Andrew Cooper MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Jan 2026 · Northern Powerhouse Rail · Hansard source

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  Our region, from our big cities to our small towns, is ambitious for our future. We are hungry to play our part in our country’s economic recovery and have been impatient for the Government to see our potential after so many years of undelivered promises. Today’s announcement to invest in NPR shows that this Government will meet that ambition head-on. The previous Government issued an instruction to the HS2 Phase 2b hybrid Bill Committee to remove the Mid Cheshire sections of the route from the Bill. Can my right hon. Friend confirm whether this Government intend to retain or withdraw this instruction? If they intend to withdraw it, will she write to me with details of the status of any undertakings and assurances made by HS2 to my councils and constituents as part of the petitioning process, which would not be delivered for more than a quarter of a century and by an organisation that may, by then, no longer exist?

• 14 Jan 2026 · Horse and Rider Road Safety · Hansard source

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  Like the hon. Gentleman, a constituent contacted me ahead of this debate and told me that, although many motorists act responsibly, there is an increasing problem with drivers behaving more aggressively and passing horses at unsafe distances. Given that horses can react unpredictably when they think their lives are at risk, that puts everybody’s lives at risk. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that teaching equestrian safety as part of driver training would be an important way of tackling this issue?

• 8 Jan 2026 · Road Safety Strategy · Hansard source

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  I commend the Minister for bringing forward the first road safety strategy in more than a decade, alongside specific and measurable targets for cutting the number of deaths on our roads. Evidently, one of the experiences we share across the House is the first time we meet the family of a child who has been killed on our roads. In my case, it was a child from Middlewich who was just cycling to school when he was hit by a young driver racing another car. What will stay with me—as it will stay with his friends, the school and our community for ever—is not just the sense of utter devastation, but the sense of determination from the parents that it cannot be allowed to happen to another family. The strategy sets out a broad range of measures that the Government want to bring in. Will the Minister commit to publishing a timetable for when each consultation and each measure is likely to come in, so that we can give reassurance to families that we are going to do this?

• 8 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Sixty-six years ago this week, the last regular passenger train called at Middlewich railway station, drawing to a close 92 years of passenger rail travel from the town. A number of students from Middlewich high school have written to me to ask whether the Government would consider reopening the station, and Enterprise Cheshire and Warrington undertook considerable work under the Restoring Your Railway scheme. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the merits of bringing back railway services to the largest town in Cheshire without a station, and restore that vital connection to Manchester, Crewe and beyond?

• 6 Jan 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am absolutely staggered to hear the shadow Secretary of State talk about standard software testing practices as though someone is doing wrong by trying to penetrate systems and find flaws in them. Is not the whole point of software testing to find the flaws in a system and get them fixed, rather than parading them in front of the House of Commons as though they are some sort of failure?

• 6 Jan 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), who made a fantastic speech. I do not think mine will be of quite the same quality, but I will do my best. Having spent my career prior to entering this place as a software developer, it is perhaps not so much a pleasure as a blast of nostalgia to be speaking on this Bill today. The Bill provides for an important and long-overdue update to the NIS regulations, and provides the means to keep those regulations up to date more quickly as new threats emerge. That was a massive gap in our capability left behind by the rather haphazard and cavalier manner of our departure from the EU, and it is absolutely right that we resolve it as soon as we can. It is a cliché to say that the nature of the threats we face has changed. Whether it is state-sponsored cyber-attacks, hacktivism, identity theft or ransomware attacks, those threats can have a widespread and significant impact on people’s lives, on the wider economy, and on our safety and security. Many Members from across the House have noted the cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover —which led to that company posting a loss of £485 million last year and, as I think we heard earlier, to a £2 billion impact on the wider economy—and the Co-op infiltration, which cost that retailer at least £206 million. However, this is not a new issue, and virtually no area of the economy has not experienced attempts to penetrate its systems and cause disruption or steal data.

• 6 Jan 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill · Hansard source

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  indicated dissent.

• 6 Jan 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I confess that I am not an expert on the IT of Gloucester city council, but I am sure the Minister has heard his intervention, and may wish to respond in his summing up. I welcome the measures in the Bill to bring managed service providers and data centre infrastructure into scope. When I began my career working on hotel reservation systems, legacy on-premise infrastructure was the standard operating practice. Some organisations would develop their own line of business systems and some would buy in, but virtually all would be hosted on their own servers, often with clever names such as Spartacus, Xena or Buffy the Vampire Slayer—names that I worked with over the years. That situation changed for a whole pile of reasons, such as the need to support more public access, the requirement to facilitate more home working, huge increases in the speed of domestic and business broadband, the need to provide failover, redundancy and scaling, the shift away from big capital investment towards infrastructure as a service, and wanting to benefit from more rapid roll-out of features and applications that require significant server infrastructure behind them, such as we have seen more recently with AI. Systems have been moving virtually wholesale to those that are managed remotely and sandboxed to multiple organisations, and towards virtual servers or services in data centres, rather than on-premise tin. Bringing these two areas into scope is obvious, and it is long overdue. I offer a note of caution about this part of the Bill, and it relates to the threshold at which the regulations apply. For managed service providers, we need to ensure that we are providing appropriate levels of cyber-security without blocking new entrants to the market. That applies to critical suppliers, too. The risk is that we end up boosting the hegemony of the big outsourcers and IT suppliers, rather than being able to support new domestic entrants. There is a risk of vendor lock-in, as we have heard several times today. Equally, the threshold on data centres appears to have been set so high that only larger ones will be in scope. I hope that the Minister will keep both of those points under review as the Bill progresses and think about how we can strengthen this provision to strike the right balance. The other area of the Bill that I want to talk about relates to the regulators. The Minister set out in his opening remarks why he believes a sectoral approach is appropriate, and there is merit to that argument. Sectoral regulators have deep, long-standing institutional knowledge and they understand how the processes work in their sector. However, as I touched on earlier, the consequences of failure are enormous, with real-world impacts on people’s everyday lives. We should not expect an overarching cyber regulator to have the domain-specific knowledge of the water sector or the air traffic control sector, and nor should we expect every sectoral regulator to carry the expertise of how modern scalable data centres that detect faults automatically and automatically failover to different regions or different jurisdictions work. We just need to think about what the priority of an individual sectoral regulator will be, because it will not necessarily be cyber-security. We have to get the balance right, and we need to listen to the sectoral expertise on that. In conclusion, this Bill is an important and long-overdue update to the UK’s cyber-security framework. I look forward to working with the Government to get the scope and scale of these regulations right and to ensure that all the systems that we rely on every day are secure in the face of current and emerging threats.

• 5 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T2. I recently met a group of care workers from Northwich who are here through the health and social care visa, and who are undertaking vital work with great commitment and some personal sacrifice. They spoke passionately about the unfairness of applying the proposed changes to requirements for settled status retrospectively. What assessment has the Home Secretary made of the policy's compliance with the judgment in the case of R (HSMP Forum Ltd) v . Secretary of State for the Home Department in 2008, in respect of ensuring that changes made to immigration rules should not disadvantage those who had already made life-changing decisions based on the existing framework?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her statement and welcome her commitment to restoring fairness to the heart of the local government financial settlement, giving our councils the long-term certainty they have been crying out for. The Conservatives were a disaster for local government. In both Cheshire authorities, 70p in every pound is now spent on looking after vulnerable adults and children, leaving the remainder to fund every other essential service. That is to say nothing of the ballooning dedicated schools grant deficit. The Conservatives left our communities struggling with deteriorating infrastructure and under-resourced essential services. Can she say more about what this settlement means for my constituents in Northwich, Winsford and Middlewich? Can she possibility provide us with an indication of when councils will get some certainty over what the future holds for the statutory override, so that we can see those dedicated schools grant deficits cleared?

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her commitment on this issue and on the child poverty strategy, which is not unrelated to this work. I welcome the strategy she has announced today as a good first step in the right direction. The focus on prevention and the duty to collaborate are particularly important, as is the new money for supported housing. The lack of a Homes England plan for supported housing has been a real gap, and we have seen supported housing units close as housing associations have struggled to balance what they have to do on compliance, responsive repairs and new developments with wanting to offer supported units. Helping people to deal with the trauma of homelessness and the underlying reasons they became homeless in the first place is the best way of preventing recurrence, and we have seen that with Housing First programmes elsewhere. I was wondering whether the Minister will commit to monitoring the success of the supported housing element of the strategy and whether she will look to expand it in future if it proves successful.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q4. Thousands of families are moving into new estates only to discover that basic infrastructure—roads, drains and sewers—remain in limbo, unadopted by public authorities. In Mid Cheshire alone, 4,700 households—more than 12% of all properties in the constituency—face that uncertainty, with no guarantee on maintenance, safety and future costs, often years after developers have walked away. Can the Prime Minister say what steps he will take to make adoption timely and enforceable, so that homeowners are not left carrying the burden of unfinished infrastructure?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Child Poverty Strategy · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for her leadership and all her hard work in getting us to this point. The extent to which child poverty increased under the last Government, and the fact that it shifted so heavily towards children in working families, ought to be a source of shame for the Conservatives—if only they were here to hear it. On behalf of the 2,430 children in Mid Cheshire who will benefit from the lifting of the two-child cap, may I thank her for having the courage to pull that lever and make a huge and immediate difference to them and their future? Some 174,000 children are living in temporary accommodation. Can she say more about how the forthcoming homelessness strategy will ensure that no child is accommodated in a bed and breakfast for longer than six weeks?

• 4 Dec 2025 · Local Elections · Hansard source

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  May I welcome the additional £21.7 million per year announced today for the Cheshire and Warrington combined authority? I know my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), who is on the Front Bench, has campaigned for that for many, many years. Our region has massive untapped potential in life sciences, chemical manufacturing and digital. For too long we have watched while our friends in the Liverpool city region and Greater Manchester have been able to build a transport network and a skills strategy fit for the 21st century. Does the Minister agree that this is the difference that a Labour Government make?

• 4 Dec 2025 · EU Relations · Hansard source

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  11. What steps he is taking to improve relations with the EU.

• 4 Dec 2025 · EU Relations · Hansard source

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  Recent efforts to secure UK participation in the EU’s Security Action for Europe initiative, which aims to strengthen defence capacity across the continent in response to escalating Russian threats, appear to have come to an end without agreement. While it is right that the UK only enters agreements that clearly support our national interest and represent value for money, we must continue to play a leading role in European security. Will the Minister outline how the Government intend to build momentum for renewed UK-EU co-operation in this area?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) raised concerns about the General Medical Council’s view on this. Is the Minister aware that the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is advocating the use of the NHS number? Is she therefore aware that there is a divergence of views in the medical community on this point?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  Perhaps I have misunderstood, but I am sure that the Minister has clarified that the standardised pay across the sector should be a floor, not a ceiling. Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that that is his understanding too?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  That is an interesting approach; it is a shame that has not been rolled out more widely. That is not the experience in the schools in my constituency. Across the population, the measures in the Bill will reduce costs for all. That is my view; the hon. Gentleman is welcome to his. In short, the Bill is about ensuring that every child is safe, supported and given the chance to succeed. To withdraw it would be to turn away from that vision. Instead, we must commit to a future in which protection and education go hand in hand and no child is left behind.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Barker. I begin by thanking the petition organiser and all who engaged with it. Like many colleagues from across the House, I entered politics because I wanted to make sure that all children, regardless of their background or circumstances, had the opportunity to have the best start in life. I am sure that that is also the motivation for the majority of those who signed the petition, even if we might disagree that the Bill represents positive progress. Although the petition primarily addresses the school reform aspects of the Bill, it is important to underscore the significant child protection measures it contains that would be lost if the Bill were withdrawn as the petition proposes. The measures broadly enjoy cross-party support and have been developed following what we have learned when things have gone tragically wrong. One of the most significant protections is the introduction of a single unique identifier for every child, an innovation that will transform how we monitor and safeguard children throughout their educational journey. With a unique identifier, schools, social services, the NHS and other agencies can securely share essential information, ensuring that no child slips through the cracks. Instead of scattering attendance records, safeguarding concerns and progress across disconnected systems, this approach brings everything together. For a child at risk, perhaps moving between schools or facing hardship at home, this identifier becomes a vital thread linking their past experiences to the support they need today. Time after time, when a serious case review occurs and the resultant review looks at how it could have been prevented, featuring in there somewhere will be poor communication and a failure to connect the dots between agencies. The unique identifier is a key step towards preventing that from happening. Safeguarding cannot happen in silos. That is why the Bill creates multi-agency child protection teams, bringing together professionals from education, health, social services, mental health, housing and law enforcement. When the teams work collaboratively, risks are identified earlier and responses are more effective. For children living in unstable homes, struggling with mental health challenges or at risk of neglect, the joined-up approach can become life changing. Safeguarding is only part of the ambition, however. True wellbeing depends not just on safety, but on opportunity. That is why the Bill also focuses on raising standards and strengthening support across schools. When education and wellbeing work hand in hand, every child has the chance to thrive academically and personally. The mission that lies at the heart of the Bill is to break the link between a child’s background and their future success. I believe that part 2 is fundamental to that mission. [ Interruption. ] The right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) is welcome to intervene. School reform is about creating the conditions for success. The introduction of regional improvement for standards and excellence teams will lead efforts to improve attendance and behaviour. The teams will provide the expertise and focus needed to tackle persistent challenges and support schools in creating environments where every child can flourish. The clear expectation is that schools employ qualified teachers and teach the national curriculum. Those are the foundations of a high quality education system, ensuring that every child, wherever they live, has access to excellent teaching and a broad, balanced curriculum. Academy reform is about clarity and accountability. We have seen trusts that deliver exceptional support, helping schools raise standards and share expertise effectively. But we have also seen cases where that support has been absent, where performance has declined and communities have had little influence over improvement. The current system has grown fragmented and inconsistent. Structures alone do not guarantee success. What matters is the quality of teaching, the leadership and the support a child receives at home. The reforms will restore coherence and ensure that every school is part of a system focused on outcomes, not organisational labels. It is time to move beyond debates about governance and put standards at the heart of the conversation. Other measures tackle barriers to learning head-on. Free breakfast clubs in every state-funded primary school will ensure no child starts the day hungry. Limiting branded items in school uniforms will ease cost of living pressures and promote inclusion.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to identify many of the reasons why parents choose to home educate. It quite often is as a result of bullying or an unmet special educational need. But under our current system, local authorities are not aware of the reason why somebody chooses to home educate. Under the Bill, parents will be required to provide that reason to local authorities. That might flag up to the local authority that there is a bullying problem at a school, or that there is a problem with the way special educational needs are dealt with. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that making that information available to the local authority is a plus that the Bill will deliver?

• 27 Nov 2025 · Cities and Towns of Culture · Hansard source

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  7. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the UK city of culture and UK town of culture competitions on local communities.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Cities and Towns of Culture · Hansard source

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  Northwich and Winsford, in my constituency, have long punched well above their weight when it comes to cultural vibrancy and creativity. Winsford, in particular, has earned a proud reputation as an incubator for musical talent, with emerging acts, such The Luka State and The Voke, making waves on the national indie music scene. Meanwhile, Northwich has firmly established itself as the events capital of Cheshire, hosting standout occasions including the Now Northwich International Street Dance festival, The Charlatans’ North by Northwich takeover and, of course, the world-famous Piña Colada festival. Does my hon. Friend agree that Mid Cheshire makes an outstanding contribution to the UK’s cultural landscape, and will he consider supporting a joint bid from Northwich and Winsford for the town of culture competition?

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  This Budget is about building an economy that works for working people and families, not returning to the short-term decisions of the previous Government, which left public services stretched and household finances fragile. I welcome the fact that the Government are choosing stability, fairness and long-term investment, because strengthening our country begins with putting people first. Prior to the general election, the two issues that my constituents mentioned more than any others were living costs and the state of the NHS. I am proud that, under this Government, progress has already been made on both, but while much has been achieved, there is much more to do. Since coming into office, the Government have begun turning the tide on NHS waiting times, after years of record backlogs. For the first time in 15 years, waiting lists have started to fall; there are more than 230,000 fewer people waiting for treatment, and over 5 million extra appointments have been delivered. In Mid Cheshire, the ultra-long 65-week-plus waits are on target to be eliminated by the end of the year. Alongside that, the NHS 10-year plan is transforming care by shifting services into communities, embracing digital innovation and focusing on prevention. Families in my constituency are already beginning to feel the impact of that progress. In Northwich, the new Cheshire and Merseyside surgical centre has opened at the Victoria infirmary. It will treat 12,000 patients each year, including a large number of high-volume, low-complexity cases, to bear down on waiting lists further. Meanwhile, Leighton hospital’s rebuild—which was shamefully delayed by the previous Government, despite the dangerous reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete issues hanging over the hospital—is not only fully funded, but moving on apace. I share the Government’s commitment to ensuring that patients receive timely treatment, staff have the tools that they need to deliver it, and the public can rely on an NHS that works for everyone. The Budget also addresses one of the most pressing challenges facing families: the cost of living. Rising prices have put pressure on household budgets. Over the past year, action has been taken to ease everyday costs. That action includes the largest increase in the national minimum wage in years, free breakfast clubs in hundreds of primary schools—including not one, two, three or four but five in Mid Cheshire—and expanded energy support through the warm homes discount. For households in my constituency, those measures help to stabilise family finances, support working parents and ensure that children start the school day ready to learn. The Budget goes further by delivering stronger cost of living support through targeted measures for low-income households. We could talk about the rise in the national minimum wage, which will help working families, or about the scrapping of levies from energy bills, saving families £150 on average next year and reducing pressure on their budgets, but the removal of the two-child benefit cap, which will lift nearly half a million children out of poverty, including 2,420 across Middlewich, Winsford and Northwich, will be most significant. Labour believes that every child should have the opportunity to reach their full potential—that someone’s background and circumstances, and who they know or where they come from, should not shape their life more than their talent, creativity and determination. As Gordon Brown said, “The two-child benefit cap was a scar on the country’s soul”. I will be proud to be a Labour Member when we vote to scrap it. Together, those steps will boost household incomes in my constituency and across the country, providing families with not just short-term relief but lasting financial confidence. Our priorities—reducing debt, strengthening the NHS and tackling the cost of living crisis—are interconnected. A stable economy enables investment in public services. A stronger NHS supports a healthier, more productive population. Easing cost pressures gives families the confidence to plan for the future. Together, they form a coherent strategy for long-term prosperity. The measures announced in the Budget will help to build a stronger economy, a healthier NHS and a fairer society, and will deliver tangible improvements for Mid Cheshire and communities across the country.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Young People not in Education, Employment or Training · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) on securing this important debate on NEETs. This is an issue that affects the future of our young people, and it is a persistent challenge that we must tackle head on. In Winsford in my constituency, the challenge is particularly acute: the proportion of young people who are NEET is 5 percentage points higher than the borough average. In the interests of time, I will make a couple of points that I hope the Minister will consider when he takes the floor. First, sustained funding to tackle this issue needs to be a priority. In the past, this was a specific focus of the European social fund, and schemes such as the education maintenance allowance provided a direct financial incentive to stay in further education. The Government have identified funding through the youth guarantee to ensure that all young people have access to the support they need to earn or learn. That funding needs to be sustained in the long term, to operate across Departments, and to measurably target reducing NEETs not in a decade’s time, but in this Parliament. Secondly, I ask the Minister to look specifically at the damage done to further education in my constituency by the 2016 review into post-16 education in Cheshire. There is a direct relationship between the distance a young person has to travel for FE and the likelihood of their sustaining that place and gaining a qualification. Mid Cheshire has literally been caught in a perfect storm, with Cheshire FE colleges responding to their quality and financial problems through consolidation and divestment out of my constituency. That remains as unacceptable today as it was then. I urge the Minister to look into the issue and to commission a new review with a focus on undoing the damage caused by the 2016 review. I hope that the Minister can set out how we can ensure that every young person, regardless of where they live, has the chance to learn, grow and succeed. I hope he will also set out what targeted support the Government can provide for towns with persistently high NEET levels, including funding for local engagement initiatives, so we can unlock the full potential of every young person in an area such as Winsford.