Speeches by Cooper.

“We do not normally do formal responses, as in documents or policy documents that set out a response to an advisory opinion report. Successive Ministers have said to you, “Look, we are still considering this. We will respond.” I think that because we have said that, we need to be clearer with you about the nature of our…”

“Only a small number of other countries have done this, and they have faced significant limitations. What we are trying to do at the moment is learn from those limitations and see how much further we can go. In terms of the options we are looking at, we are looking at going further than other countries. We have also con…”

“Some of the issues are shared right across the area, including the British overseas territories and countries with which we have strong historic relationships, including members of the Commonwealth and so on. Of course, there is an interrelation, which can be around refugees, the wider economic and trade relations and,…”

“Okay. Look, the new Prime Minister is obviously going to have to consider how he wants to address this issue. I have not discussed it with Andy Burnham yet, although I have discussed some of the policy areas that it touches on. Let me say a bit more about the advisory opinion and our approach. It is an advisory opinion…”

“Yes, and I think a lot of what he was referring to were the issues we had as a party in opposition. It was about our early response to this, in which we should have been faster to call for a ceasefire and clearer from the start about the importance of international humanitarian law. That is a reflection for us a party,…”

“I recognise that; I am just explaining that in the autumn we were seeking to try to leverage a diplomatic process that, at least in Gaza, did seem to be delivering some pressure and some progress. We also raised a series of concerns through the Christmas recess and into the new year about what was happening in terms of…”

“We continue to oppose tolls and charges. In fact, that was the discussion that I had with American colleagues last week while we were at NATO. We were talking about how we could not end up with tolls and a system on the strait of Hormuz that would undermine the freedom of navigation and the law of the sea. At the momen…”

“That is true.”

“We keep the emergency humanitarian aid under continuous review, and that is important. Wherever there are particular crises, we are ready to respond. At different stages through this, we have had particular discussions with our consular team, who are there, to make sure they have support, and we discuss that with other…”

“I think this links in to the issues around settlement trade. Do you want to cover those at this point?”

“I think it is wrong to say there would be a policy document in response, because no nation has done that and we would not normally do that. But in terms of our articulating something to you—whether that be orally, in a written ministerial statement or in writing—I think you have been promised that through an extensive …”

“I am also conscious that because a new Prime Minister is about to take office, there will be some things that he will also want to reflect on in terms of the way in which we respond to you.”

“I also think we need to have stronger action going forward. We should be clear about the things we have done. We recognised the state of Palestine, which was a historic decision, and suspended the previous Government’s negotiations on a trade deal. We have suspended all arms exports to the IDF that could be used in Gaz…”

“There were two things under consideration in December. First, at that point, we were still seeking to support what we hoped, in the autumn, was a process that would make progress towards a two-state solution. We had the 20-point Gaza peace plan, and those 20 points explicitly linked into the Palestinian Authority ultim…”

“Thank you very much, Chair, and to the Committee for having me. Let me give a sense of the overview and where all these things fit in. What I was trying to set out in the essay was very much the backdrop. The priorities we set out were the things the FCDO is focusing on. Part of what I was trying to do with the Chatham…”

“Our position remains that we want to see the strait of Hormuz fully reopened. This is about an international shipping lane and the law of the sea. Therefore, no country can do what Iran has been seeking to do. They have been deliberately trying to weaponise the strait to hijack the global economy, effectively. There ar…”

“It is true that we are not heavily involved in that area of the world, or in exactly what is happening in Cuba, but we supported the proposal to hold an emergency UN debate on Cuba, because we think it is important. We have raised concerns, and we obviously have support through our embassy there. It is true to say that…”

“I don’t know the ratification process, so I would need to get back to you on that.”

“No, I agree.”

“On the trade issue, there is how we use sanctions in a targeted way for those who do contracts, and alongside that, there is what more we can do on settlement trade. Compared with Crimea, there is additional complexity for the settlements. With Crimea, we had a sanctions regime for Russia and Belarus, and if they had k…”