water companies will be required to take account of environmental performance and customer delivery as part of dividend policy. How has UU reflected that in its own dividend policy? With that, Rob. Yeah. Well, we already had a very, very extensive dividend policy in the context of UU Water, it was part of a package of things we put in place at PR19. In many respects, we already complied and followed exactly that process. This year has been no different. We look at the environmental performance in the round and over the longer term, you know, sort of very, very comfortable with where we are. Terrific. That's all the questions we have online. Okay, thank you. I'd just like to say thank you very much for coming today. The team are going to be here, so, hopefully, you'll see we've got some stalls around, an opportunity for you to engage, both in terms of Dynamic Network Management, but more importantly, our CSO program and what we're actually doing. Jane and Mike, in relation to working with our supply chain and mobilizing for delivery, and also Tom, focusing on our green energy and renewable strategy. I'd like to say thank you very, very much for your time this morning, and hope you can spend some time with us with a cup of coffee, an opportunity to chat through with the team. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.