Iran
Debate between Laurence Turner and Yvette Cooper(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Yvette Cooper
I assure the hon. Gentleman that the police and security services have our full backing in all the work that they do to keep us safe from state-backed threats, including Iranian-backed threats, on our soil. We always need to look at how we can keep up with rapidly changing hybrid threats, in order to ensure we can keep our country safe.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement. I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) about the regime’s severance of communications adding to the distress of many of our constituents, who are trying to establish the safety and personal liberty of loved ones. I appreciate that there may be things that cannot be said in this place lest they inadvertently inform the regime, but will my right hon. Friend give the House the assurance that all practical measures are being explored to increase the quantity and the quality of information going into and out of Iran?
Yvette Cooper
We want the people of Iran to be able to communicate with each other. This is about the people of Iran, their courage and their most basic rights to be able to communicate with each other—that is what we want to support.
Ukraine
Debate between Laurence Turner and Yvette Cooper(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Yvette Cooper
We are already increasing UK military support, and we want to see that happen across the board. The way to put the greatest pressure on Russia will always be through a mix of different measures, including direct defence support, support for the resilience of the Ukraine people through their basic energy infrastructure and ensuring that they and their communities can keep going, and by establishing strong economic pressure on Russia, so that it is put in a position where it has to change course. All those things need to happen at once to have a significant impact on the way that Putin is behaving.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement and for her recent decision, when she was Home Secretary, about the Ukraine permission extension scheme. Does she agree that when Putin probes weakness we must respond by demonstrating strength? Does she further agree that the post-war development of Ukraine’s significant energy resources, which may require British technical expertise, would serve the dual purpose of helping to reconstruct Ukraine’s shattered economy and increase Europe’s security of energy supply?
Yvette Cooper
I agree with my hon. Friend that Ukraine’s security is Europe’s security in many different ways, including in defence and in energy. That is why it is so important that we should continue to support Ukraine and Ukrainians in the UK, who came to find safety at the beginning of the war.