All right, ladies and gentlemen, it's very good indeed to see you here, particularly I would like to introduce you to our wonderful guest today, Chris Hodley, who I've had the pleasure of knowing for Italy for the last three years. We've fought a fallout, but Chris has

probably had one of the most difficult jobs in government, which is in working in Dexia

department for ex-neying the European Union and the newly created department rapidly created

post-Brexit vote. And that at a created department rapidly created post the Brexit vote and I don't know when you first

started with the European office or whether you were one of the people in Starbucks

because it was so rapidly created that there was very little office focus for them to

actually do their job now obviously Dexu has played a really important role,

and of course one of the questions that I'd like to ask, but he can't answer, is what's going to

happen to Dexu post-exit. And that brings me to a key point that Chris is in quite a difficult

position at the moment

because of perda and perda he would explain better than I but basically it does

constrain anyone who connects with the government about what they can cannot say

in the period running up to the election so it's particularly important that

what is said today isn't tweeted

out. It is being recorded but it won't go out until after the election. So this is not

just Chathamas rules, it's please, we've got the benefit of Chris here and his knowledge,

but please do not publicise what he has been saying because it will put him

in an extremely difficult position.

So I hope we can operate on that basis of trust.

Chris, thank you very much indeed.

He's going to talk for 20 minutes or so, and then he's going to take questions, and he will answer the while he feels able to do so.

Thank you.

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