Speeches by Cooper.

“Do you think there is a groundswell towards that? You are talking about an enormous cultural change, but do you think the groundswell is in its favour?”

“Your “Growth Trilogy” report talks about risk aversion and a lack of appetite to take risks. Governments over the years have tried different things to change that culture, but it is difficult. Things like the Mansion House accords were quite successful, I think, in trying to change the culture a little. Some of us felt…”

“Do you think there is a groundswell towards that? You are talking about an enormous cultural change, but do you think the groundswell is in its favour?”

“I thank the Minister for giving way on that point: this is about balance. We need to find a balance in the transition of people coming out of oil and gas and moving into renewables. The difficulty is that we cannot say to these highly-skilled people that there is a great job for them in renewables but it is going to be…”

“I am from the south-west of Scotland, which is as far from the north-east as one can get in Scotland. None the less, this is a huge issue for the whole country. My hon. Friend is making a point about the North sea basin being mature. We always hear that—it is mature, it is declining—but the Norwegian investment is expl…”

“Will the Minister give way on that point?”

“rose—”

“Sarah, Skills England is obviously fairly new. You said that you have only been fully established since June. The big sea change, with the arrival of the growth and skills levy as opposed to the old apprenticeship levy, has broadly been welcomed. Would you agree with that? There is possibly a little warning sign ahead.…”

“You said there that you spoke to SMEs as you were ramping up.”

“Is that an ongoing process? Are you going to make that part of your ongoing process?”

“You spoke about how vigorous your board is. Is there room on that board for someone from the SME sector?”

“The Government have the small business plan, which was mentioned briefly there. If you look at the hospitality offer within that, it has some quite interesting things about hospitality zones, fast tracking licences and things like that. Listening to what you are saying here today, it strikes me as though the Government…”

“Lydia, do you agree with that? You are on the ground. Is this policy much help to you at all?”

“Stephen, finally, on the Scottish position, the Government here have a plan and, while it might be flawed, I am not convinced that the Scottish Government have any kind of plan other than to tax you into the ground. Would you agree with that?”

“It is quite remarkable that the Scottish Government got money through the Barnett formula to pass on rates relief and that money just disappeared into Edinburgh. We never saw it. That seems quite remarkable, does it not?”

“This goes back to my colleague’s point about minimum unit pricing. We are close to that border. There is no minimum unit pricing south of the border. There is north of the border. Are we getting to the point where it would pay you to do a bootleg run across the border, load up and come back over?”

“You are confident of that, but can you give us some clue as to how you have assessed that? How has your assessment worked?”

“Sir Chris, as of 31 July 2025, your latest statistics indicate that 55 export licences are open where “the Government of Israel is the end-user or a potential end-user.” Can you tell the Committee how you have assessed that these exports do not have combat utility in the conflict in Gaza?”

“It is not a bespoke system, then. If I am getting this right, you seem to be saying that the controlled list is global and there is not a bespoke list for Israel. Am I picking that up incorrectly?”

“Critical to this issue is the F-35 programme. Can you give an indication of how many of the 55 extant licences are for exports to the global F-35 Lightning II programme?”