Mr. Mark Carlin:

I will answer the Deputy's question about it taking so long for arbitration. I do not have the specific legal information, I leave that to solicitors. I understand it is moving towards an arbitration process. Therefore, that is not a process of which we are in control. It is moving towards arbitration and that means that we are asked for information, as is the other party, and we are moving through that. We are not delaying and we want this to move through as quickly as possible.

We have 630 partners and 695 partnerships. It is never great when any partnership ends up in the legal sphere, and we absolutely do not want this to happen, nor do we want matters delayed. We want to get back on track with our partners, and if there is any other way out, through buy-ins and buyouts, we can look at that. We are striving hard to do the right thing for ourselves and our partners. There are no delaying tactics from us in this and we want it to move through swiftly, but we are in a process.

My understanding is that one case has gone to arbitration and six have consented to arbitration. The 20 cases to which the Deputy refers are probably to do with freedom of information requests that we have received under the general data protection regulation, GDPR, to outline what personal information we are holding. That is the position, as I understand.