Speeches by Cooper.

“The statement today was about a further review into foreign malign interference in elections. We have seen this already happening in countries across the world. I know that this is something that the Committee has been looking into. If we look at Moldova, for example, there were fake websites for political parties, wit…”

“I certainly can, yes.”

“I have been working extensively on this, and I hope to be able to update the Committee as soon as possible. We have been doing a huge amount of work over the last few months, and I hope to be able to provide a progress update to the Committee very soon.”

“The assets are frozen. You will have seen that there was a further vote in the EU Council last week to sustain the freezing of the Russian sovereign assets. What we want to be able to do, though, is mobilise those assets to help support Ukraine and to be able to provide the investment for Ukraine. The UK supports the r…”

“As I think we have made clear, we are only prepared to be part of arrangements that work as value for money. I think that has to be a guiding principle for us, but we have a lot of different defence partnerships, whether it be around frigates, around GCAP or around different forms of not just defence co-operation but d…”

“The timescale and the cost made this not value for money. We were always very clear that we needed value for money, but as you know, we continue with strong defence partnerships anyway. There is a whole series of different ways, including third-country terms, in which we can be part of all those programmes, and we cont…”

“We can discuss areas where we agree and areas where we disagree, and that has always been the case. I have been very clear publicly that I see Europe’s response as having shown considerable strength in the way in which so many countries—not just in Europe but across the world—have been prepared to join the coalition of…”

“We all have to be able to have that confidence. Ukraine has to have the confidence that any agreement does not simply mean that Putin goes further again 12 months later or six months later. Those are also about guarantees for other countries concerned about security and stability across Europe. The only other thing I w…”

“I am just going to recognise that some of these discussions are still ongoing. We believe that significant progress has been made on security guarantees, but because those discussions are not yet concluded, I do not want to pre-empt the conclusion of those discussions. The whole point about having the security guarante…”

“I think Sadiq Khan is doing a brilliant job as London Mayor. We see that he is delivering for Londoners, and we see strong support in many surveys, with London rated as the best capital city to live in anywhere in the world. We see the rich economy and the strength of our communities across London. I strongly support t…”

“That is one of the issues I discussed while I was in Washington, and the US Administration and the Secretary of State were very clear with me on the continued strong support the US shows for NATO. That is what we have seen as part of the NATO discussions. We also discussed issues around security guarantees as part of t…”

“We are working with the US on a series of different issues, and I have had repeated discussions with the US Secretary of State. The Prime Minister has obviously had close discussions with President Trump. We had the state visit, and so on. There is a whole series of areas where we have a strong shared interest, for exa…”

“We expect all democracies and all nations to be respected. We can, of course, have robust differences of view about particular political issues, and we continue to do so. I regard my party as a patriotic party. We will continue to be very clear about the strength of our country. I am very proud of Britain and the diver…”

“Look, we work with different long-standing allies. The US is a huge and long-standing ally. We have very deep co-operation on intelligence and security. They continue to be our closest ally in a whole series of national security areas—that continues. Of course we have differences of view in all sorts of areas. We respe…”

“Obviously, that is the US national security strategy. We published the UK national security strategy in the summer, so we take responsibility for our approach; the US will set out their national security strategy. There are areas in their strategy—actually, it goes more widely; this is not just about their strategy, bu…”

“We want to keep increasing our engagement with Syria. We are continuing to offer them support on the political transition. Rightly, you said that this needs to be inclusive. They need to ensure that, as their democracy and governance develop, the Government can be fully inclusive, protect human rights and deal with sec…”

“One of the things we are seeking to do, including by working with countries like Norway, which also has experience in these areas, is to build up civilian capacity in Sudan. There is an immediate issue with getting the warring sides to pull back from the brink and to agree to a humanitarian truce. If it is to be sustai…”

“If you go back 10 years or so, the security focus of the Foreign Office and the Home Office would have been on counter-terrorism, the nature of the organised groups operating in ungoverned spaces and what the strategy should be on that. In more recent years, we have seen growing state threats, whether that be around Ru…”

“Of all the different things I am dealing with at the moment, this is the thing that worries me most. We have seen horrendous atrocities take place, and there is a real risk of further atrocities. That is why we are seeking to maintain the pressure, and we announced new sanctions on RSF members around the atrocities tha…”

“I take any allegations like this incredibly seriously. I think allegations were made about three items found in Sudan being sourced from the UK. Since those allegations, I have insisted on a review of 2,000 export licences. In the case of those three items, they were not covered by any current licences over the last fi…”