John Cooper MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 10 Jun 2026 · Scottish Independence · Hansard source

  More

  My constituents will be alarmed to hear that, because Labour’s “devolve and forget” approach is a huge problem. When the Secretary of State is away, the nats will play. We know that the First Minister has gone abroad using taxpayers’ money to talk about the breaking up of Britain. Should the Secretary of State not be inviting the First Minister down for a meeting—without coffee?

• 10 Jun 2026 · Belfast: Violent Disorder · Hansard source

  More

  In January, I wrote to the Home Secretary because a whistleblower suggested that Border Force lacked sufficient personnel to cover night sailings from Belfast and Larne to Cairnryan, the main port in my constituency of Dumfries and Galloway. We have heard today that much more focus is also needed on the clearly unlocked back door to the United Kingdom between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. What can the Government do to address that and in turn prevent the North channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland becoming a conduit for illegals and for other contraband?

• 8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source

  More

  I will finish. Of course, the legislation approving abortion in this country came through the private Member’s Bill route, but that was backed by the then Labour Government, who appointed a medical advisory committee that also supported its passage. That was a gold standard, against which this Bill is mere base metal. It fell—and fallen it should remain.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under the iron grip of your chairmanship, Sir Edward. We are here not to relitigate the substance of the assisted dying Bill, but to consider a profound change to the way we in this place carry out our duties as legislators. The petitioners seek, in short, for a failed Bill to be smashed through, as though it had not been subject to proper procedure, and for us to accept that it fell through procedural malfeasance. It is not so: this Bill failed because a gamble was taken to proceed down the private Member’s Bill route. It is well known that such Bills can run out of road due to time constraints. The emotive nature of the subject of the Bill is obvious, but just as the Commons debate was dominated by deeply moving yet ultimately anecdotal accounts of painful deaths, we cannot decide here on emotion. Bad cases do not make good laws. We must decide on cold, hard facts. It is a fact that this Bill carried a major flaw at its heart, in that it was not part of the Labour manifesto on which this Government were elected. It is also a fact that the Lords’ scrutiny role is designed to prevent the passage of poor legislation. This was flawed legislation, replete with issues unresolved at Committee, and passed to the Lords in a situation that Cabinet Office guidance warned would “likely kill the Bill”. I have seen all too often the result of a paucity of scrutiny when legislation has passed through the Scottish Parliament. Holyrood lacks a revising Chamber entirely, with its Committees expected to do the hard work of line-by-line consideration. This petition is couched in terms of fairness and democracy, but it is neither fair nor democratic to usurp our system for reasons of dogma. No matter the subject of a Bill, if it lacks a manifesto heritage, staggers through Committee amidst a welter of chops and changes, and ultimately fails on contact with the Lords, we have no place attempting to resurrect it because we admire its aims or because it is popular.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source

  More

  I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman that this Bill has huge difficulties, and its popularity does not capture those. The Salisbury-Addison convention that the Lords will not seek to prevent the Government from implementing manifesto pledges simply does not apply. In this case, it has not been breached. The Government made repeated declarations that they were neutral on the Bill—that it was a private Member’s Bill—and so the convention does not arise. We cannot let the emotional baggage of the assisted dying Bill override proper parliamentary procedure.

• 20 May 2026 · Processed Russian Oil Products: Sanctions · Hansard source

  More

  I had constituents in the Gallery today, and they will be aghast to find out that their flight back to Scotland is potentially using Russian fuel. Surely, regardless of whether that was the case before, we need to grip that issue. We also need to grip the reality of the North sea. We keep hearing that North sea oil is a declining asset, but the Norwegians do not see it that way; they are expanding their exploration of the North sea. We have untapped resources, west of Shetland. Surely we need to look again at domestic supply.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Draft Conservation of Habitats and Species (Offshore Wind) (Amendment etc.) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

  More

  Does the shadow Minister share my astonishment that the Scottish Government refuse to talk about so-called spatial squeeze? It is a major issue for the fishing fleet, because it simply cannot trawl in between the wind turbines. The Government appear to deny the existence of the problem, but it is a massive difficulty for the fishing fleet, is it not?

• 23 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  T5. Happy St George’s day, Mr Speaker. We face many threats, but happily dragons are no longer one of them.The Government maintain that the messages between Morgan McSweeney and his mentor Peter Mandelson are under the aegis of the Metropolitan police and therefore cannot be released, but surely the questions are critical to our understanding of what has gone on here and should be available to the House. Will the Government at least commit to publishing the questions?

• 22 Apr 2026 · Defence Sector · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do not know whether to stand at the Dispatch Box or on it. For want of a horseshoe nail, the kingdom was lost. The defence of our country today rests on modern nail-makers—the small and medium-sized enterprises supplying small but vital parts for frigates and fighter jets and for our fighting men and women. The endless delay in this Labour Government’s defence investment plan means that companies have no certainty about orders, and good jobs hang in the balance, from Pembrokeshire to Prestatyn. What pressure is the Secretary of State bringing to bear on Cabinet colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury to keep Welsh jobs, and indeed this United Kingdom, from being lost?

• 20 Apr 2026 · Apprenticeships · Hansard source

  More

  At an awards ceremony in Scotland last month, apprentices said time and again how they were told throughout their school careers that their grades were good enough to go to university, and that they should think again about going into an apprenticeship. Apprenticeships create not just jobs but careers, so what can the Department do to help in Scotland where the Scottish Government have wrecked so much of Scottish education? Can they be prevented from destroying apprenticeships as well?

• 20 Apr 2026 · Apprenticeships · Hansard source

  More

  12. What steps she is taking to promote apprenticeships as an alternative to university education.

• 16 Apr 2026 · British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme · Hansard source

  More

  The buzzword this morning is “bold”. Yet the reality is that, though this plan might be bolder than what went before, it remains with all the oomph of a 40W bulb. When electricity in Dumfries in my constituency is four times the price in Dumfries in Virginia, in the United States, this country has a major problem with competitiveness— I have a problem saying it. What industry in this country needs is the decommissioning—the unplugging—of the Energy Secretary and his dogmatic carbon taxes, which really lie behind the electricity prices that we face. Today’s announcement does nothing to address that.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Strategic Defence Review: Funding · Hansard source

  More

  To listen to the Minister, one might think that the DIP matters very little and that we are cracking on regardless, but the truth is that the MOD has been out-manoeuvred by the Chancellor, and the DIP is pinned down by the Treasury. The DIP matters a very great deal to industry because the demand signals that it will give allow industry to work up. From fighter jets to frigates, and from bayonets to bullets, these items cannot just be pulled off the shelves. This DIP matters rather more than the Minister is saying. Is that not the case?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

  More

  It is an old quote—I am sure my hon. and gallant Friend will recognise it, given his service—that while veterans talk logistics, amateurs talk tactics. He is outlining a dire situation, because we are not gripping the logistics problem.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  T8. Nith Inshore Rescue in my constituency has lost a sponsor that provided it with free fuel, because of soaring costs. Will the Secretary of State go to the Chancellor and point out that VAT and fuel costs are a matter of life and death in remote and rural Scotland?

• 23 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  Small boat returns run at around 6% of the total numbers arriving in this country, but the Home Secretary denies that this is anything to do with the European Convention on Human Rights. If not the ECHR, which part of the Government’s flawed policy is responsible for that feeble rate?

• 23 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

  More

  I think I just about am, yes. The situation we are talking about today is a shooting war, but of key interest to us is the tug of war going on between the MOD and the Treasury over the defence investment plan. We have some indication of what is going on—I think we have gathered that it will not come out this week. Can the Secretary of State give us some indication of whether the purdah period for the upcoming elections in Scotland in May will further impact the announcement of this critical plan?

• 23 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker— [ Interruption. ] Excuse me; I have swallowed a fly.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Lord Advocate · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the role and functions of the Lord Advocate; and for connected purposes. Chaos and decay are priced into the lives of people in Scotland as they suffer under the yoke of the Scottish National party Administration at Holyrood. However, the latest crisis there strikes at the integrity of Scots law, and so demands action this day—and not mere indifference. The Lord Advocate is the most senior law officer in Scotland, in ultimate charge of all criminal proceedings, sitting at the pinnacle of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. That same Lord Advocate also sits in Cabinet as a pivotal adviser to the Scottish Executive, who style themselves the Scottish Government. Just saying it out loud is alarming: the head of criminal prosecutions sits cheek-by-jowl with the politicians who are supposed to run Scotland—she sits at the Cabinet table with the very people who appointed her. Although it is a situation created by the advent of devolution, this cannot be right, for there ought not to be even the merest suggestion of a conflict of interests. It is not the stuff of a 21st-century democracy, let alone the country of the enlightenment. “Ah,” say apologists, “the Lord Advocate simply recuses herself in certain cases and is merely the titular head of some prosecutions.” This is meant to be high-minded—an elegant solution concocted by the legal hierarchy in the salons of Edinburgh—but it is cloyingly cosy and has for years been the subject of disquiet. Now this comfortable nostrum has been shattered by recent revelations made possible only by a vigorous free press. Newspapers broke the news that the present Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain KC, provided briefings to First Minister John Swinney about a court case involving Peter Murrell, former chief executive of the SNP and, further, the estranged husband of ex-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. It was reported that the details and timelines for the case, none of which was public knowledge, were presented to Mr Swinney. The court case will reportedly not now come to trial before next year, conveniently after Holyrood’s elections this May. Of course, given that proceedings are active, I must be extremely circumspect about that case. Regardless, we in this place must concern ourselves with the dual role of the Lord Advocate: the twin hats of prosecutor and Government adviser on one learned head. The dual role is enshrined in the Scotland Act 1998, and so this Bill is designed to allow for the separation of roles such that the head of Scotland’s prosecution service is, in future, entirely separate from that of Government adviser. That situation is best practice in modern democracies and pertains here in England where the head of the Crown Prosecution Service sits entirely apart from the Cabinet and Government. We often discuss contentious matters in this House, but this is an issue on which there is surprising unanimity. Almost exactly a year ago, the Prime Minister agreed with me when I raised the Lord Advocate’s two jobs that it was an important matter and indicated that Scottish Labour supported splitting the roles. At the Conservative and Unionist conference in Edinburgh last month, the Leader of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition joined Scottish party leader Russell Findlay in calling for robust action in this House. Even the SNP committed in its manifesto to looking at the dual role disaster. Yet under the divisive hand of John Swinney, Scotland is a land where the inevitable never happens and the improbable always does. Mr Swinney has belatedly published a report into the mechanics of separating the Lord Advocate from the Cabinet so that Scotland can have a conspicuously independent prosecutor and the Scottish Administration can still have sound legal advice. Yet there is no indication of any move actually to separate the roles and, indeed, the Scottish Executive yesterday put out a statement lauding the “strengths” of the current arrangement. The public are entitled to question those supposed strengths and whether they are trumped by the perception of a conflict of interest when the role of legal adviser to the Scottish Government is concentrated in one person who is also chief prosecutor. Politicians legislate; lawyers enact the laws. When prosecutors are, or are even perceived to be, too close to politicians, like moths drawn too close to the flame of power, the public may rightly fear that the law is compromised, and so we must act. Some will claim that this is overweening Westminster bullying pawky Holyrood—not so. Holyrood itself could drain this quagmire now by seeking a section 30 order to vary the Scotland Act, clearing the way for separation of the Law Officers’ roles. That would be internal to the Edinburgh Parliament—a move to restore public faith in the law by its own elected Members. Albeit belated and tardy, such a move would, I contend, be welcomed as an attempt to lift the cloud that hangs over Scots law. Will Mr Swinney at this eleventh hour—and against the run of play, for he has been at the heart of every wrong-headed decision by the SNP for almost two decades—do the correct thing? That is unlikely, and so on behalf of the right-thinking public in Scotland, I commend this Bill to the House. Question put and agreed to . Ordered, That John Cooper, John Lamont, David Mundell, Harriet Cross, Andrew Bowie, David Davis, Jamie Stone, Christine Jardine, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Elaine Stewart, Torcuil Crichton and John Grady present the Bill. John Cooper accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 April, and to be printed (Bill 403).

• 9 Mar 2026 · Social Cohesion Action Plan · Hansard source

  More

  In 1979 my father took me to Newton Stewart cinema to see “Monty Python’s Life of Brian”, and I recall my father being more upset by a spoof travel documentary that preceded the main film, because there was swearing in it, than he was about the supposed slights to Christianity. It was an early lesson to me that no one in this country, in a modern democracy, has the right not to be insulted or offended, so why are we in this place, the cockpit of democracy, discussing a blasphemy law by the back door?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Unemployment · Hansard source

  More

  3. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of unemployment.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Unemployment · Hansard source

  More

  Youth unemployment is, in fact, spiking at nearly 5.3%, which is heartbreaking, particularly for young people who cannot get that all-important first job. The Government like to pretend that they are a cork in a storm-tossed sea and unable to do anything about this, but they could reconsider employer national insurance contributions and the disastrous Employment Rights Act 2025, which is driving up youth unemployment.

• 4 Mar 2026 · Department for Business and Trade · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), who chairs the Business and Trade Committee on which I serve. As Chair of such a Committee, he is that rarest of things: capable of independent thought. We know that growth is predicted to be sclerotic, and that is before global conflicts whip up the waters around us such that Labour’s Britain is but a cork in storm-tossed seas. If growth truly were the mission, then the shock troops ought to be the Department for Business and Trade. Yet the Department’s plans to cut 1,500 jobs have been branded “irrational and arbitrary” by the civil service’s biggest union, the Public and Commercial Services Union. That is despite the 17.8% increase in day-to-day funding, plus extra capital compared with the main estimates that we have heard about today. The Minister for Trade, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), has said that “we’re going to have to achieve more with fewer people” —fine words and congratulations to the spads who crafted them, but the reality on the ground is we will inevitably get less done by fewer people. What a disaster, just as free trade agreements—the fruits of Brexit from seeds planted by previous Conservative Governments—come piling in. We should be maximising these deals given that global economic power is shifting towards a Pacific rim with a burgeoning middle class. Our far too few DBT experts will have their ranks thinned, making it tougher for British firms to tap into lucrative markets abroad. What does it say about this Government’s ambition? They would rather rush back to the skirts of nanny Europe—familiar old Europe with its feeble growth—when we could be the trading nation that Adam Smith envisaged 250 years ago with his book, “The Wealth of Nations”. We could and should be maximising the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, or CPTPP, giving us access to a market of 12 countries worth some £12 trillion and with 500 million potential customers. Even the EU, which never saw a trade deal it liked, is interested in joining. The great prize in the much-vaunted but barely discernible “reset” with the EU is, we are told, a sanitary and phytosanitary deal supposed to smooth the way for agricultural goods, seafood and livestock into and out of Europe. It should not have taken the renegotiation of the entire deal to get—French, especially—customs to stop being le squad awkward. Worse, so-called dynamic alignment on SPS is a cage without a key, meaning that Britain will once again revert to being rule takers and not rule makers. Turning to steel, I recall being in this place on that extraordinary Saturday listening to the self-congratulatory backslapping of Labour MPs hailing the saving of the industry in what was nationalisation in all but name. It seems to me that taxpayers are keeping blast furnaces alight with bundles of £20 notes, for the supplementary estimates earmarked £300 million for steel plants with no sign of the comprehensive steel strategy. Perhaps nothing sums up more the meltdown of the sector under DBT’s yoke than the reported news that the Dalzell plate mill in Scotland lacked the cash to buy slab steel from British Steel, risking the raw material that Navantia needs for the fleet solid support ships at their Harland & Wolff yard in Belfast. Not so much for the want of a horseshoe nail the kingdom was lost, but for the lack of a cohesive DBT strategy, the steel industry and billons in cash may be lost. For the wider economy, pivotal to each and every one of our constituents, the Department for Business and Trade looks like the linchpin which holds the wheels to the axle. The question is whether that pin is too small and too brittle.

• 3 Mar 2026 · Small Charity Sector · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. We Scots are often portrayed as parsimonious—or, to put it another way, as tight as two coats of paint. It is a myth largely down to comedian and singer Sir Harry Lauder, who, to raise money for wounded great war veterans after the death of his son in 1917, portrayed on stage a canny Scot who regarded every penny as a prisoner. Lauder raised £1 million for charity—an astronomical sum. How ironic that such generosity birthed the legend of the tightwad Scot. Today, in straitened times, our generosity continues, with an estimated £1.2 billion donated in 2023 and 76% of Scots reporting some sort of charity donation. Another myth that persists is that deprivation and poverty are issues only in urban areas—not so. My constituency is rural and gorgeous, but people cannot eat the scenery. Rural isolation, loneliness and poverty are sadly all too real amidst the splendour of the Galloway hills. Loneliness and social isolation are profound challenges across Dumfries and Galloway. Our scattered communities, limited public transport and persistent digital exclusion—we have many notspots—leave many individuals cut off from social contact. However, the people of Dumfries and Galloway are resilient self-starters and we have a plethora of charities fighting to make lives better. Take our telephone and in-person befriending service, A Listening Ear, which is having a real impact, delivering community-led preventive solutions to mental ill health. Its modest budget provides a big bang for a small buck. Prostate Buddies is reaching out to men, urging them to get checked for what is too often a silent killer, and offering advice and support so that more men can get treatment sooner. There are dozens of similar such initiatives, often volunteer-led, that could benefit from greater support from Government. Take The Usual Place café, which is right next to my constituency office—I am a frequent flyer there. That charity takes young people with a range of mental and physical issues and teaches them catering skills, which massively boosts their chances of finding paid employment. Even with a thriving café and external catering business, The Usual Place has struggled financially, not least since the Government increased employer national insurance contributions. Small charities do mighty work, especially in rural areas such as Dumfries and Galloway. May I make a plea for them to have a seat as the Government draw up the policy table? Sir Harry Lauder sang “Stop Yer Tickling, Jock.” Perhaps we should update that to “Start Yer Listening, Minister.”

• 2 Mar 2026 · Public Right to a Vote of No Confidence · Hansard source

  More

  This is unquestionably a really important issue, and the petition is indicative of the public’s unhappiness with this Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that the great difficulties people have with this Government include the number of manifesto pledges that have been broken, the introduction of policies that were not in their manifesto, and their constant U-turning, which would spin heads?