Speeches by Cooper.

“That work is under way, and has a joint commitment from our Prime Minister and the Canadian Prime Minister, who have been responsible in parallel for beginning those initiatives. The multilateral defence mechanism focuses mostly on the joint procurement side, while the defence, security and resilience bank focuses part…”

“Defence and foreign policy are rightly reserved matters, because they relate to the security of the whole United Kingdom. Scotland plays a crucial role as part of that—not just as part of our armed forces, but by having crucial parts of our defence industry. We must continue to support that.”

“I welcome the hon. Member’s question. I can assure him that the commitment to increasing investment in defence—both in each country’s sovereign defence and in our shared defence—was evident right around the NATO council table from every country, and I am sure that that will continue. NATO’s strength has been the commit…”

“I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for being liberal in his criticism of all Governments—I accept that point. The US assessment of what is happening recognises Ukraine’s strength and resilience and the fact that, despite all the initial expectations that Putin would win the war easily, the opposite has been the cas…”

“I agree with the right hon. Member about the importance of preventing another El Fasher. That is exactly why I raised the issue directly with a series of European allies and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and why the Prime Minister raised it with President Trump and President Macron—we have raised the issue across …”

“I did take the opportunity to discuss the situation in both the west bank and Gaza with some of our allies and partners. I am deeply worried that last year’s 20-point plan for Gaza—which was hugely important and which we supported, as did the whole world—is at risk of running into the ground. The humanitarian crisis th…”

“I agree that we need to go further. The defence investment plan has set out a plan that takes us from 2.3% up to 2.7%. We have made commitments to go to 3% and then to 3.5% on core defence spending, so we of course need to go further. We need to ensure that as we increase investment, we also increase our capabilities a…”

“Last week, we did take further action and set out a new wave of sanctions. On Friday, I went to Paris for a meeting with other Foreign Ministers, and also met civil society organisations and community organisations from across Israel and Palestine. Last week, we launched the international peace fund with Australia and …”

“My hon. Friend is right to raise the plight of children in the west bank. I would add to that the terrible plight of children in Gaza, where there is still not sufficient humanitarian support—that has gone backwards too. He is also right to say that some of this is about the impact of violence. Some of the targeted and…”

“Let me respond to my hon. Friend’s important point. We are clear that action is needed, and we are acting. This Government have done more on this issue in the last two years than any Government have done for many decades, because we are so concerned about settlement expansion and settler violence. We have not only had …”

“We continually raise these issues with the Israeli Government, because we cannot have what we have seen: property damage, intimidation, farmers’ olive trees burnt down, families’ water disconnected and mobs rampaging. That is why we have introduced the scale of the breadth of sanctions, including on organisations such …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The expansion of Israeli settlements and some of the violence circulating in them is a deliberate attempt by hardliners to undermine any possibility of a two-state solution and to pursue in many areas what is effectively illegal annexation—that is their intention. We agree on th…”

“The settlements in the west bank are a fundamental barrier to peace, and a flagrant breach of international law. We condemn the rising and incredibly disturbing settler violence that we have seen over the past year. Last week I announced a new wave of sanctions to target the networks that are supporting this violence, …”

“We have been very clear not only that no businesses should be engaging in trade or marketing around the illegal settlements, but that they certainly should not be doing so on UK soil. We take this issue so seriously, which is why the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa and the Department for Culture, Media an…”

“Once again, I point out the strength of the action we have taken; we have brought together countries from across the world—and gone further than most countries. What is being driven here is deeply disturbing: both the level of violence, and the deliberate attempt—with the E1 settlements in particular—to undermine any p…”

“I welcome the points made by the hon. Member. We continue to look at what further sanctions could be needed in order to address illegal settlements, the activity linked to them, and settler violence. We are also looking at whether and where we may need to strengthen our overall sanctions regime, as well as at individua…”

“I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that the action we have already taken has a stronger impact than many of the other measures he is talking about. That includes imposing sanctions on individual members of the Israeli Cabinet, which very many other Governments have not done. We encourage other Governments to do wh…”

“The closure of the strait of Hormuz has hit the global economy and prices at the pump here at home. No country should be able to hijack the global economy in this way. That is why we welcome the announcement of the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran, and why the UK has been leading diplomatic work acro…”

“The shadow Foreign Secretary has made an immensely important point. I spoke to Secretary of State Rubio on Friday about the final stages of the discussions that were taking place before the memorandum of understanding was agreed. It is just the start of many further phases of work, negotiations and discussions, includi…”

“I have made violence against women and girls a priority for the Foreign Office. Last month, I had the privilege of launching the international coalition to end violence against women and girls, working with Spain, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Jamaica, Morocco, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. We know that countries can …”