Speeches by Cooper.

“My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. It really does irk me that the Conservatives keep talking about the welfare bill going up when they blew a hole in the public health budget, eroded primary and community care, and did nothing to fix social care—and NHS dentistry has been hollowed out. Is it any wonder that w…”

“I welcome the Minister to his place. When it comes to the treatment of small businesses, there are two things that get right up people’s noses. The first is the big David and Goliath fights that sometimes happen between big companies and their small suppliers; the other is regulators that are tasked with tackling those…”

“May I associate myself and my party with the tributes to David Amess? On behalf of my party, may I also pay tribute to Ming Campbell, who is being laid to rest today? That is the reason why my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) cannot be here. I thank you, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister a…”

“I think Hongkongers will require a lot more reassurance and action from this Government. It is not just the Chinese Government who are a threat to our country. On Monday, the far-right, racist hate-preacher Tommy Robinson, who is on trial for allegedly refusing to comply with counter-terror police, claimed that his leg…”

“On that point, will the Minister give way?”

“Let me start with huge congratulations to Save Our Children’s Rights on securing more than 120,000 signatures. I was pleased to see that Special Needs Jungle is one of the organisations supporting the campaign; its co-director is one of my constituents. Children in Hertfordshire suffered a double whammy under the Conse…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) on securing this incredibly important and well-attended debate. In my years of campaigning for disability rights, I have found that people are very interested in the differ…”

“We would all welcome a framework for monitoring the outcomes and the results, but we have heard today that people face many barriers in trying to access these kinds of schemes. Will the Government consider requiring service level agreements, so that when people apply to the schemes or engage with them, they know what t…”

“The jobs tax has hit small businesses the hardest, with statistics from the Office for National Statistics showing that vacancies among small businesses alone have dropped by 18%. This proves that the jobs tax is not only crushing growth but crushing opportunity, especially in hospitality. Have Treasury Ministers commi…”

“We Liberal Democrats oppose the family farm tax, but in the spirit of constructive opposition, last November I recommended and requested that Ministers look at the idea of a family farm test, such as the ones used in France and Ireland. Such a test would ensure that they could close the loophole on big equity companies…”

“I agree. We are discussing property taxation, but of course, taxation on its own without a broader vision for property may well lead us towards the kind of fiasco we had with the jobs tax. There absolutely should be a community-led planning system, rather than the top-down planning system we had under the previous Gove…”

“I begin by adding my voice and that of my party to the others who have welcomed the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Dan Tomlinson) to the Front Bench. Like so many other things, property taxes in this country are broken and hopelessly out of date. Council tax is regressive; stamp duty is a transaction tax that slows g…”

“I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I would love to see that registration programme, although we Liberal Democrats have repeatedly said that it is only the first step. Registration is something that the Airbnb-type platforms actually want, because it enables them to pinch properties from other platforms. It doe…”

“Again, I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I recall—as I am sure he does—that in the previous Parliament, we Liberal Democrats tabled a number of amendments to legislation introduced by the Conservatives, to try to make that happen. Unfortunately, those amendments were not accepted by the now official Opposition. I…”

“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. He will know, as I do from my constituency of St Albans, that many people have spent decades and decades living in their property, which they might have bought for a few thousand pounds. It might now be worth a huge amount, but they might be asset-rich and cash-poor. People in th…”

“There is much to welcome in the statement. I hope that it sends a strong signal to the fintech sector and sustainable finance that UK plc is open for business, but it is important to get the balance right between growth and risk. We Liberal Democrats welcome the announcement of a scale-up unit. Will it have a mandate t…”

“The village of London Colney in my constituency is under siege from top-down housing targets, with a huge development being dumped on the border by the neighbouring local authority and an enormous rail freight terminal the size of 480 football pitches. My local residents in London Colney want their voice to be heard on…”

“The hon. Gentleman will recognise that the housing debate is about not just the number of homes but who determines where they should be built. He continues to point to the Liberal Democrats, but I gently remind him that our policy is not just about numbers, but about having a bottom-up approach whereby local authoritie…”

“We all know the Government had a terrible inheritance from the previous Government, whether it was the incompetence of covid contracts, the mini-Budget or the botched Brexit deal. But at the same time, last year’s Labour Budget was a Treasury tax grab with no vision for the economy and no regard to the impact on small …”

“I am grateful for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can the Government confirm that they will not raid capital budgets to fix crumbling hospitals and to pay for day-to-day spending, and will the Minister confirm the date for the autumn Budget?”