Speeches by Cooper.

“So we may see the results on HMRC’s scorecard, rather than on OTSI’s.”

“Minister, you talked about the suite of options that you have. It is very interesting that, in May last year, the Government said they would explore the possibility of cross-departmental joint sanctions intelligence function—which sounds like the old phrase “joined-up thinking”—to underpin all this sanctions enforcemen…”

“The Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation, or OTSI, looked the business at the start. It was supposed to crack down on companies dodging Russian sanctions and ensure that companies that were found to be dodging strict trade sanctions would face tougher penalties. Where are we, 18 months in? Looking at it from the ou…”

“No, thanks, Chair.”

“Thank you, Chair. You were talking there about the shutting down of imports. I am concerned about fish, because I was astonished to find that we actually are importing Russian fish, although perhaps not knowingly because it seems to go via China. Russia ramped up its exports into China; one figure I have seen says that…”

“On that point about how they could go elsewhere, given the money that some of those people are being paid, they could obviously make a lot more money elsewhere. Is there not a danger that you are seeing a brain drain, and are being left with a lot of relatively junior people? I do not say that in an offensive way, but …”

“One of my concerns about not just the CMA, but other regulators, is that they are paper tigers. On paper, they have tremendous powers, but if they do not use them, those simply sit there and do not actually affect behaviour in the marketplace, whatever that may be. Those undertakings, therefore, are not enforceable in …”

“You touched on the difficulties that it creates for business when CMA takes a very long time to come to decisions. Can you tell me a bit more about what you plan to do to speed that up? I wonder if you could also specifically reference the likes of the monoliths—the Amazons and the Googles of this world—because there s…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. Scotland has been talked about quite a lot here today. Policing in Scotland is separate, but the proposed changes would affect Scotland, and it is worth having a look at some of the figures associated with Scotland. Figures from the British Association for Sh…”

“As a former journalist, I know that the fourth estate do not always get things right, but they are not in the habit of making things up. What, then, are we to make of reports from Dan Hodges in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday that the Prime Minister is making a last-ditch attempt to limit the amount of documentat…”

“rose—”

“The position the hon. Member is putting forward is that we would somehow stop the assisted dying Bill progressing in Holyrood. That is simply not the case. I believe there is a date set for this to be further discussed in Holyrood. We are putting the cart before the horse here, because we are being asked to make provis…”

“In one of our roundtables, we spoke to an old-school investor who started out with £10 and built up a tremendous business. He told me he would not put a penny into AI. He said it is all a bubble that is not going to deliver. We will not solve that question here, but the Bank of England is worried about a bubble and sug…”

“What is that demand? When we were in Newcastle, we heard of a well-known company that went to Newcastle University and said, “Give us AI.” They had no clue what it was; they just felt it was something they had to have. Is the demand focused properly?”

“It would remiss of me not to touch on the fact that the roots of this trade deal stretch back to the previous Conservative Government, and not to mention that the then Secretary of State Alister Jack—now Lord Jack of Courance—sent an aircraft carrier stuffed with dancers and pipers from the Edinburgh military tattoo to…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her interesting intervention. Her chip challenge sounds like a lot of fun, and I defer to Madam Deputy Speaker about the question of proper parliamentary language—I am sure what she said is perfectly acceptable. Fish and chip shops accounted for 60% of the fall in sales, with 36 million fewer …”

“The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I will touch on the question of skills in a few moments. A key reason for prices leaping like a salmon is an increase in the price of fish itself. Incredibly for an island nation, we are a net importer of fish. Previously, a high proportion of fish used in the UK was imported …”

“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention—a fascinating history lesson. Staying with history, during the war fish and chips were deemed so vital to the nation’s morale that Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted they be exempt from rationing. If the ingredients were available, fish suppers were on the menu and ch…”

“So we have a load of pollocks, yes?”

“The hon. Member makes a very good point. Many industries are not actually treated as an industry. For example, agriculture is treated as a series of small individual businesses, and its totality is not taken into account. That is a very fair point. The truth is that Labour’s Employment Rights Act 2025 is about the clip…”