John Cooper MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Feb 2025 · UK-US Bilateral Relationship · Hansard source

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  I thank all the right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part today. I associate myself with the Minister’s remarks about the aviation tragedies in America. Our hearts are with all those affected. It is clear from this debate that the strength of our relationship with America matters a great deal to us. I want to pick up on one or two Members’ contributions. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), who told us that the birds and the bees have, apparently, been upgraded to the rhinos and the sloths. I shall resist saying too much about Orangemen, but it suffices to say that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is not, I suspect, a fan of fake tan. I also thank my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp). He knows, better than most of us, the importance of immediate action. We must take that message away when we consider defence spending. We need to urgently see where we are with that. I conclude by saying that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) might take the message to America that we are not junior partners. Rather than us becoming the 51st state of the USA, the United States might, in fact, like to come back in under the furled umbrella of the British empire. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered the UK-US bilateral relationship.

• 4 Feb 2025 · UK-US Bilateral Relationship · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the UK-US bilateral relationship. It is a pleasure to serve under your tutelage, Sir John, and let me introduce you to a fine Scots word: fankle. It means a tangle, or a confusion. President Donald Trump knows what it means, because his mother was a Scot from the Isle of Lewis, and the White House team know one when they see one. And they see one right here in Britain, as our foreign policy is disjointed, dysfunctional and callow. The White House has fired the first shots in a trade war, with tariffs and the threat of tariffs shaping policy. The EU is under this sword of Damocles, but we could avoid the sort of damage to key exports, such as Scotch whisky, that we saw when Mr Trump was last atop Pennsylvania Avenue. Overall, the UK enjoys a balanced scorecard on trade with the US, although our preponderance of services over goods could yet make us a target. Should we side with the EU? The UK exported £179 billion-worth of goods and services to the US in 2023 and we imported £112 billion-worth of US goods. Looking at individual countries, the US is by far our largest export market; Germany is a distant second, with an export market about a third the size of America’s. In today’s world, America innovates, China imitates, Europe regulates and Britain prevaricates. Just as President Trump is freeing US industry from its shackles, here Labour is imposing more taxes, more red tape and self-harming nonsense such as the ruinous Employment Rights Bill—the union barons’ charter. Labour wants to offshore decision making to courts, to outsourced and unelected lawyers, and to take dictation from the EU. And they want to force through the Chagos fiasco, Britain’s biggest capitulation since Singapore in 1942—although we did at least fire some shots 83 years ago. Can the Minister offer some reassurance today that instead Britain will get off its knees, use the freedoms of Brexit, and stride confidently and boldly into the world, striking our own deals? The Russian bear is scratching at our back door, we feel the hot breath of the Chinese dragon on our neck and under President Trump the American eagle is starting to spread its wings. Among all that, which way to turn, for our Foreign Secretary seems like a cork in a raging sea? Labour’s instincts in time of trouble are to run for the skirts of nanny Europe, but Europe is fading, with sclerotic growth amid political turmoil. Its two great powers, France and Germany, are rudderless and drifting. And although Labour would have us believe that it is resetting relations with the EU, the reality is that our position is pathetic. The Prime Minister cannot say what he wants from Europe, while they have their invoice already made out; they want a youth mobility scheme that would put yet more pressure on our own children who are seeking their first job. And Europe has avaricious eyes on that old sacrificial lamb—fish from our pristine waters—and to hell with British coastal communities who rely upon the sea’s bounty. Also, we are cosying up to China. The Chancellor is fresh back from “Operation Kowtow” with a few cheap baubles, despite China’s anti-competitive trade practices, even as the diggers move to build Beijing’s London embassy astride critical data cables. We risk feeding the dragon that one day may immolate us. What then of the United States, which for so long has been our ally under the umbrella of the much-vaunted “special relationship”? Surely the choice is obvious, yet it would mean Labour dealing with a man that it dispatched activists to defeat in the US election. He is, to quote that master diplomat the Foreign Secretary, “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath. A tyrant in a toupee.” I will also quote Labour’s choice of ambassador to Washington DC, who called the returning President a “bully”, “reckless” and a “danger to the world.” The Damascene conversion that our diplomats have lately undergone means that Mr Trump is now “a nice man”. And as for KKK jibes? Apparently, they are “old news” that will matter not a jot on Capitol Hill. However, they neither forgive nor forget; the die is cast. What is said cannot be unsaid by fawning. And although the Foreign Secretary boasts of having a meal with the President, perhaps the Minister who is here today could confirm both how little access the Foreign Secretary had to the President and just how massive the humble pie was that he was forced to pretend he enjoyed. Huge though those problems are, they are nothing compared with the Chagos deal, which will see us cede the strategic joint UK-US Diego Garcia base to distant Mauritius and pay billions to lease it back. We saw the unseemly haste with which Labour wanted to push that deal through, in the face of warnings that Mauritius was moving ever closer to both expansive China and malign Iran. Now the Foreign Secretary is moving at pace again, scuttling to try to explain to Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the deal is just the job to see off a legal opinion—not a decision—that there might be an issue with the Chagos islands and Diego Garcia in particular. Yes, negotiations were begun by the previous Government but we did not conclude them. We would certainly not have considered the ludicrous terms on offer, where we take something of ours, give it away and then pay through the nose to borrow it back. The Americans already see what this is: a supine Britain, afraid of a possible legal setback, falling over itself to avoid offending a foreign Government. It is nothing short of a national humiliation. We have a Labour Government frightened of their own shadow, happier to be soft-touch law takers not lawmakers, who would have this sovereign Parliament infantilised and push around by bewigged silks and the Brussels secretariat. This Government are more worried about the price of Oasis tickets than the cost of making our elected representatives subservient to quangos and arm’s length bodies, and now to the National Assembly in Port Louis, Mauritius, which is further from Diego Garcia than London is from Rome. Aboard his luxury jet—he seems more interested in a Gulfstream G700 than the G7 countries—whisking him to the US, the Foreign Secretary might consider a quote from Mr Rubio: “Compromise that’s not a solution is a waste of time.” Against that sort of clear thinking, our toadying diplomats look like battery toys plugged into the mains: out of their depth, out of touch, out of control. China knows the true value of bases such as Diego Garcia. It is even building artificial islands—the great wall of sand—in the South China sea as unsinkable aircraft carriers. The US will rightly torpedo Labour’s woeful Chagos sell-out.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Relations with the EU · Hansard source

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  Maroš Šefčovič is today dangling the prospect of the UK joining the pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention. Of course, the quiet part is that that would once again turn this country into rule takers, not rule makers. Ahead of the summit, can the Paymaster General rule out the prospect of the UK falling in line with so-called dynamic alignment—in other words, taking EU rules and regulations—and will we instead strike out in the world and do new deals with America and around the Pacific rim?

• 23 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Reliefs: OBR Costing · Hansard source

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  There will be a rally on Saturday, and the Minister appears to imagine that this indicates acclamation for his policy. We heard earlier in the week from the hon. Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) and today from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Chi Onwurah)—both well-known rural areas—that this is all about the landed estates and wealthy people, but I can assure the Minister that the farmers I will speak with in Castle Douglas on Saturday are tenant farmers and family farmers, and they face being put off the land after generations. Is he really suggesting that I should tell them they have nothing to worry about?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Competition and Markets Authority Chairman · Hansard source

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  The Government seem fascinated by the price of Oasis tickets. Meanwhile, debt and the cost of debt are soaring. Should the Government—definitely, not maybe—come up with some ideas of their own for growth, rather than trying to copy the homework of regulators?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Russian Maritime Activity and UK Response · Hansard source

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  Undersea cables in the modern era are as vital to this country as the merchant navy convoys were in the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942, and they are equally vulnerable. Taking shape on the banks of the Clyde at the moment are the state-of-the-art Type 26 frigates, which have mission bays on board. The right hon. Gentleman is fleet of foot—as we have heard, he won a foot race today—but we are in an underwater arms race. Will he do all he can to ensure that, when those ships take to sea, their mission bays bristle with the necessary underwater equipment to take on that threat?

• 17 Jan 2025 · Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman talks about simplifying systems. My father applied for a postal vote because he was taking advantage of the early Scottish holiday and was going to be away on 4 July. When he tried to access a postal vote to vote for me, he found that the council could not recognise him, yet as he pointed out, it had been able to collect his council tax for some years. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that if we are going to increase the number of postal and proxy votes, we must also have better systems on the other side to short-circuit those problems?

• 16 Jan 2025 · UK Air Defence · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. and gallant Friend for that point. It is interesting that the Arrow 3 project he mentions is a joint project between Boeing in America and the Israeli defence machinery. Is there something in the innovation offered by Patria, a Finnish company, which is offering to help us build armoured vehicles here in Britain but based on its design? Do we need less of a reliance on domestic systems and to consider, as he says, off-the-shelf systems from elsewhere?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Covid-19 Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to hear that relations with the devolved Administrations are now on a collegiate basis. I have to say that my experience as a lowly special adviser with the Scotland Office at the tail end of the pandemic was nothing like that at all; it was very, very difficult. We faced constant battles with the Scottish Government, who wanted to put their oar into areas that really were nothing to do with them and constantly wanted change for the sake of change. I am therefore relieved to hear that the Cabinet Office seems to be taking a lead in this. Heaven forfend we face another situation like the covid pandemic, but we probably will. Can the right hon. Gentleman assure me that we will have a chain of command that makes it clear who is in charge, which must be this sovereign Parliament?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Foot and Mouth Disease · Hansard source

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  With some of the most productive grassland in the UK, Dumfries and Galloway is not worried but terrified by this outbreak. I am reassured to know that we are doing what we can, but it is a very difficult problem to solve. Can the Minister reassure me that the Republic of Ireland will not be the unlocked back door through which this dread disease returns to this country?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The official readout from “Operation kowtow”, the Chancellor’s mission to Beijing, says that she “urged China to cease its support for Russia’s defence industrial base, which is enabling Russia to maintain its illegal war against Ukraine.” Did the Chancellor elicit any such assurances, and if not, what does it mean for the Foreign Secretary’s supposed reset of relations with the people of the Great Hall?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan · Hansard source

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  I make no apology for returning to the vital question of copyright. Notwithstanding the consultation, the plan recommends that we follow Europe in having an opt-out model. Does the Secretary of State not agree with me and the News Media Association that that would be a watering down of our exemplary copyright laws?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  We have heard in the House today about an over-reliance on gas, but surely, in reality, it is an over-reliance on imported gas. The forces of this Government seem to be driving us into the hands of foreign suppliers, and as much as 80% of our gas may be imported by 2030. Should we not support domestic sources of oil and gas, and back the 200,000 industry jobs found in constituencies across the land, rather than pushing those people off a cliff?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on securing this important debate. I was a teenage newspaper reporter when I was first confronted with the horrific reality of a collision between a car and an articulated lorry. A senior policeman told me that there had been four fatalities when a lorry and car crashed on the A75, just outside my home town of Stranraer in what is now my Dumfries and Galloway constituency. The policeman added, “I know there’s four dead only because I can see four right feet.” Forty years later, that same A75 continues to exact an awful toll, for the total traffic volumes it carries are much bigger and the artics larger too. Tragically, there have been two more fatalities recently, when cars and lorries collided on the A75 in September and November. The A75 is gloriously titled “the Euro route”, but we must set aside any notions of a multi-laned ribbon of shining asphalt. It is largely two lanes and filled with dangerous bends, blind dips and adverse camber, and grinds through villages that should have been bypassed decades ago. The A75 even has a light-controlled cattle crossing, despite the fact that it services the key port of Cairnryan and carries perhaps—estimates vary—as much as 60% of goods into and out of Northern Ireland. Transport is devolved to the Scottish Government, so why on earth are we here, in this place, discussing this road? It will be news to the Minister, but the previous Conservative Administration undertook a review of UK connectivity and identified the A75 as being of national significance. Yes, it is the key traffic artery running through Dumfries and Galloway but it is also the critical link between Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. It is screaming out for improvements, yet the road is treated with supreme indifference by the Scottish Government. They complained that the UK Government even looking at the A75 was a “power grab”, and alleged that we were trampling on devolution by launching a connectivity review. Officials were ordered not to co-operate with that review, which was led by Sir Peter Hendy, now Lord Hendy. That meant that he had to “drive” the full length of the A75, inch by painful inch, using only Google Street View. Since my election I have been trying to find out what is happening with money that the last Conservative Government earmarked for improvements to the A75. I have established that the money has not been swallowed up by the questionable fiscal black hole that the Chancellor blames for all ills, but with the Department for Transport here convinced that the issue sits in Edinburgh and Edinburgh inscrutable at best, we have an impasse. The First Minister of Scotland, no doubt motivated by looming Holyrood parliamentary elections, has deigned to visit the A75 to see for himself how overwhelmed it truly is. Labour boasts about a reset of relations with the Scottish Government yet, sadly, the Secretary of State for Scotland was unable to take up my suggestion that, given the supposed love-in between Dover House and Bute House, he should share a car with First Minister John Swinney on that visit. Mr Swinney has said that he now understands the depth of feeling about the A75—empty words that leave those on both sides of the North channel frustrated by the state of this vital cross-border road. Will the Minister give my constituents an update on where the UK taxpayers’ money for the A75 has gone? Will she press the UK Department for Transport to accept that it has a stake in seeing a rolling programme of improvements on the A75, on both safety and economic grounds? The current mode of this Government is to devolve and forget, to throw a block grant up north to Edinburgh and then wash their hands of the matter. That is not what devolution is about. The A75 is a classic example of where the UK Government ought to act in the best interests of the people of Britain and not allow devolution to be an excuse for inaction—livelihoods, and indeed lives, are truly at risk.

• 19 Dec 2024 · Harland & Wolff · Hansard source

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  I congratulate this Front-Bench team and the wider Government on landing this deal in the face of what the Secretary of State has euphemistically called the “headwinds” —I would call them a full-force gale—created by the Budget. Did Navantia raise concerns about the forthcoming Employment Rights Bill? It swings the pendulum very much in favour of trade unions, which, as we know, are very often red in tooth and claw. Was that an issue in landing the deal?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is an honour and a novelty to follow my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The cost of a new year’s dinner in Russia is up over 11%, interest rates are up, taxes are up and the rouble is down. That is largely down to the fact that the previous Government introduced a punitive range of sanctions against Russia. The famous military phrase is “in all domains” and the economic domain is absolutely critical. Can the Minister assure us that we will continue to ramp up economic pressure, as well as military pressure?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Copyright and Artificial Intelligence · Hansard source

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  As a former journalist, I am intimately familiar with the gold standard copyright laws that we have in this country. Does the Minister agree with the News Media Association, which is very concerned about the current situation faced by its members, where things are already being scraped and taken into these AI machines? To quote the fabulous Sugababes, those members would like the Minister to “Push the Button” on the existing laws and protect their copyright now. Can we have action now, rather than this rather vague and woolly consultation?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Discrimination Against Ethnic Minorities · Hansard source

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  I wish you a merry Christmas and a good new year when it comes, Mr Speaker. I was astonished that the vacillating Prime Minister did not take the opportunity to definitively rule out blasphemy laws, which have no placed in modern British society. This is the land of “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” after all. Will the Minister take the opportunity to do what the Prime Minister would not by completely ruling out the introduction of blasphemy laws?

• 12 Dec 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Both the Scotland Office and the Northern Ireland Office tell me that the Northern Ireland enhanced investment zone is still alive and still in play, and has not fallen into the fictitious £22 billion black hole. However, there is no indication of when it will actually be delivered. Given the multiple agencies involved, could we have some clarity on this? And can we address the policy of “devolve and forget” operated by this Government, which is so damaging to both Scotland and Northern Ireland?

• 12 Dec 2024 · LGBT Veterans: Etherton Review · Hansard source

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  Soon, many of us will be held rapt by television’s “SAS Rogue Heroes”, which returns to screens soon. The series will focus on the elite unit as, back from initial success in the desert war, it faces the much sterner challenge of Ayrshire, where it was briefly based until it went into action in Italy and occupied Europe. With legendary founder David Stirling languishing in Colditz, the focus will be on new commanding officer Blair “Paddy” Mayne. Mayne should by rights have been decorated with the Victoria Cross, our premier gallantry award, for his action rescuing pinned-down troops in Oldenburg, Germany, in 1945. Yet the award was downgraded. This was perhaps because of Mayne’s enthusiastic off-duty drinking and his penchant for punching senior officers, but it might also have something to do with the suggestion that he was a homosexual. It is quite remarkable that such a martial giant should be doomed to be “the bravest man who never won a VC” over something so entirely irrelevant, yet today we must confront the reality that outmoded views of LGBT people persisted in the military for far longer than they ought to have done. Nothing can be done now to right the wrong done to Blair Mayne, but the Government are addressing the suffering of people very much alive today. Take my constituent Alan, once a teenager proud to serve in RAF blue. He told me: “Arrested for being gay, I was sexually assaulted by the Special Investigation Branch and made to endure horrific, humiliating treatment during a gruelling three-day interview. As a 18-year-old kid, I lost all contact with my family and attempted to take my life five times due to the way I was treated. The long-term effect this has had on my mental health and family connections has not been easy.” The Government are in a position to deliver the element that veterans such as both Blair Mayne and my constituent Alan would recognise as vital to all military operations: speed. As we have heard, the clock is ticking and time is moving on. The Minister for Veterans and People, the hon. and gallant Gentleman who will sum up the debate, is no stranger to combat, but he may yet find the Treasury a difficult opponent when it comes to the timings; indeed, he may need the courage of Mayne to prevail in that struggle. We must all hope that this scheme is streamlined and delivered apace, in a way that the Post Office Horizon compensation system was not.

• 11 Dec 2024 · Border Security: Collaboration · Hansard source

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  This is a multiheaded hydra of a problem; there is no doubt about that. One of the ways in which we could begin to tackle it is by using the proper language. Can we please stop talking about irregular arrivals and irregular journeys? That sounds like a coach tour that has taken a wrong turn. It is illegal immigration that we are dealing with here. We have heard much about international co-operation and that, obviously, is critical. Will the Home Secretary undertake to strike a series of agreements with a range of countries to ensure that people can be returned to those countries should they be deemed safe?

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I was involved with the seafood industry in the early days of Brexit as a special adviser with the Scotland Office, and we found that much of the problems with live export, particularly of shellfish and things like langoustines, actually lay on the far side of the channel, rather than our side. I do not know whether it is still the case, but at that time the UK Government had a digital-first presumption to try to take away the pieces of paper the hon. Lady talks about but, in fact, it was those in Europe who insisted on that. I am not sure whether the hon. Lady is aware of that.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I agree that it is important that the voices of people directly involved in the industry, both onshore and offshore, are heard. On the TCA negotiations, nothing—not quota or anything else—should be exchanged for automatic access for EU boats. War could not choke off our fish suppers; can we ensure that legislation does not either?

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this important debate. Fish and chips were deemed so critical to morale during the dark days of the second world war that they were not rationed, and extra resources were allocated to keep the home fryers burning. Today, the harvest of fish and seafood from our pristine waters is hard-won. It is estimated that fishing crews face the threat of death at 100 times the rate of the average UK worker. In my constituency of Dumfries and Galloway, the Isle of Whithorn will never forget the loss of seven of our sons when the scallop dredger Solway Harvester foundered off the Isle of Man in a force-9 gale 25 years ago in January. The two youngest victims were aged just 17. The sea is magnificent and unforgiving. Today’s fishermen face the terrors of the deep and onshore threats too. Fishing in south-west Scotland centres on scallops, lobster and crab. The economic contribution of catchers and producers is vital to vulnerable coastal communities, yet fishermen are criticised as voracious plunderers when really they are cautious custodians of the sea. It took sterling work by my colleague, Finlay Carson MSP, to stave off the threat of the loss of livelihood for static-gear fishermen along the Solway coast. The clunking fist of the Scottish Government was set to ban them inside a six-mile limit to save berried or egg-bearing lobster, but it was the fishermen who spoke up about returning berried lobster to protect not just their livelihoods, but those of the next and future generations of fishermen. Brexit could yet deliver a sea of opportunities for our fishermen. If we spend time at the quaysides and pierheads of Kirkcudbright, Garlieston, Port William, Stranraer and Portpatrick, we will not hear any clamour to return to the hated common fisheries policy of distant and faceless Brussels. In 2022, landings in those places were estimated at £4.5 million—an enormous shot in the arm for a rural area such as Dumfries and Galloway. As we have heard, while the sea is vast, it is not limitless. Floating offshore wind is just one of the sectors exerting spatial squeeze, for we cannot fish between the turbines and their seabed infrastructure is another impediment. Shipping lanes and undersea cables, as important to Britain today as the convoys during the battle of the Atlantic, further hem in our fishing fleet. Plans have also been suggested for more marine protected areas in English waters to offset the environmental damage in existing MPAs. Fishing already pays the price of being excluded from prime fishing areas through the privatisation of the seabed, but being locked out of the MPAs adds insult to injury. The waters are choppy, but fishing is a touchstone in Scotland: St Andrew, our patron saint, was a fisherman. Fishing is also about food security, so it is terrifying to hear this pivotal industry being touted in some quarters as a mere bargaining chip as the Government prepare for TCA renegotiation.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Stellantis Luton · Hansard source

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  I make it clear that Conservative Members regard this as a very grave matter. We are taking it seriously, and we are also dealing in facts. Turning to veracity, then, can we hear whether or not Stellantis raised the question of the eye-watering ZEV mandate fines and asked for them to be lifted?