Speeches by Cooper.

“The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is the terrorism export wing of the despotic regime in Tehran. Why are we not joining the Americans in proscribing this organisation when we did proscribe the Wagner organisation in Russia? Is it possibly because the Americans are pressuring us to continue our tenuous diplomatic l…”

“The Daily Mail has said in its coverage of the accord today that industry leaders have warned that the Government must deliver a pipeline of investment opportunities to meet the new targets. What faith can savers have that this Government can deliver on that given that they touted GB Energy as a fantastic investment ve…”

“Martin, is that your experience, that you have this void that you are shouting into and nothing seems to come back until you get a final decision?”

“Thank you for joining us. It does seem the system is designed to create a very wide trawl. That does seem to be the original intention. It is clear, from the numbers that are in that bigger trawl and then the numbers that actually are drilled down to, that there is quite the disparity there. Perhaps we will start with …”

“Then just sticking with you, we have talked about the wide trawl. The safety net underneath that, then, is this rapid assessment and the idea that you will get quite a quick decision. There are statistics published that show that they seem to do quite well measured against those benchmarks. As you will know, TheCityUK …”

“Catherine, you were nodding along there. I wondered what your thoughts are on that. NATO likes to define things, but is a more general approach what we really need here?”

“We could potentially take that Japanese template and perhaps add in our own. As you said, different countries will have different priorities. Our priorities may be different, but we need to establish what it is we want to achieve, first and foremost. Lord Sedwill, what are your thoughts on that? Do you think a definiti…”

“Back to that learning point, you have no information to pass on to investors, which might make them nervous of what else is going on.”

“Is it “one size fits none”? Is that the problem here, that this is fundamentally not really fit for purpose?”

“Obviously, this is a dynamic world. That four to six weeks could be deal or no deal. That could be a deal breaker, potentially.”

“Good afternoon. I will start with you, Francesca, because you have already touched on this. It is clear that there is not an existing definition and no consensus around what constitutes economic security. You have obviously thought about it and given us some examples today that perhaps we had not thought of. The direct…”

“Good afternoon. We are hearing a lot about much more attention being paid to these issues and a lot more emerging threats. Can you give me some clue as to how you or your clients evaluate the threats and difficulties that they face? What tools do you have at your disposal? I am thinking of the national risk register. I…”

“What do you think of the national risk register? Obviously there are unknown unknowns, to quote Donald Rumsfeld—black swan events and all these things—but is the national risk register useful? Is it a tool that actually is helpful?”

“Simon, do you get the opportunity to feed into the national risk register? Is it handed down to you on tablets of stone from Government, or do you get to feed in? Do you flag things that you see coming down the tracks?”

“It should not be the be-all and end-all. Alexandra, are you in that position as well?”

“Nicole, is that an experience that you recognise? You have seen this sort of thing, then.”

“Mike, if I could come to you, are there potential changes to the screening, then? It has been designed this way, so, short of scrapping the whole thing and starting it again, are there changes that could be made to better support firms that are trying to get capital into critical sectors?”

“The pretence is that Britain is somehow caught in a storm- tossed sea of international gas prices, which drives up energy costs, but when INEOS reports that it is paying £127 million a year in carbon taxes, rising to £2 billion by 2030, is it not the case that we are seeing the cascade of jobs losses because Labour has…”

“I am relieved to hear that the strategic defence review is coming in the spring—with a great yellow ball in the sky, I assume that will be fairly soon. In all military operations time is the enemy, and I am concerned about reports that the SDR may only be a broadbrush document—an interim document, as it were—and that t…”

“With the Welsh bottle deposit scheme going down the same disastrous dead end as the Scottish bottle deposit scheme, and now more costs are being added to Welsh tourism, making staycations more expensive, the Government appear to be creating a hostile environment for business. Add in the review of the UK internal market…”