John Cooper
MP for Dumfries and Galloway · Conservative · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) on securing this key debate. The vital question on “Desert Island Discs” is not what luxury a person desires or which tune they would save from the waves; it is how they would cope on their own.”
“A person who has £10 in their pocket in a city can do something with it; they can go somewhere or see a friend. But £10 up an isolated farm track is of little use at all. The reasons for isolation are myriad. People living longer is of course a good thing, but the harsh reality is that one half of a couple is likely to outlive the other.”
“Coastal areas are beautiful, none more so than Dumfries and Galloway, with its rocky cliffs, secluded bays, unspoilt empty beaches and rolling gentle hills, but we cannot eat the scenery or have a chat with the big sky overhead. Loneliness needs to be seen for what it is: a public health issue.”
“As a member of the Business and Trade Committee, it is a delight to see the fruits of Brexit being brought home. Will the Minister confirm that the deal is not contingent on us taking Swiss courts as being superior to our own?”
“Metal prices being what they are, if we were to take the amount of brass neck on show here today and melt it down, we could fund defence properly. The right hon.”
“Scotland stands ready to play its full role in the defence of Britain with many fine young men and, increasingly, women in our forces. We also have a huge array of industrial companies working on defence contracts. There is a problem, however, which is the Scottish Executive.”
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“Youth unemployment is, in fact, spiking at nearly 5.3%, which is heartbreaking, particularly for young people who cannot get that all-important first job. The Government like to pretend that they are a cork in a storm-tossed sea and unable to do anything about this, but they could reconsider employer national insurance contributions and the disastrous Employment Rights Act 2025, which is driving up youth unemployment.”
“In 1979 my father took me to Newton Stewart cinema to see “Monty Python’s Life of Brian”, and I recall my father being more upset by a spoof travel documentary that preceded the main film, because there was swearing in it, than he was about the supposed slights to Christianity. It was an early lesson to me that no one in this country, in a modern democracy, has the right not to be insulted or offended, so why are we in this place, the cockpit of democracy, discussing a blasphemy law by the back door?”
“Perhaps nothing sums up more the meltdown of the sector under DBT’s yoke than the reported news that the Dalzell plate mill in Scotland lacked the cash to buy slab steel from British Steel, risking the raw material that Navantia needs for the fleet solid support ships at their Harland & Wolff yard in Belfast. Not so much for the want of a horseshoe nail the kingdom was lost, but for the lack of a cohesive DBT strategy, the steel industry and billons in cash may be lost. For the wider economy, pivotal to each and every one of our constituents, the Department for Business and Trade looks like the linchpin which holds the wheels to the axle. The question is whether that pin is too small and too brittle.”
“It should not have taken the renegotiation of the entire deal to get—French, especially—customs to stop being le squad awkward. Worse, so-called dynamic alignment on SPS is a cage without a key, meaning that Britain will once again revert to being rule takers and not rule makers. Turning to steel, I recall being in this place on that extraordinary Saturday listening to the self-congratulatory backslapping of Labour MPs hailing the saving of the industry in what was nationalisation in all but name. It seems to me that taxpayers are keeping blast furnaces alight with bundles of £20 notes, for the supplementary estimates earmarked £300 million for steel plants with no sign of the comprehensive steel strategy.”
“What does it say about this Government’s ambition? They would rather rush back to the skirts of nanny Europe—familiar old Europe with its feeble growth—when we could be the trading nation that Adam Smith envisaged 250 years ago with his book, “The Wealth of Nations”. We could and should be maximising the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, or CPTPP, giving us access to a market of 12 countries worth some £12 trillion and with 500 million potential customers. Even the EU, which never saw a trade deal it liked, is interested in joining. The great prize in the much-vaunted but barely discernible “reset” with the EU is, we are told, a sanitary and phytosanitary deal supposed to smooth the way for agricultural goods, seafood and livestock into and out of Europe.”
“That is despite the 17.8% increase in day-to-day funding, plus extra capital compared with the main estimates that we have heard about today. The Minister for Trade, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), has said that “we’re going to have to achieve more with fewer people” —fine words and congratulations to the spads who crafted them, but the reality on the ground is we will inevitably get less done by fewer people. What a disaster, just as free trade agreements—the fruits of Brexit from seeds planted by previous Conservative Governments—come piling in. We should be maximising these deals given that global economic power is shifting towards a Pacific rim with a burgeoning middle class. Our far too few DBT experts will have their ranks thinned, making it tougher for British firms to tap into lucrative markets abroad.”
“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), who chairs the Business and Trade Committee on which I serve. As Chair of such a Committee, he is that rarest of things: capable of independent thought. We know that growth is predicted to be sclerotic, and that is before global conflicts whip up the waters around us such that Labour’s Britain is but a cork in storm-tossed seas. If growth truly were the mission, then the shock troops ought to be the Department for Business and Trade. Yet the Department’s plans to cut 1,500 jobs have been branded “irrational and arbitrary” by the civil service’s biggest union, the Public and Commercial Services Union.”
“Small charities do mighty work, especially in rural areas such as Dumfries and Galloway. May I make a plea for them to have a seat as the Government draw up the policy table? Sir Harry Lauder sang “Stop Yer Tickling, Jock.” Perhaps we should update that to “Start Yer Listening, Minister.””
“Prostate Buddies is reaching out to men, urging them to get checked for what is too often a silent killer, and offering advice and support so that more men can get treatment sooner. There are dozens of similar such initiatives, often volunteer-led, that could benefit from greater support from Government. Take The Usual Place café, which is right next to my constituency office—I am a frequent flyer there. That charity takes young people with a range of mental and physical issues and teaches them catering skills, which massively boosts their chances of finding paid employment. Even with a thriving café and external catering business, The Usual Place has struggled financially, not least since the Government increased employer national insurance contributions.”
“My constituency is rural and gorgeous, but people cannot eat the scenery. Rural isolation, loneliness and poverty are sadly all too real amidst the splendour of the Galloway hills. Loneliness and social isolation are profound challenges across Dumfries and Galloway. Our scattered communities, limited public transport and persistent digital exclusion—we have many notspots—leave many individuals cut off from social contact. However, the people of Dumfries and Galloway are resilient self-starters and we have a plethora of charities fighting to make lives better. Take our telephone and in-person befriending service, A Listening Ear, which is having a real impact, delivering community-led preventive solutions to mental ill health. Its modest budget provides a big bang for a small buck.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. We Scots are often portrayed as parsimonious—or, to put it another way, as tight as two coats of paint. It is a myth largely down to comedian and singer Sir Harry Lauder, who, to raise money for wounded great war veterans after the death of his son in 1917, portrayed on stage a canny Scot who regarded every penny as a prisoner. Lauder raised £1 million for charity—an astronomical sum. How ironic that such generosity birthed the legend of the tightwad Scot. Today, in straitened times, our generosity continues, with an estimated £1.2 billion donated in 2023 and 76% of Scots reporting some sort of charity donation. Another myth that persists is that deprivation and poverty are issues only in urban areas—not so.”
“This is unquestionably a really important issue, and the petition is indicative of the public’s unhappiness with this Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that the great difficulties people have with this Government include the number of manifesto pledges that have been broken, the introduction of policies that were not in their manifesto, and their constant U-turning, which would spin heads?”
“I am very much looking forward to the ending of this chaos; it seems that we are completely mired in it. As a former member of the fourth estate—I was a journalist for a long time—I am always concerned when politicians blame the media. I do not think the media are creating the chaos; they are simply reporting on it.”
“There is no point in us passing laws here and saying, “Never mind the quality, feel the width.” The danger is that we pass the law that, unfortunately, we pass most often in this House: the law of unintended consequences. There are better ways to address the nut that we are trying to crack.”
“I know how tight they are: when I was renewing a shotgun licence and the police came to interview me, they asked me where I kept the shotgun and I jokingly said, “Under my wife’s side of the bed, because no one ever goes there.” The officer said, “Shall I note that down?” and I said, “No, let’s not go there.” This is a really serious matter. The tone of the debate is tremendous, but let us not pretend for one second that this is a tidying-up exercise. The proposed change is really quite profound, and the move to merge sections 1 and 2 would have a deleterious effect on shooting, and thereby on the rural economy. The key message I am picking up—I hope the Minister might touch on this—is that better enforcement trumps more law for the sake of more law.”
“They tend to avoid any involvement with the police; in fact, very often the only contact they will have with the police is when the police come to check up on their firearm certificate. As such, we are possibly looking at—to coin a phrase—the wrong target, and I wonder what problem we are trying to solve. Obviously, there are horrendous incidents, which are very difficult to prevent, and we must think about the people who are victims of those things, but we have some of the tightest regulations in the world already.”
“Depopulation is what kills areas like mine. When remote and rural Scotland suffers depopulation, it tends to be disastrous. Those jobs help insulate us from and protect us against that. With deference to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson), I do shoot but I have not been shot. I would like to keep it that way, if at all possible. As a schoolboy, I saved the life of someone who managed to shoot themselves—to be clear, the round that he shot himself with was stolen. The issue is that it is very difficult to legislate to prevent criminals from doing things. Obviously, they tend to ride roughshod over the law. We have heard from hon. Members that shotgun and firearms owners tend be among the most punctilious, careful and law-abiding people.”
“It is a big number, but I like to bring it down to a smaller scale. I think of businesses such as D&W Countryways in Newton Stewart—a small shop that sells various items of clothing that people need when they are out and about, because we do occasionally get rain in Dumfries and Galloway. It also sells shotgun shells and associated items. That business would potentially disappear under this new burden, because the number of shotgun owners would reduce dramatically. That would leave a gap on the high street, and we have no end of difficulties with our high streets at the moment. We also have places such as the Penninghame estate, which, unusually, is a converted prison. It is trying to bring in high-end shooting parties. That is a great generator of the thing we lack most of all in Dumfries and Galloway: jobs.”
“Obviously, there will be some people who use guns as tools of the trade, but it is mostly very much locals—locals who enjoy rough shooting, keep dogs and will go out of an afternoon in the beautiful Galloway hills and may fire off only one or two cartridges at pheasants, which are of course a non-native species. Shooting is also a great driver of tourism in my area. The area struggles, because it tends to be “go-through”—we have the port of Cairnryan, which is very close to the Northern Ireland constituency of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—but we are trying to make it “go-to”, and shooting is one of the things that can help us with that. BASC puts the total economic activity in Scotland from shooting at around £760 million. That is not an inconsiderable sum considering the economy of remote and rural Scotland.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. Scotland has been talked about quite a lot here today. Policing in Scotland is separate, but the proposed changes would affect Scotland, and it is worth having a look at some of the figures associated with Scotland. Figures from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation show that there are something like 68,000 active participants in shooting in Scotland, and many of them are in my Dumfries and Galloway constituency—it is not quite a gun by every fireside, but it is not far away. Much of the shooting in my area is not about toffs; it is not about people helicoptering in to shoot grouse.”
“As a former journalist, I know that the fourth estate do not always get things right, but they are not in the habit of making things up. What, then, are we to make of reports from Dan Hodges in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday that the Prime Minister is making a last-ditch attempt to limit the amount of documentation that is released under our Humble Address? There is no smoke without fire, Mr Speaker.”
“The position the hon. Member is putting forward is that we would somehow stop the assisted dying Bill progressing in Holyrood. That is simply not the case. I believe there is a date set for this to be further discussed in Holyrood. We are putting the cart before the horse here, because we are being asked to make provision for a Bill that may or may not see the light of day. It is a very peculiar situation. There is also the danger of the precedent that is being set; this is a Member’s Bill, and this system has never been used for one before, so a dangerous precedent could be set.”
“Where does that leave us? Does it not hamstring us at a time when, as I say, we have this fantastic opportunity to strike our own deals and hopefully drive growth?”
“It is hard to believe that in five or 10 years’ time, the Indian dairy industry will not have moved on. The licences that the Minister talked about will be in place, and there will be a flow this way from dairying, which is a concern for that sensitive sector. The other thing that worries me on the Business and Trade Committee is the much-vaunted EU reset that the Government are seeking. Part of that is a sanitary and phytosanitary deal, which will affect agriculture in the round. Can the Minister tell us what impact that might have on future trade deals? At the moment, these trade deals are struck with the UK based on UK rules and regulations. If we accept dynamic alignment with Europe, we are no longer rule makers in this area; we are rule takers. Will those countries with whom we are striking deals have to look to the EU?”
“Adam Smith literally wrote the book on free trade; this country is a trading nation—that is what built this country—and we should get back to that confidence. On agriculture, the Business and Trade Committee took written and oral evidence from Tom Bradshaw, the president of the National Farmers Union. He was concerned that while lamb exports could do well through this deal, dairying is once again left wide open to difficulties. That is an issue in my constituency of Dumfries and Galloway; we have some of the most productive grassland in the UK. We make fabulous Galloway cheddar, and I would love to see more of that exported to India. Not much paneer probably comes to this country from India at the moment, but that will change. India is moving at incredible pace.”
“It is good that the in-country team in India is staying put, but if the teams in the UK that help businesses here to export are cut, then we will have a problem, and we will kill growth. We expect modest gains from the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, yet it offers a tremendous—an absolutely huge—market at a time when the EU’s share of GDP is drifting away. The hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) is keen on returning us to a customs union, but that customs union would commit us to applying EU-set tariffs, taking away the freedom we got from Brexit to strike out and do our own deals. The EU is potentially looking at the CPTPP, but we are already in the partnership. We have first-mover advantage. We should strike out with the confidence that Brexit gives us as a trading nation.”
“We have heard time and again that the expected lift in GDP from this deal is around £4.8 billion, or 0.13% of the UK’s GDP, but those figures seem incredibly low. That may be because of a lack of ambition—I hope not—or because of caution on the part of the Government, which is perfectly understandable, but it is incredible that we are expecting so little from these trade deals. We could raise those figures—they must be a floor, not a ceiling—and do much better. A difficulty that hon. Members have touched on is that the Department for Business and Trade is cutting its head count. Of course the bloated state has to be reduced, but we have to apply those cuts judiciously.”
“It would remiss of me not to touch on the fact that the roots of this trade deal stretch back to the previous Conservative Government, and not to mention that the then Secretary of State Alister Jack—now Lord Jack of Courance—sent an aircraft carrier stuffed with dancers and pipers from the Edinburgh military tattoo to India, to highlight the unfairness of the regime that whisky faced out there, which this deal does much to address. I have the pleasure of serving on the Business and Trade Committee, chaired adroitly by the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne). When we talk about these trade deals in the Committee, the Government figures worry me, and he touched on them himself.”
“The Minister talks about people being better off, but my farmers are very concerned about the fertiliser impact. Four or five years ago, fertiliser was around £180 a tonne; today it is about £400 a tonne, and the introduction of CBAM might put another £100 on top of that. Farmers’ margins are so narrow that they simply have to pass that on, which will have a direct effect on food prices in this country. The Minister says that there will be talks about that. Farmers should be front and centre of those talks, because this is really worrying.”
“It is good to see so many right hon. and hon. Members in their plaice as we skate through the choppy waters that are the fish and chip sector. The chips are down for fish suppers. While the word “iconic” is overused, surely fish and chips warrant that label. At Heathrow airport, visitors are greeted with signs extolling the virtues of what is, or was, our national dish. Welcome to Britain: land of drizzle, warm beer, warm welcomes and fabulous fish suppers.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention—a fascinating history lesson. Staying with history, during the war fish and chips were deemed so vital to the nation’s morale that Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted they be exempt from rationing. If the ingredients were available, fish suppers were on the menu and chip shops got extra cooking fat to keep the home friers burning.”
“That £10 barrier is hugely significant, for customers generally have a ceiling on what they regard as reasonable—perhaps £6 for a coffee or £7 for a pint of beer. Above that, sales dip, and no wonder at £40 or more for a fish dinner for a family of four, and so, sadly, it has proved: the ONS says that sales of fish and chips fell by 21% in 2024 compared with the previous year.”
“I thank my near neighbour for his intervention. He presages some of what I am going to touch on now. Today all is not well. Romano Petrucci, proprietor of the Central Café in my home town of Stranraer, is just one of many business people warning that this staple is fast becoming an unaffordable luxury. Data from the Office for National Statistics indicates that the average price of a portion of takeaway fish and chips was £10.96 in December, up from £9.99 the year before—an increase of 10%. That was higher than average price increases for other takeaway meals or carry-outs, as we call them in Scotland. Over the same period, the average price of a Chinese takeaway main course increased by 4% and an Indian takeaway main course by 3%, while a takeaway pizza increased by just 2%.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her interesting intervention. Her chip challenge sounds like a lot of fun, and I defer to Madam Deputy Speaker about the question of proper parliamentary language—I am sure what she said is perfectly acceptable. Fish and chip shops accounted for 60% of the fall in sales, with 36 million fewer portions of fish and chips sold in fish and chip shops in 2024 compared with 2023. Something has gone drastically wrong. Worse, it is not just one thing but a series of issues. I have some sympathy with the Minister because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is not directly responsible for all these matters, but of all Departments, it should realise that government must not work in silos and instead should work across Whitehall.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I will touch on the question of skills in a few moments. A key reason for prices leaping like a salmon is an increase in the price of fish itself. Incredibly for an island nation, we are a net importer of fish. Previously, a high proportion of fish used in the UK was imported from Russia, though in March 2022 the Government rightly imposed a 35% tariff on Russian seafood imports following the illegal invasion of Ukraine. That invasion also hit the price of flour and sunflower oil—both major Ukrainian exports. There was also a reduction in the North sea cod quota, mentioned by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place.”
“Increases to the minimum wage, which is paid not by the Government—although Labour likes to pretend that it is—but by hard-pressed businesses, are also an issue. Add the increase in employer national insurance, which puts a bounty of about £900 on the head of each employee: no wonder youth unemployment is rising.”
“Fish and chip shops have also faced challenges from increased electricity prices due to the use of energy-intensive cooking appliances. Increased energy costs have also contributed to higher potato prices, with more to come as the carbon border adjustment mechanism is effectively a fertiliser tax, adding perhaps an extra £100 per tonne. Even changes to reliefs on double-cab pick-ups—the farmers’ workhorse—have increased potato prices. Let us hear no nonsense about the people behind the counter being low-skilled; today’s fish-frier could be tomorrow’s FTSE 100 chief executive officer, or the founder of a €1 billion unicorn start-up. They work with cash and high-value stock, and, crucially, learn communication skills through dealing with the public.”
“The hon. Lady makes an important point. We should of course support businesses of all kinds, and pedestrianisation can be a double-edged sword. One of the difficulties is the weather in this country, and there is nothing better than pulling up right outside the shop that you want to go to, so decisions have to be balanced. The reduction in the North sea cod quota for 2025 reduced supply, and, of course, increased prices. I am more a haddock man myself, but cod is one of the top five imported and consumed species in the UK. Labour’s failed “mackerel for missiles” deal gave the EU further rights in our waters, but did not give us access to Europe’s multibillion-pound Security Action for Europe defence fund. The EU now takes seven times more fish, by value, from our waters than we take from its waters.”
“The hon. Member makes a very good point. Many industries are not actually treated as an industry. For example, agriculture is treated as a series of small individual businesses, and its totality is not taken into account. That is a very fair point. The truth is that Labour’s Employment Rights Act 2025 is about the clipboard class—the trade union apparatchiks —and not really about actual hard-working people. What is the point of workers’ rights if that all-important first job eludes people? Will the fish supper go the way of the red telephone box—much loved, but a relic of the past? Will the Labour party’s indifference turn a British staple into a luxury for the elite? Whether you call it a fish supper, a one-and-one, or just regular fish and chips, this Government risk frittering away a classic.”
“The SNP Scottish Government undertook a secretive trip to Beijing last year, and caught a case of renminbi fever while they were there. They are now blundering around on the world stage, desperate for Mingyang to put money into Ardersier. Notwithstanding the jobs issue, will the Prime Minister assure the House that he will take cognisance of national security issues? We do not want jobs at any cost, and we cannot allow wind farms to have Chinese kill switches fitted.”
“Has the fish supper had its chips? Fish and chips were so critical to morale during wartime that Churchill insisted they were never rationed, but now my constituent Romano Petrucci, the proprietor of the Central Café in my hometown of Stranraer, warns that this staple is becoming an unaffordable luxury. I appreciate that the Government do not set the price of fish and chips, but this is none the less a cross-cutting issue for Government, whether it be through fish quotas, energy prices or the cost of hiring. Having tried and failed to get either a Westminster Hall or an Adjournment debate on this matter, I ask for guidance on how we might air this issue here.”
“Again, touching on that red tape issue, one of the seafood producers in my constituency, West Coast Sea Products from Kirkcudbright, is facing difficulty even now with getting scallops into France—not because the quality of its product is anything less than exemplary, but, again, because of the rules and the difficulties being placed in its way, not by Brexit, as I say, but by the French themselves. Perhaps we could hear something on that, and perhaps we might be able to unblock this logjam.”
“I speak as the son of a marine engineer—I, meanwhile, get seasick in the bath, so I would certainly not want to go aboard a fishing boat. As we have heard, it is an exceptionally dangerous occupation and, even at the best of times, is difficult and hard work. The Home Office has a role here because it is exceptionally difficult to fulfil the requirements to bring in from elsewhere the workers who are crucial to this industry. I wonder if the Minister might touch on this—I appreciate it is a different Department—because we need some simplification of the rules and a realisation that they are making things exceptionally difficult for sometimes long-established businesses that should have a great future.”
“This is a difficulty created by the French—perhaps because of protectionist ideas, who knows?—but it should not take an entire renegotiation of the SPS agreement to get this sorted out. We could have this changed and changed quickly. The other danger with the renegotiation of an SPS deal is that it may have an impact on the free trade agreements we are doing around the world. We have recently signed one with India, for instance. The comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, the CPTPP—which is easy for me to say; we need a better name for this—could be imperilled by effectively reducing ourselves to rule-takers rather than rule-makers with a new SPS deal. The other issue that many of our fragile coastal communities face is that they have full employment. Going to sea is not forever.”
“The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) raised the question of the correct method of dispatch for lobster. May I counsel him against the method that I tried, which was to pop them in the freezer? By the time I opened the door, they had eaten all my ice cream and three of my Fab lollies. Even as we speak, chic Parisians are enjoying langoustines and coquille Saint-Jacques, perhaps with a crisp glass of Chablis—lucky them. That seafood almost certainly comes from the pristine waters of Scotland, but one of the difficulties we face in getting that seafood into France via Boulogne is red tape, and this is where the Government should step in. That red tape is blamed on Brexit. In fact, it comes from the far side of the short strait.”
“Is my hon. Friend surprised to hear that the SNP denies the existence of spatial squeeze, and advisers told senior figures in the Government not to talk about spatial squeeze? Spatial squeeze is real. I return to his point about Bridlington being the lobster capital of Europe. We do not have to divide on this, but I think he will find that it is, in fact, Port William.”
“Does the Secretary of State not agree with expert opinion that says that while we remain signatories to the ECHR, we will not be able to protect our veterans from vexatious litigation?”
“A guid new year to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the staff of the House. The past 14 months have been hell for the farmers of Dumfries and Galloway, and the Minister has made it clear that he will not apologise for that. Will he stop fantasising, like the wealthfinder general, about the money he can take out of agriculture and instead concentrate on helping British farmers to put British food on British tables?”
“America’s Delta Force has been involved in an incredible feat of arms in Caracas over the weekend. Of course, Delta Force is based on the 22 SAS regiment. Its formation came after Charles Beckwith served with the SAS. When the SAS speaks, it is usually listened to. The Minister has told us today that he has spoken to individuals from the SAS who signed the letter saying that this Bill is not fit for purpose. Have they changed their position?”
“Merry Christmas to you, Mr Speaker, and to your tip-top team. Dumfries and Galloway is the land of milk and slurry. We lack not for grass and dairy cattle, but we do lack for people. We are heavily reliant on immigrants to milk the cattle, so the loss of occupation code 5111 from the immigration salary list is causing huge concern. Can my farmers count on the Secretary of State to speak to the Home Office and head off what appears to be a looming crisis?”