3. Professor Ann John

PROFESSOR ANN JOHN (affirmed).

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Ms Spector: Could you please start by giving us your full name.

Professor Ann John: Ann John.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you for attending today and assisting the Inquiry. As we go through your evidence, please remember to keep your voice up and speak into the microphone so the stenographers can pick up everything that you say. Please do ask me to repeat if anything isn’t clear.

Your witness statement that you provided for this module of the Inquiry is at INQ000286066, and it was signed on 2 October 2023. Are the contents of that statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Professor John, in terms of your professional background, is it correct that you are a clinical academic with a background in primary care and public health?

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: As a brief overview of your career, such as is relevant to the Inquiry, you are clinical professor of public health and psychiatry at Swansea University and an honorary consultant in public health medicine, a role you have held since 2017?

Professor Ann John: Yes, at a professorial level.

Counsel Inquiry: You are a strategic lead for mental health research and national-led suicide prevention at Public Health Wales, and you co-chair the cross-government group for suicide prevention?

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Prior to 2017, you were the deputy head of Swansea University Medical School?

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Before which point you held various senior posts in public and mental health at Swansea University?

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: With regard to your involvement in specific groups tasked with Covid-19 pandemic response, you were a member of the Technical Advisory Group, or TAG, from 27 June 2020?

Professor Ann John: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Within TAG, you were chair of the Risk Communication and Behavioural Insights (RCBI) subgroup?

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: You were a member also of the children and education TAG subgroup?

Professor Ann John: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: And in addition to all of those roles you sat on what’s called SPI-B, the independent Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours advising SAGE and the UK Government in the summer of 2020?

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Which you became co-chair of in June 2021?

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Professor, what was the Risk Communication and Behavioural Insights (RCBI) subgroup and what was its work?

Professor Ann John: So the RCBI subgroup was a group that was set up as a subgroup of TAG, so it was to – it was basically to provide scientific insights and support to policymakers around behavioural science.

Counsel Inquiry: Is it right that you were approached to set up the group by Fliss Bennee, the co-chair of TAG, in early June of 2020?

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And you held your first meeting on 22 July of 2020?

Professor Ann John: Absolutely.

Counsel Inquiry: In terms of SPI-B, that group provided expert social and behavioural scientific advice as a subgroup of SAGE.

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: How did you come to be involved with SPI-B?

Professor Ann John: So initially I was invited by James Rubin to sit on the group. Then when SPI-B developed a co-ordination group, so that was sort of a smaller group of scientists, and then a wider group that we would draw on, I was on the co-ordinating group. And then when James Rubin and Lucy Yardley stepped down as co-chairs, I was invited by Brooke Rogers, Professor Brooke Rogers, to be co-chair of SPI-B.

Counsel Inquiry: To ask you about the timings, you have told us that you were approached to chair RCBI in Wales on 2 June 2020 and the first meeting of that group, as we’ve heard, was held on 22 July 2020. On the other hand, the Inquiry understands that SPI-B, as a general group, was stood up on 13 February of 2020. Although I appreciate that you might not have been a member in that initial formation of SPI-B.

After becoming the chair of RCBI were you able to gain any understanding all about why the RCBI had not been set up earlier in the course of the pandemic?

Professor Ann John: It’s very difficult for me to comment, because that was also very close to the time that I’d become involved with TAG as well, so I’m not sure what the thinking was before that, but I guess what I would say is that as soon as I was invited and we’d pulled all the members from diverse disciplines together for RCBI, we had a very active role in feeding into TAG.

Counsel Inquiry: You might not be able to answer, but do you know whether anything was being done prior to June 2020 to obtain specialised Welsh-specific advice about behavioural science?

Professor Ann John: So I can’t really answer that, I know there were people on the sort of civil servant side with some expertise in behavioural science.

Counsel Inquiry: Do you think that it might have helped had RCBI been set up earlier than it was?

Professor Ann John: I think one of the things that the pandemic has really highlighted, you know, and it was absolutely pivotal prior to the advent of vaccination, is how important behavioural science is. So understanding – so this idea that you can tell people what to do and they’ll do it is naive and antiquated, and I think, you know, the importance of behavioural science has been absolutely highlighted during the pandemic. You know, understanding people’s, you know, motivations, their capabilities, their understanding, and awareness about risk, you know, the limitations in their lives to enable them to follow rules, and the impacts of inequalities, was absolutely highlighted. And so, I guess, from my perspective, and for going forward, you absolutely want behavioural science input during any pandemic from the beginning, but also that that capacity is being built up currently.

Counsel Inquiry: You touched on it already, but can I ask you to provide an overview of what the term “behavioural science” means and what its methodology is.

Professor Ann John: So it’s that understanding – I guess in some ways I would repeat what I’ve just said, it’s understanding human behaviour, you know, that people will have motivations about why they might follow rules or behaviour in a certain way, that there are limitations. You know, staying in a one-bedroom flat during a stay-at-home order is very different to staying in a house with a garden. You know, people might have front facing frontline jobs with zero-hours contracts, so then when you’re asking people to isolate where there’s no financial assistance, then that’s really – that’s much more challenging for them than for someone who has the financial wherewithal.

So having that understanding of motivations, capabilities and opportunities is really important when you’re thinking about, you know, what are the – how do we encourage people to behave in certain ways. And I guess it also highlights that things like, you know, using “protecting others” rather than blame and fear and shame is always a much more ineffective way.

Counsel Inquiry: We might return to some of those themes in due course in your evidence, but as a summary is it correct to say that some of the things that RCBI advised on during the course of the pandemic were: examining behaviours towards restrictions in place such as physical distancing, you’ve touched on that; examining differential uptake of vaccines; understanding drivers of behaviours in young people regarding NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions); and focusing on protective strategies for under-served groups?

Professor Ann John: Absolutely.

Counsel Inquiry: What empirical or observed evidence did RCBI rely on to formulate its advice?

Professor Ann John: So for the most part, in a pandemic where lots of the things that – the science that we were relying on was being generated and evolving as time went on, the sorts of things that we were relying on were mainly surveys. Some of those surveys were what we call panel surveys, so they try to be as representative as they can be, but it’s all self-report. And the issues around self-report is that – you know, it’s not that people lie, it’s that sometimes – you know, when I was a GP, if I was asking someone “How much do you drink?”, those answers can be very different to what someone’s actual consumption is, for all sorts of reasons. So self-report was absolutely – so those sorts of surveys were absolutely important in a situation where we didn’t have the evidence, but I guess we know that they’re quite biased. And going forward, it would be really good to have what we call empirical evidence, so also being able to see what people actually do rather than what they say they’ll do.

Counsel Inquiry: You describe in your witness statement that both the RCBI and SPI-B preferred what you call a facilitative and/or enabling approach rather than a directive approach. Are you able to explain the differences between those two approaches?

Professor Ann John: A directive approach is – would be much more: you make a rule and you enforce a punishment if people don’t follow those rules. An enabling approach is really, you know, I would say, fundamental to behavioural science. It’s understanding all those different factors that sort of encroach upon why someone might behave in the way that they do.

So the vast majority of people adhered to the restrictions that were in place. And where they didn’t, it was for the reasons that I outlined before, you know, it was things like, you know, not having access to financial support to self-isolate, it was, you know, being in – not having the support to go and get a food shop or walk their dog. So I guess it really is about understanding those sorts of issues.

Counsel Inquiry: Moving to RCBI and how the commissioning process worked for that group, how did that process work? Did commissions come from TAG or did they come elsewhere in the Welsh Government?

Professor Ann John: So for the most part, we either received commissions during discussions in TAG, so I do remember – you know, in a particular incident I remember about moral injury in healthcare workers, that was a discussion that happened in TAG. Other times we would hear from the secretariat what had – what questions were being asked.

Counsel Inquiry: Were you able to set your own priorities as a group or did these always come through TAG or through the secretariat?

Professor Ann John: I think I would say that we were in some ways able to set our own priorities because we were such active members of TAG, so we were able to bring issues up.

Counsel Inquiry: Did you at times provide advice on issues that, where advice hadn’t been requested but you felt that that advice was necessary?

Professor Ann John: I think that where we were – you know, so a good example is young people, that where – them – you know, something might be touched upon in TAG, we would be able to say “We’ll go away and do some work on this”.

Lady Hallett: Sorry, Professor, you used the expression “moral injury”, I don’t think everybody knows what moral injury means, could you just give a short explanation.

Professor Ann John: So I think the thing about moral injury – so we talk a lot about burn-out, and people really link burn-out to workload, but actually it’s much more complicated than that. You know, burn-out is much more common in what we call a moral injury, so where people are working in a situation where they can’t do what they have been trained to do, where they’re doing things that they feel are against the ethos of their profession.

So we did a piece of work predominantly on healthcare workers who were working, you know, at high capacity but also in a situation where people were sometimes, you know, dying without loved ones, that might be in conflict with how they would want to practice. So we were highlighting that it was not just – and most of the evidence on this issue comes from combat zones. So we were looking at the evidence that existed to apply it to the sort of morale in the healthcare and social care sector.

Lady Hallett: Thank you.

Ms Spector: Was the RCBI a multidisciplinary group? What kinds of expertise did the group have access to?

Professor Ann John: So for the most part, so there were public health people there, there was myself and Ashley Gould, who was going to be my – who was my co-chair after about a year. There was – there were various psychologists, so there was Professor Nick Pidgeon, who has a lot of expertise in risk communication, predominantly in relation to climate change, and does a lot of UK Government advice. There was Professor John Parkinson, there was Tony Manstead. We also had – we had evidence synthesis experts, Adrian Edwards, we had people from social sciences.

So I think behavioural science really is multidisciplinary, and we also invited officials from – we had a member of the Welsh Government sort of communications team, which I think meant that they were hearing a lot of behavioural science in terms of how communications were done. And someone from the police as well.

Counsel Inquiry: Do you think that there was sufficient representation on TAG and on RCBI of people from ethnic minorities and from socially deprived backgrounds or minoritised groups?

Professor Ann John: In a word, no. I think that reflects society as a whole. So if you look at the composition of professors around the country in every university, representation from, you know, people from ethnic minorities or more socially deprived backgrounds, even representation in university of people from deprived backgrounds is not great. So I do think – we had the best people round the table, and the way that looked and was – the composition of it reflects society as a whole. So I think there’s something to do about widening access and participation in science and education.

But knowing that to be the case – you know, having a diverse range of voices round the table is really important. Knowing that to be the case, it really highlighted how important it was to have co-production, be going to groups of people from, you know, ethnic minorities, from more deprived communities, to really understand how they felt about interventions being discussed. So that sort of focus group work, which was going on to to some extent, but also that co-production and co-development of interventions is really important.

Counsel Inquiry: I now want to ask you about co-ordination and divergence of policies between the UK and Wales.

Please can we have displayed on the screen INQ000384805, and can we see the email that was sent on 12 May 2020 from Professor John Watkins, who is a professor of epidemiology at Cardiff University and was a member of the policy modelling subgroup of TAG.

Email sent at 12.17, second paragraph down:

“… I find it quite alarming that the four home nations are not marching in step in addressing the challenge of exiting ‘lockdown’.

“From a scientific point of view, the epidemiology of this disease does not warrant this differential approach and therefore I am a concerned that opinion is diverging. Wales, with its extended land border with England, crossed daily by citizens for work, with differing rules backed by law, puts people in a particularly difficult position. If all policy in this matter is based on Science and I am not aware of any difference in the scientific advice given to Welsh Government compared to England, then why have ministers chosen a different course?”

Professor Watkins’ concern was that rules were putting people in a difficult position.

Now, I am not going to ask you about the rights and wrongs of those policies, I want to ask you about the impacts of those kinds of divergences between the four nations and especially between Wales and England on population behaviour.

Are you able to assist with what the impact that divergences like the speed of exiting lockdowns is likely to have had on people’s understanding of and compliance with restrictions in Wales?

Professor Ann John: So one of the basic principles of behavioural science and communication is having clear messages that – where you explain why you’ve come to that policy decision. I think for people, this divergence across nations – now, there’s always going to be some because the composition in different regions is different. You know, as we’ve heard, Wales has an older, more deprived composition in terms of population. So there are some reasons to be different.

However, it would have been very confusing to people that – you know, there was one point where you had to wear a mask on the train till you got to Newport and then you could take it off. Now, there is no doubt in my mind that that – you know, that idea, that if we’re following the science why are we coming to different conclusions, was difficult for people, and that would have had an impact on trust, and we know how much trust in government and in the decisions being made impacts behaviours in these situations.

So while I think we do need to acknowledge that sometimes rules will be different, the responsibility is to communicate why, and I think that sometimes was missing.

Counsel Inquiry: I think you’ve answered my next question, but I’ll put it anyway. Is it possible that divergences of policy like the ones you’ve described weakened a belief amongst the population in the science and could those divergences have caused a fall in confidence in government policies that were being led by the science?

Professor Ann John: So, yes, I think for – you know, unless you gave a very clear explanation for that divergence, it would have affected some segments of the population. So, you know, if you trust in your government, if you feel that a policy is being done, is being enacted to keep you safe, it may not impact adherence, but in general, for other parts of the population, it would. So I think clear, consistent messaging is really important.

And I guess going forward it would – and I do think this is – my understanding is this is happening, is I think it’s – working together, you know, recognising that part of that leadership role across the four nations is coming to some kind of consensus, in the way we did as scientists in terms of policy, is really important going forward.

Counsel Inquiry: Professor, I now want to ask a you few questions about the formulation of assumptions about population compliance around NPIs, especially in the first wave of the pandemic. I caveat these questions in that it is fully appreciated that RCBI was not set up at that point in time.

Please can we have on screen INQ000049647.

This is a document from Imperial College titled “Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions … to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand” dated 16 March 2020.

If we turn to page 6, please, there’s a table titled “Summary of NPI interventions considered”. Under “Case isolation in the home”, top row, if you look at the final sentence, it says:

“Assume 70% of household comply with the policy.”

Then second one down, “Voluntary home quarantine”, final sentence:

“Assume 50% of household comply with the policy.”

Then, moving two rows down, “Social distancing of entire population”, first sentence:

“All households reduce contact outside household, school or workplace by 75%.”

Could we now, please, turn to a different document, INQ000349161.

This is a TAC briefing for the Welsh Government titled “Briefing from SAGE outputs on Behavioural and Social Interventions”.

And then on page 3, at paragraph 16:

“These interventions assume compliance level of 50% or more over long periods of time. This may be unachievable in the UK population and uptake of these measures is likely to vary across groups, possibly leading to variation in outbreak intensities across different communities.”

If I just ask you some questions about that.

In terms of actual compliance figures, it’s of course difficult to obtain concrete – a concrete single metric of whole population compliance across the pandemic. That said, in late March and April 2020, are you able to comment on what population compliance was like, whether it was in excess or under the estimates that we’ve just seen in those documents?

Professor Ann John: So I guess firstly I really don’t like the word “compliant”, because – I think “adherence” is a much better word. I think we – I think the vast majority of – I think these are probably underestimates at the time. Now, I think when you’re – for the sort of modelling that was being undertaken then, they’re actually being more conservative, so they’re basing their assumptions on lower levels of adherence than I think actually we found. I think the issue around that is that it sort of – I think we didn’t make the most of, and absolutely underplayed, the public’s, you know, wanting to both protect themselves but also those around them. That – I think in Wales we did understand that sort of collective responsibility, and that talking about all those things was much better than thinking about – thinking about it from a sort of people will break the rules perspective.

So I think there’s two issues here, I think these are very conservative assumptions, and normally when we do – when we make assumptions, when we’re doing modelling, you tend to be on the conservative side because there are many more risks with being on – looking at them the other way.

But I think we do – we fail to recognise sometimes how much the public and communities pull together.

Counsel Inquiry: On 14 April 2020, one of your colleagues from SPI-B, Professor Lucy Yardley, said in an email to Professor Mark Woolhouse, a professor – as we’ve heard earlier today – of infectious disease epidemiology:

“I find epidemiologists tend to underestimate the extent to which what people do is malleable and can be influenced by how things are introduced and supported.”

Do you agree with Professor Yardley on that point?

Professor Ann John: Absolutely. I think, you know, it goes back to that issue around financial support for isolation. You know, for some people it was very challenging to isolate, you know, from a financial – from the point of view of, you know, feeding your family. If you’re on a zero-hours contract, if you’re working in a workplace where you’ll put loads of burden on others, if you’re in a front facing, frontline occupation, you need support to stay home. So absolutely, I agree with her.

Counsel Inquiry: Moving to a new topic, I will ask some brief questions about the notion of behavioural fatigue, which touches on, of course, some evidence that you’ve already given for us.

In your witness statement that you provided you reference the emerging debate on behavioural or pandemic fatigue in March of 2020 which was later addressed in RCBI. Are you able to briefly summarise what that debate was and what it referred to in the population?

Professor Ann John: So the idea of pandemic fatigue I think really fits in with sort of popular culture. You know, it sounds like, you know, Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg talking about decision fatigue. So it sort of feels like common sense, doesn’t it? People will get tired of it.

In actual fact there no evidence for that. I think as time went on from when that term was first mentioned, you know, more and more of us came out and said, well, actually, there’s no evidence for that.

I think if you – if you put forward clear consistent messaging, if you supported people in how to adopt certain behaviours like isolation, there was no idea that pandemic fatigue existed.

Lady Hallett: I think Professor Sir Chris Whitty, who used the expression, regretted it in his evidence before me.

Professor Ann John: And I think absolutely it’s because it’s sort of – you – you’re trying to communicate with the public and it sounds like common – you know, it sounds – it’s in popular discussion, isn’t it? So yeah, absolutely.

Ms Spector: What were some of the dangers of public discourse normalising a notion of behavioural fatigue?

Professor Ann John: I guess – I guess where – you know, if it – if people – it’s almost like a confirmation bias. So if you think that pandemic fatigue is something, then I think the risk for the public is that it might normalise, sort of, not adhering so carefully.

I think the risk in terms of policy and for scientific advice is that that would impact how you think we can continue with restrictions or what restrictions should happen after you come out of, say, a firebreak or a stay-at-home order. So I think that’s where the danger in the term lay.

Counsel Inquiry: In your view and from your experience working in TAG and on RCBI, were policymakers or ministers within the Welsh Government, were they making decisions based on notions of behavioural fatigue that you didn’t think, as you’ve said, there was evidence for?

Professor Ann John: No. I think as soon as – this was something that, within the sort of behavioural science groups I was in, we were very clear about it, and we communicated that every time it came up.

Counsel Inquiry: Moving to the summer of 2020, in his statement to this Inquiry, Dr Rob Orford has said that following the first wave too much of society was opened up all at once and in terms of hospitality it led it a feeling that “if it’s okay to go to the pub then it’s okay to mix with others” and that there was a lack of reasoned debate on the impact or harm of these measures.

Do you agree with Dr Orford’s comments about that?

Professor Ann John: So the way I think about this, so I’m assuming this is linking to Eat Out to Help Out, you know, you’ve heard before how we didn’t have input into that or its messaging. I can’t comment on the balances across different areas that policymakers were making. But I guess what I would say is that if you’re saying to people, you know, “We need to eat out to help out the economy”, now, when you’re thinking about people’s motivations, the economy might not be the most important thing to them, it might be the mental health of their grandmother, it might be their own sense of loneliness.

So if you can do things for one reason, then you can do it for others, so it absolutely would have affected people’s behaviours.

Counsel Inquiry: Moving forwards in time, just briefly, TAG published the paper “Behavioural insights to support a post fire break Wales” on 29 October 2020. Did you or the RCBI feed into that paper?

Professor Ann John: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: What was the purpose of the paper? What was it designed to achieve or to support?

Professor Ann John: So the firebreak in October was a sort of a short two-week stay-at-home order, and, you know, when people are coming in and out of different restrictions, it really is about thinking about: how do we do that and maintain behaviours? And so it was really thinking about issues like the financial support, having – giving people …

So one of the things that we, you know, struggle with, everyone, is, like, risk, risk perception and risk communication. And your perception of risk feeds into your behaviours, but it’s really hard to communicate. You know, like the radiation from flying in an aeroplane is the same as having ten almonds in your pocket. You know, that’s the sort of way that you try to communicate risk. And I guess it was highlighting as well how people could, as restrictions eased, go forward into their own behaviours but understanding how they could maybe do that safely or how they might make another choice in your life.

So one of the things that really impacts on behaviour is education and awareness, and also I think – I think we could have been better – so I think for policymakers you like to – you like to give certainty, because giving people certainty, you sort of feel that that feels like a good leader and that feels like we’re keeping people safe. Whereas in actual fact, you know, being able to communicate uncertainty in a situation that was evolving, you know, rapidly, I think might have prevented those ideas about, you know, there were U turns or why have we got different policies in different places.

Counsel Inquiry: Going back to the summer of 2020, we know that RCBI wasn’t set up when restrictions began to ease in Wales in 2020 after that first wave, but do you think it would have helped if the kind of work that you did later on in October on risk awareness and communications in that TAG paper could have been done following the first wave? Would that have assisted in the manner in which Wales unlocked from lockdown?

Professor Ann John: I think, in keeping with what I said earlier, I absolutely believe, and I think it’s fully acknowledged now, having behavioural science and all those disciplines’ input into these sorts of changing restrictions was important, and would have been important.

Counsel Inquiry: Moving to my final topic: under-served groups and ethnic minorities and data on them and their representation.

You explain in your witness statement that the pandemic highlighted one of the underpinnings of public health that is often overlooked, and you go on to describe how usually groups who are under-served and vulnerable are largely hidden and unlikely to impact the health of others. But, you say, this changed during the pandemic.

Are you able to just expand on what you meant by that.

Professor Ann John: So when you – so we all think that things – things like the data collected by hospitals or the data collected in schools or even the census gives us true facts. If you work with data, you develop a healthy disrespect for it.

One of the things that really came out in the pandemic, and I think has been transformative, is that there were things that we could not count. So – and one of those things was about ethnicity. You know, ethnicity is so poorly recorded in routinely collected data. And that’s sort of for understandable reasons, you know, people often would say “Prefer not to say”. And that comes back to trust. But because those things aren’t recorded, we can’t count, and because we can’t count, we can’t see what the disproportionate impact in certain sectors of society are.

So if people aren’t accessing services, we can’t count them. If we don’t – if we’re not recording ethnicity, it’s very difficult – and there are lots of characteristics, at least with the impact of the pandemic on ethnic minority groups – you know, there was that sense, when you were on social media very early on in the pandemic, you know, lots of the photos of people who were dying were from ethnic minorities, but there are, equally, lots of characteristics where people might be vulnerable that aren’t so visible.

And I think one of the important lessons going forward, and I do – I do think it’s been recognised, is ensuring that we have timely, accurate data systems. We can’t just, you know, try to develop data systems in the middle of a pandemic. We really need to invest, and I think in many ways we have, in those systems being operational.

Counsel Inquiry: My final question is just about that. Are you able to provide slightly more information about what has been done already and what is still being done to increase the acquisition of the kind of data that you describe?

Professor Ann John: So there are UK-wide initiatives, both with NHS data, with recording of ethnicity status in hospitals, in healthcare. There’s the idea of recording ethnicity on death certificates, but recording on death certificates of things like occupancy and ethnicity can be quite poor.

So I guess what I’m saying is there’s a lot of work to be done with under-served populations, so I know that – you know, back in the day I always used to tick “Prefer not to say” because you have an inherent knowledge that it’s going to be a disadvantage to you. It’s not an advantage to be from an ethnic minority. So I think there are things that we need – we need to address education and awareness of people in terms of their suspicions about why we’re recording this data. And we also need to think about, you know, how we address those trust issues across our most, sort of, unheard vulnerable populations. Because all those things come down to trust.

Ms Spector: My Lady, I have no further questions, and I don’t believe there are any Rule 10 applications.

Lady Hallett: No, there aren’t.

Thank you very much indeed, Professor. I do hope being a clinical professor doesn’t mean you stopped teaching, because I found it extremely interesting.

Thank you very much indeed.

The Witness: Thank you.

(The witness withdrew)

Mr Poole: If I can call Professor Michael Gravenor, please.