Speeches by Cooper.

“Thank you for joining us. There is a big concern about decarbonisation automatically meaning deindustrialisation. We have heard this week that domestic steel producers are complaining that they may lose as much as £150 million a year now as carbon credits are taken away from them domestically. This might be most releva…”

“I sit with the Chairman on the Business and Trade Committee. I think very few Departments touch so many lives in Britian. The Department for Business and Trade, one way or another, influences all of our lives because it is so directly linked to the economy. As Liam has said, with the growth strategy, there is probably …”

“So electric furnaces rather than blast furnaces for steel?”

“Should the Government introduce legislation to specifically require importers to assess the carbon embedded in their products throughout the supply chain before they place them on the UK market? Frank, do you have a view?”

“If I can sum up, you are suggesting that the Government should legislate and actually widen that legislation. Is that probably what you are saying?”

“Would you agree with that?”

“Rebecca, I do not know if you have a particular view on this. Is this an area that National Grid is particularly involved in?”

“The Centre for European Reform says that the EU reset and trade improvements could increase GDP by 0.7% over a decade. Those numbers are not enormous. You mentioned CPTPP earlier on, Dan. We have heard evidence that CPTPP might increase GDP in the UK by about a per cent, which again seems remarkably low. That is based …”

“Touching on that SPS area, we are told that a veterinary agreement with the EU could increase agrifood exports by up to 22.5%, but what level of regulatory alignment would that require? How realistic is it that we could achieve that? Crucially, how would it impact on UK trade negotiations with non-EU partners? You are …”

“Marley, do you think there are any quick fixes?”

“We know that the Government are resetting their relationship with Europe and there is a summit in May. If we are honest, there is a little bit of vagueness about what our ask is there. I am not entirely sure what the Prime Minister is going to go over there and ask for. Conversely, the EU seems very clear that it wants…”

“It is a truism from ancient Roman times that if we want peace, we must prepare for war, and I am glad the strategic defence review is preparing us for war—sadly—although in slow motion, unfortunately. Will the SDR consider the unlocked back door that is Ireland, which sits outwith NATO? It is clear that alarm bells are…”

“It is a great pity that no one from the Defence Front-Bench team is here with us because I am sure that if they were, they could confirm that the DShK machine gun that these men had is a weapon of incredible power. If we were to look around the average city block, there would be nothing that a DShK could not hit and pu…”

“I am just going to jump in on that point. Is there a tension here, in that this growth strategy—it is almost like “The Hunger Games”—is picking certain sectors and reinforcing success. We heard earlier that we are looking at previous growth figures and picking the winners based on that. Of course, there is an element o…”

“Apologies, I am afraid I have a horrible cold. The Government has committed to put the industrial strategy council on a statutory footing. You have said that you do not want to talk about the budget and about staffing levels, although you have said that the secretariat is going to be quite large. You also talked about …”

“What would you ask? The final decision will of course sit with Government, but what would your ask be?”

“You have something of a dichotomy: you need to be quite close to Government, in that you are going to have to co-ordinate all these people, but you are also talking about being outside, being separate and being agitators. Do you think you are going to have an office in Government? If so, would that sit in the Treasury?…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I represent Dumfries and Galloway, which is the land of milk and slurry. With due deference to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and his super-valuable land, we have some of the most productive grassland in the whole country. The point that the …”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but as he can hear from Opposition Members it has repeatedly been called a loophole. I have been told in the main Chamber that I am scaremongering, which is not right either. That is nonsense—the fear out there is real. Listen to the noise outside. The people outside are…”

“The Minister has talked long and loud about confidence in the industry, but disappearing investment does not engender any confidence. The 200,000 people employed in the oil and gas sector in this country will look askance at GB Energy, which looks less like the second prize and more like the booby prize. The point is t…”