Speeches by Cooper.

“Fair enough. We will return to it. Thank you.”

“You may not be able to answer this question, but I will ask anyway. We have seen significant numbers of disclaimed local audits. This year, 45% were disclaimed. We would like that number to be zero. Do you have an aspirational timeline by which you expect to reach zero, and what are you doing as a Department to make su…”

“Something like 91% of local audits were delivered ahead of the February backstop this year. Notably, I think the Tees Valley Combined Authority missed out. Nevertheless, 91% is an improvement on the previous year. How many did you expect to be delivered ahead of next year’s backstop date, which I think is January?”

“No doubt you will want to set the objectives. I accept your point that you do not wish to micromanage the work, and I do not think any of us would expect you to do so. But I would have thought that you would have a view on what you want them to achieve and that you would have communicated that to the candidate prior to…”

“What would you like to see the Local Audit Office achieve in its first year?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I will endeavour not to detain hon. Members longer than is necessary. I thank the Minister for her opening remarks and for clearly making the case for extending the submission deadline for chemicals registered for EU REACH. I agree that allowing more time fo…”

“More than 15 people have died in water-related incidents in the recent hot weather, including 17-year-old David Tita Junior, who sadly lost his life at Pickmere lake near Northwich last Tuesday. My thoughts, and the thoughts of the entire House, are with David’s family at this difficult time. The tragic incident highli…”

“The biggest single issue holding back economic growth in my constituency is the poor transport connections. In a non-mayoral area, we have found it difficult to access development funding to solve that problem. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to find a way of getting money into non-mayoral areas so t…”

“Would the hon. Gentleman like to reflect on the fact that what makes road transport more difficult is the massive pothole backlog that built up under his Government through the systematic underfunding of local government? Does he accept that this Government have put significant resources into fixing that?”

“Madam Deputy Speaker, you will of course be aware that the best summer attraction is the Northwich piña colada festival, which is enjoyed by boys and girls of all ages. I thank the Chancellor for her statement. The relief she is providing to the chemicals industry will be welcomed by sector businesses in Mid Cheshire. …”

“Andrew Cooper, Member of Parliament for Mid Cheshire.”

“Do you think there is a risk that if Parliament ends up legislating for a social media ban at 16 we effectively end up letting social media companies off the hook, that we put a big check mark next to, “We have regulated social media now and we have protected our children from it”, but we ignore the fact that children …”

“You said that your role is not to come up with solutions, but notwithstanding that, as society becomes more dependent on social media for news, how do you think that our elections or indeed our discourse more generally can be protected from mis- and disinformation in these spaces?”

“I have seen in my own constituency misinformation and disinformation around elections that can lead to abuse and harassment, in my case for council candidates. What starts online does not necessarily stay online and can lead to assaults of candidates in the real world. Hanno, could you give us a sense of the scale of t…”

“We are very focused on what happens during the regulated period, what happens during a short campaign, but from what you are saying it sounds like—certainly what Marianna was talking about, with the rise in decline porn and the sum total of disinformation that is being put out online all the time—this is a build-up of …”

“The Government said that their objective is to preserve democracy for the next generation. From your experience, what do you think election mis- and disinformation will look like in a generation?”

“I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; she is being very generous with her time. She talks about green spaces. My constituency is in a section of the route that has now been cancelled, and is in the process of being removed from the Bill. We still have planning safeguards in place, and uncapped boreholes from ground inv…”

“That is so interesting. It is a bit like what I have heard: in the Ukraine war there are no-fly zone areas where tools are monitoring when something enters their airspace and they are automatically launching drones. This is the social media equivalent of that, isn’t it?”

“So it created a distrust effect against the whole political class rather than saying left-wing politicians are responsible for this?”

“Okay, thank you. Clearly this abuse can have a chilling effect on candidates willing to stand for election. What are the key reforms that you think that we could make to help protect these groups?”