Speeches by Cooper.

“Yes. They are planning to do it through legislation. We would rather not have to do this through primary legislation, because that is a very complex route—”

“It just takes a long time. Ireland has chosen to do this through primary legislation. What we are looking at is what the options would be in terms of using secondary legislation, including using effectively the statutory instruments on the existing sanctions regime processes. We are looking at all of those things at th…”

“Exactly, and that is why we want to be able to give a clear warning at that point about what our intention is—so that even if the regimes are not fully in place, we want to be able to say to businesses that they should not be contracting with the E1 settlements.”

“Yes, I do. I can tell you that Alistair Burt is appointed as the UK’s first ever envoy for complex consular cases. His focus will be on the most difficult and complex detention cases involving British people overseas, including those where there are human rights concerns. Many of you will know Alistair as somebody who …”

“There is a lot of distress about this case, and there is evidence in the case that there has been a lot of focus on. But there are other cases, including of doctors and healthcare workers, being detained, without transparency and with real concerns about human rights abuses and real concerns about the implications. We …”

“I can provide you with further details or get Hamish to provide you with further details. I know you have raised it with him.”

“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…”

“This first became a focus back in late January, early February this year. The view we strongly took, which was shared by all our European partners as well, was that Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, the sovereignty lies with Greenland and the people of Denmark and of Greenland, and it is for them to decide a…”

“We just had the NATO summit, last week, and as part of that I had very many discussions with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on a whole range of different issues, which were very positive discussions. The big focus has been on how we increase Europe’s role within NATO and I think that is exactly what we have delivered, …”

“None of those areas were raised with me as an issue by any of our allies. Again, I think that the detailed decisions in terms of priorities are a matter for the Defence Secretary. What I would say is that the UK has particular specialist capabilities, and therefore it is right that there will be particular roles that i…”

“No, that has not been the focus of discussions at the moment. There is more focus on the Ukraine and the EU in those terms.”

“Some of the alliances—the more agile ones—we have are our core alliances, particularly around NATO and our close partnerships. For example, we work particularly with France and Germany and the E3, but more widely there is our European co-operation as well. We are obviously a member of the P5 and Five Eyes—structures th…”

“I will pass over to Nick in a moment to follow up on some of the restructuring issues in the Foreign Office. In some ways, the focus on how conflict prevention fits into diplomacy and our approach is more important than ever because of the areas that we have chosen to focus on. Within our ODA allocations, the areas tha…”

“Stephen Doughty has just done a very intensive period of diplomatic engagement in the western Balkans. We have also had Karen Pierce as our envoy there. In terms of our expertise and capability, we maintain a very strong focus on the western Balkans. The other thing we are trying to do is make this more thematic across…”

“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…”

“Your figures are not right. This has been a long, ongoing discussion. Let us go back to what the issues are with the Chagos Islands. The important issue is that we can—”

“He will set out his position. It is not an issue that I have discussed with him. The fundamental issue here is how we make sure that the capabilities around Diego Garcia, and our basing and its security, are protected from threats, including security issues around China or more widely. The important thing is that the s…”

“I do not think that is an accurate description of the discussions that took place, so I think you have an inaccurate report.”

“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…”

“That is one of the Committee’s recommendations that probably has cross-Government implications.”