John Cooper

John Cooper

Conservative — Dumfries and Galloway

Speaking in the House of Commons on 21 May 2025

Debate

Business and the Economy

Contribution

The hon. Gentleman is right. These are not free trade agreements in the normal sense of the words: they are frittering around the edges, as he said himself. The difficulty for beef farmers in Dumfries and Galloway is that prices are rising, which is partly down to a drop in stock because of costs and things like that, so they are unable to fulfil this idea of sending beef to America. That is unlikely—it is more likely that we will see cheap American beef coming here. Again, we go back through the looking glass. Up is down when the Employment Rights Bill makes strikes more likely, yet is touted as a boost to productivity. It is incredible. The minimum wage is up, which is no bad thing, but let us not pretend that that is Government money: hard-pressed businesses have to find that extra cash, again. In short, Labour is not working and, terrifyingly, neither are increasing numbers of our constituents.

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