Speeches by Cooper.

“Is that a difficulty? Everyone is scrambling for this now, aren’t they? That is a problem. Are we having to get our elbows out and get ahead in this race?”

“You say market failure, but the market has been, frankly, manipulated by China deliberately.”

“That is incredible, really. It is not commercially viable, you think, given energy costs at the current level.”

“It has deliberately driven prices down to avoid other countries investing in certain areas. That is going to be a vulnerability for us as well.”

“On that point, the system seems to be a legacy system. Is there a way of fast-tracking that? Is there a way of reaching into that pile and bringing this up?”

“That point about how quickly you can deliver sounds like guarded good news. You seem to be on the right path. The Critical Minerals Association told us that permitting can lead to 16 years between discovery and production. That is scarcely credible. The other bugbear that we hear all the time in the Business and Trade …”

“Mike, you are nodding there. Are you in the same situation?”

“That is a key ask from you. You think that we should try to line those things up on that fast track.”

“The Canadians and Australians are obviously working with different energy prices. They have scale to start with and cheaper business models.”

“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 …”

“You talked there about evidence that you have seen. Stakeholders have told us that they are very keen on this new focus on securing supply, but they were a little concerned about some of the vagueness around it. They wonder whether—you touched on it there—you are going to specific countries and talking about specifics.…”

“With these growth partnerships that you are talking about, you are quite agnostic about the shape of them. You are happy if it is multi-country or bilateral. You are quite relaxed about that.”

“Minister, you are committed to building a resilient UK and global supply network, which is great. You have also committed that the Government will take a more active role in helping facilitate offtake contracts. I just wonder whether you could put some flesh on the bones of that. What is going to be different about the…”

“The trick here is the processing, isn’t it? This is the point. That is what China has cornered. It is not that China has these things in the ground. It has the processing and the ability to manufacture these things. Canada is a good example of that. It has lots of these critical minerals, elements, metals or whatever, …”

“Very quickly, Mr Small, I wonder whether I could come to you. We heard about American tariffs. Economic shots have been fired between the US and China, notwithstanding the recent visit by President Trump to China. Are we innocent bystanders in this war? Are we likely to get caught in the crossfire? Is there much we can…”

“That would only give us an indication of how bad things are going to be.”

“Are we prepared for this scenario? Is the UK ready to handle this? Are we simply unprepared? We seem to be talking about it and to be aware of dates, but are we doing much about it? Are we readying for this?”

“Joerg, there seems to be a consensus around the idea that we cannot act alone and that Britain is simply too small to have any real effect on this. Do you think, then, that there is a realistic prospect that we can ally with Europe and present a united front? One of the difficulties, as Mr Reynolds touched on, is that …”

“On that point about semiconductors, the Taiwanese talk about the silicon shield. They regard their ability with chips as something that protects them. Equally, we are told that 2027 is a possible date for invasion. What is the likelihood of something like this happening in the next decade?”

“Mr Small, I wonder whether I could come to you and ask about the situation in Taiwan. I was in Taiwan and the People’s Liberation Army was just across the way, exercising what clearly was an invasion of Taiwan, which concentrates the mind. Across the South China sea, the Chinese are building islands that are designed t…”