Speeches by Cooper.

“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…”

“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 Like so many other things, property taxes in this country are broken and hopelessly out of date.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 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 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…”

“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?”

“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 …”

“A few moments ago, the Minister said that the Government had concluded that it would not be appropriate to apply a flat rate to all 3.8 million women. Have the Government done any modelling on paying a flat rate to any other smaller cohorts within that 3.8 million women—for example, women on pension credit, or under a …”

“rose—”

“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. He will be aware that in other compensation schemes, there are often waves of compensation. The first wave of compensation can be on one indicator, with a second wave looking at other complicating factors. Have the Government looked at that model?”

“I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) on securing the debate, on campaigning on this issue, and on making sure that this debate came to the main Chamber. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions this afternoon. As well as hearing the very strong and powerful case around this par…”

“Non-profit businesses and charities have been hit really hard by the jobs tax. Last week, my local meals on wheels service told me that businesses like theirs around the country are having to make redundancies and put up prices for vulnerable people. In the context of today’s welfare reforms that the Government are pur…”

“More than 50% of local authorities are having to overspend on the dedicated schools grant to cover the rising costs of SEND services, and the increasing demand for inter-authority borrowing has pushed up interest rates. May I urge the Chancellor to consider, as a matter of urgency—even before the Government publish the…”

“Derek French is a constituent in my neighbouring constituency of Harpenden and Berkhamsted —I just want to put that on the record. Harpenden very proudly defends its independence from St Albans and I do not want anybody to be inadvertently offended by my trying to secure some recognition from the Minister in the House,…”