Yvette Cooper
MP for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley · Labour · United Kingdom
“NATO has been the cornerstone of Euro-Atlantic security for over 75 years, protecting more than a billion people, but to ensure it remains as strong for the next 75 years, it needs to respond to changing threats.”
“He may have seen that the Prime Minister and the Canadian Prime Minister put out a joint statement over the last couple of days to set out how we seek to work together to ensure that those initiatives, which do slightly different things, can combine and collaborate to ensure that we get the best possible impact.”
“The world must not fail the people of Sudan again. Last week, the UK convened an urgent debate at the United Nations Human Rights Council. A UK-penned resolution condemned atrocities, called for an urgent UN fact finding inquiry and urged the RSF to comply with international law and halt this attack, urging both the RSF and the Sudanese A…”
“We agree about the nature of the increasingly dangerous world we live in and the importance of us being able to defend ourselves and maintain our security. We have committed to reaching the 3.5% commitment on defence, but that is part of a 5% commitment that was made to cover broader defence and security intelligence.”
“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.”
“As I have said, our security since the second world war has very much depended on the NATO alliance, which has always been a defensive alliance that has built its strength through deterrence. Deterrence is immensely important. When we reached the end of the cold war in 1990, there was at that point a substantial peace dividend.”
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“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s constituent Tracy for campaigning in memory of Cameron. Too many young lives are being lost. That is why we are setting up the Young Futures programme, with youth hubs but also prevention partnerships, to work across the country.”
“I have to tell the hon. Member that unfortunately the previous Government cut asylum decision making by 75% in the run-up to the election, and they took away caseworkers. That is why the backlog was soaring. We have now put caseworkers back in place so that we can start clearing the backlog, because asylum hotels are costing the taxpayer huge amounts of money.”
“The Government are determined to take the necessary action to strengthen public confidence in the police, and to strengthen the confidence of the police when they are out on the street every day, doing the difficult job of keeping us all safe. Those are the twin goals that we must all work towards. I commend this statement to the House.”
“That must include further work to take forward the Met’s London race action plan, on which action has already been taken, though the Met commissioner and the Mayor for London have made it clear that there is much more work to do. We need progress from the National Police Chiefs’ Council on the national police race action plan. The Government are also determined to take forward further measures, ranging from the introduction of neighbourhood policing to new police force performance standards, to strengthen confidence in policing in every community across the country. The measures that I have outlined are practical steps to rebuild confidence, tackle delays, provide clarity and ensure that high standards are maintained. For almost 200 years, policing by consent has been the bedrock of British policing.”
“We will therefore take forward in this parliamentary Session previously agreed proposals to ensure that officers convicted of certain criminal offences are automatically found to have committed gross misconduct; to create a presumption of dismissal where gross misconduct is found; and to change regulations to enable chief constables to promptly dismiss officers who fail their vetting—there has been a glaring gap in the system there for far too long. We will go further to ensure that standards are upheld: we will ensure that there is a statutory underpinning for national vetting standards, and strengthen requirements relating to the suspension of officers under investigation for domestic abuse or sexual offences. Finally, we need wider measures to restore confidence in policing and the criminal justice system across all communities.”
“Following calls from civil society organisations, we will ask the College of Policing to establish a national “lessons learned” database for deaths or serious injuries arising from police contact or police pursuits, so that when tragic incidents occur, there is a responsibility to ensure that lessons are incorporated into the development of police training and guidance, and to prevent the repetition of such events. To rebuild public confidence in the wider standards regime for policing, we also need to ensure that there is faster progress in responding to the findings of the Angiolini and Casey reviews on vetting and standards.”
“The independent review will be conducted by Tim Godwin and Sir Adrian Fulford, and will report jointly to me and the Lord Chancellor by the end of January. I have asked for further work to be done on timeliness, standards and misconduct procedures as part of our wider policing reforms. My right hon. Friend the Attorney General has invited the Director of Public Prosecutions to examine the CPS guidance and processes in relation to charging police officers for offences committed in the course of their duties.”
“That includes ensuring that in investigations of police-driving incidents, evidence from subject-matter experts and in-car video footage is considered at the earliest possible opportunity, and, more widely, that an officer’s compliance with their training and guidance is appropriately taken into account in investigative decision making. I also have established a rapid review of two specific areas where recent legal judgments have meant that we now have different thresholds for criminal, misconduct and inquest investigations, adding complexity, confusion and delay to the system. In particular, that review will consider the legal test for use of force in misconduct proceedings, and the threshold for determining short-form findings of unlawful killing in inquests.”
“When officers act in the most dangerous situations on behalf of the state, it is vital that those officers and their families are not put in further danger during any subsequent legal proceedings. We will therefore introduce a presumption of anonymity for firearms officers subject to criminal trial following a police shooting in the course of their professional duties, up to the point of conviction. We will also ensure that the highly specialist nature of particular policing tactics and tools is reflected in relevant investigative guidance.”
“We will align the threshold for the referral of police officers from the Independent Office for Police Conduct to the Crown Prosecution Service to that used by the police when referring cases involving members of the public. Currently the threshold is lower for police officers—that is not justified. We will allow the IOPC to send cases to the CPS where there is sufficient evidence to do so, instead of having to wait for a final investigation report. And we will also put the IOPC victims’ right-to-review policy on a statutory footing to ensure that there is an appeal mechanism for bereaved families when a decision is made not to seek a charging decision. Then we will go further.”
“At the same time, as we saw following the Casey and Angiolini reviews, in cases where someone is not fit to be a police officer, it is too hard for forces to remove them, and communities feel that no one is held to account. The public must be able to expect that when officers exceed the lawful use of their powers or fail to meet proper standards, there will be rapid and robust processes in place to hold them to account. Police officers who act with integrity and bravery to keep us safe each day need to know they have strong public support. If officers lack the confidence to use their powers, following their training and the law, public safety is put at risk. Let me turn to the policy measures. First, we will take forward the three measures proposed by the previous Government in March to strengthen and speed up the system.”
“The accountability review found that the current system for holding police officers to account is not commanding the confidence of either the public or the police. Accountability and misconduct proceedings are too often plagued by delays stretching for years, which is damaging for complainants, police officers and police forces alike. The system has become more complex, with confusion over multiple thresholds for different investigations, and a lack of clarity, especially on specialist capabilities. There are also wider concerns about the misconduct system. The focus when things go wrong can end up being entirely on the decisions of the individual officer, so system failings such as poor training, unmanageable caseloads or wider force practices are not sufficiently considered or followed up, meaning that too little changes.”
“That will be a package of reforms to rebuild confidence for police officers and for communities, to tackle the unacceptable delays and confusion in the system, and to ensure that the complexity of specialist operations is considered at an early stage and that the highest standards are upheld and maintained. Twelve months ago, the previous Government launched a review into the accountability systems for police use of force and police driving. The previous Home Secretary set out an interim response in March, which the Labour party supported, and I welcome his work. The review was not completed by the election, and although we have continued to draw on evidence from police and civil society organisations, we were unable to say more publicly in the run-up to the trial, so today I will update the House.”
“For our policing model to work, it is essential that the police have the confidence of the communities they serve, and that officers have the confidence that they need to do their vital and often extremely difficult job of keeping us all safe. Too often in recent times, both elements of that confidence have become frayed. The Government have made it a mission to put confidence back into policing. As part of that work, I want to update the House on new measures that we will take forward in response to the accountability review and following ongoing work to respond to issues raised by the Angiolini and Casey reviews.”
“However, the case has happened against a backdrop of wider and long-standing concerns about accountability, standards and confidence—a backdrop in which police officers and forces have raised long-standing concerns about the way in which the accountability system currently operates, particularly in cases of specialist policing such as firearms and driving, where we ask officers to do incredibly difficult and dangerous jobs to keep us safe, and a backdrop of fallen community confidence in policing and the criminal justice system across the country, with, as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner said this week, lower confidence among black communities. The British policing model relies on mutual bonds of trust between the public and the police.”
“For an armed police officer to be prosecuted for actions taken in the course of their duties is very rare, so of course this case has raised considerable concerns for the public and for the police. The decisions made on any individual case, be it by the police, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts or a jury, are rightly independent of the Government, so it would not be right for me to comment further on the details of the case.”
“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will update the House on Monday’s verdict in the trial of Sergeant Martyn Blake, on the accountability review into police use of force, and on confidence in policing. Chris Kaba was killed in Streatham two years ago. His parents and family of course continue to experience deep grief and distress. A year ago, Sergeant Martyn Blake was charged with murder, and on Monday, the jury returned its verdict and Sergeant Blake was acquitted. It is imperative that the jury’s verdict is respected, and that Sergeant Blake and his family are given the time and space that they will need to recover from what will have been an immensely difficult experience for them during both the investigation and the trial.”
“That is how we will maintain for the new generation the proud British tradition of policing by consent.”
“The Government want to bring in the presumption of anonymity in the forthcoming crime and policing Bill. The shadow Home Secretary also raised the issue of training. I want that to be looked at when the investigative guidance is updated; that way, it can be addressed relatively quickly to ensure that issues around police driving and training more widely are taken into account in early investigative decisions before cases are pursued. On the Fairfield review, we are taking forward further measures, and will look, in wider policing reforms, at how the IOPC needs to work. It is important that we continue to have an independent process. That has to be set against the backdrop of the wider policing reforms that are needed to ensure that we strengthen confidence for both officers and communities.”
“Frankly, if any of us were in those situations, we would want to know that there were firearms police officers there to protect and support us. In the UK, police officers discharging firearms is very rare, particularly compared with other countries. That reflects the nature of our unarmed policing tradition, as well as the professionalism and training of the police, and the different ways in which they manage often very difficult situations, but of course they need to know that when they follow their training and operate within the law, they will have our support for the difficult decisions that they have to take, and will not find their lives upturned as a result. The anonymity provisions are important, and I hope that they will have support from the whole House.”
“I thank the shadow Home Secretary for his response. I hope that there will be widespread agreement on both sides of the House on the importance of these issues, which go to the heart of the British tradition of policing by consent. All of us want to know that there is proper accountability for decisions that police forces and officers make, but also that the police have the confidence to take what are sometimes the most difficult decisions of all to keep the rest of us safe. The shadow Home Secretary is right that firearms officers have to deal with some of the most difficult parts of policing, sometimes having to make split-second decisions in fast-moving and difficult circumstances that none of us would want to be in.”
“Our role in this House is to provide the framework within which those individual decisions are then made, but I also agree that ultimately, all these measures have to have the confidence of communities across London and across the country. If they do not, that proud British tradition of policing by consent is lost, which is deeply damaging for police officers and policing, as well as for all our public safety.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for her points. I know that she has worked on and addressed these issues over many years, and how important she sees them as being. She is right to raise concerns around incidents where lives are lost, and to recognise the distress that will be felt by Chris Kaba’s mother and family. I also recognise the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) has done to support the family in difficult circumstances. My right hon. Friend makes an important point: at every stage in the process, these decisions have to be for the independent judiciary, the courts and the police prosecutors.”
“We continue to work to ensure that some of the measures recommended by the Casey review that have national implications, as well as the Angiolini review, are taken forward as part of this package. Those include issues with vetting and misconduct processes—it is important that we make progress on those measures, as well as on some of the issues that arise from the accountability review. We will also ensure that all communities are involved in the way in which measures are taken forward.”
“I thank the hon. Member for the important points she has made. She is right that lack of clarity, uncertainty, and the long and damaging delays that we have had in the system benefit no one, but she is also right to say that part of the sensitivity around this case—part of its long-standing backdrop—is the much lower confidence in policing among black Londoners and the different levels of confidence around race. That was highlighted as part of the Casey review, and it is why the Met police have set out a race action plan, but both the Met commissioner and the Mayor of London have been clear that there is significant additional work to do. If any measures do not have the confidence of all communities that the police serve, that will ultimately undermine the crucial principle of policing by consent.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her question—as I said, she has worked hard to represent her communities. It is clear that there must be a proper framework for legal accountability for police forces and individual officers. There must always be investigations where there is loss of life following police contact—that is always appropriate. Although we want investigations to take place much more swiftly, all the police chiefs whom I have talked to as part of this work feel strongly that there must be a clear accountability system, which provides confidence to communities and to police officers who make difficult decisions in the line of duty. Police, Parliament and the public will recognise that we need to have the confidence of communities, as well as police officers who are confident that they will be able to do their job.”
“I thank the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee for those important points. We are working at pace: we have set out planned legislation in the King’s Speech—the crime and policing Bill—and there are a series of areas where we believe these measures can be taken forward as part of that process. In some areas, we may be able to make progress through regulations; in others, it is simply about changing the guidance. We have set out some timetables as part of the briefing, which will be made public. Everybody who wants more detail on the individual measures will be able to find that information on the Home Office website. This afternoon I will ensure that all those details are sent to the Home Affairs Committee.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point: we need to see progress on the Met police’s race action plan, which responds to serious findings in the Casey review. That review raised wider issues as well, but it is essential that that action is taken. Both the Mayor and the Met commissioner have made strong commitments to ensure progress continues to be made, and I know that London MPs will also want to see that action taken. We cannot have reports released without follow-up.”
“The Attorney General has asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to review CPS guidance on charging in cases where officers use force in the line of duty, as I said in my statement. There is a series of areas where we are ensuring that the system can work more effectively, but, crucially, this is about raising confidence for the public as well as for police officers.”
“I thank the right hon. Member for his question. Under the reforms that we have set out following wide examination of the different evidence, where there are investigations—and there will need to be investigations in individual cases—they can happen much more speedily. The threshold for referring cases from the Independent Office for Police Conduct to the CPS is no longer lower than it is for members of the public when they are investigated for a crime. That is not justified or appropriate, and it is right that that threshold should be brought back in line. We also want to ensure that issues of training and specialist capabilities are taken into account at a very early stage in investigations, and we will be revising the guidance for investigations to ensure that happens.”
“The framework I have set out is about ensuring a proper system of accountability for police forces and police officers—I think that all police officers will support it as immensely important—for how they use their powers. However, we also must tackle the hugely long delays, and the complexity, in the system. The different thresholds and the concerns that specialist capabilities, such as driving and firearms, are not taken into account at an early stage in investigations, end up with serious problems much later, as firearms officers or other police officers feel that they do not have confidence or clarity about their responsibilities or how they can use their powers. Equally, communities must not feel that they are being let down because they do not have timely investigations, and conclusions and answers, to their concerns.”
“Police officers, who do immensely difficult work across the country every day to keep us safe, deserve our strong support. They often show huge bravery in the most difficult circumstances. I have attended the police bravery awards every year for 14 years to recognise and support the work that police officers do, often in the most difficult of circumstances. I think those officers all believe it is important that we have a system in which communities can feel confident in the work that police officers do, and that they as officers can continue to do that work to keep us safe every single day.”
“We want the College of Policing to be able to set up a lessons learned database to make sure that action is taken when, for example, there are deaths or serious injuries following police contact. Even when such cases are investigated and reforms, measures or recommendations are made, too often those are not followed up and are not actually implemented. As a result, bereaved families can feel badly let down. It is important not only that we have a clear framework of standards, but that when things go wrong, a proper system is in place to ensure that lessons are learned and things can be improved for the future.”
“I thank the right hon. Member for that question. It is clearly important that police officers who face threats or risks as a result of the job they do and the difficult situations they find themselves in because of their work to keep us safe have strong protection and support. He will know that I cannot comment on an individual case and certainly not on an individual investigation. Those are rightly independent operational decisions for police forces. However, I think more widely that everyone will want to make sure that officers who do difficult jobs do have the support that they need.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is an important British tradition that we respect the rule of law, which means that individual decisions are made by the police, prosecutors, the courts and juries independently of anything that the Government do and independently of anything that politicians do or say. We all operate within legal frameworks, as you reminded us at the beginning of the statement, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sure all of us would want to respect that, but also to support all of those independent institutions in the complex and challenging work that they do. We can set the framework, but they have to take the individual decisions.”
“The hon. Member makes an important point, because often when we talk about trust and confidence for communities, young people, who are frequently those who have the most contact with the police, feel left out of those discussions. It is important that they, too, have confidence in the police to keep them safe. Restoring neighbourhood policing and having back in our communities police officers who know the local area, and whom young people can get to know, is one of the most important and powerful ways to rebuild trust and make sure that everybody has confidence. That is also how we prevent crime and damage in communities.”
“I agree. Families often face some of the most challenging burdens and pressures, and we hear from police officers that their concern about the impact on their families often affects them strongly. That is why the presumption of anonymity to the point of conviction is really important to support families, as well as officers.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The accountability review found that the accountability system does not currently have confidence among communities or policing. That is why we are setting out very practical reforms. It is important that the work of the IOPC and the CPS is done independently of politicians, police officers and communities. They have to take decisions within the law and within the framework that Parliament sets. That is why this review and this announcement are about how we amend that framework so that they can do their jobs.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend. Neighbourhood policing has to be at the heart of restoring or rebuilding the confidence of communities in policing.”
“It is really important that we have the full confidence of communities in the police and the confidence of police to be able to do their jobs. Decisions on individual cases are rightly for independent organisations, whether that be the courts or the misconduct process, but those have to operate within a framework and it is our responsibility to make sure that the framework is right. It is currently not right and that is why we have set out the reforms within which those organisations need to take decisions.”
“My hon. Friend is right. We must maintain everyone’s confidence—the police must have confidence, as must communities. Ultimately, if communities do not have confidence, policing is undermined, but if police officers do not have confidence, our public safety is undermined, because it means that they cannot do their job. That is why we have put confidence at the heart of our mission for safer streets.”
“The hon. Member makes an important point. As part of the accountability review, concerns were raised around recruitment and retention, especially from people concerned about the impact on their families. That family issue is so important. That is why we have the presumption of anonymity to the point of conviction and some of the wider reforms, which will, I hope, maintain confidence among communities and police officers.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend that people feel more confident if they know who their local police officers are. That builds a sense of confidence, which also helps to prevent crime.”
“I thank the hon. Member for the question. Interestingly, some of the accountability issues are very similar or the same for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland, but there are differences in some areas. We have looked at those and I hope that they will be looked at further as part of the ongoing work and reviews that I have raised. However, this is all fundamentally about how we make sure that we raise standards and raise confidence across the board, including for officers and communities.”
“I agree. Police officers across the country do a totally amazing job. It is often a difficult job: they keep us safe, and they have to face difficult situations that none of us would want to be in. They also believe in high standards, which is why so many police officers and police chiefs want to ensure that the system is more effective at rooting out those who badly fail those standards and who should not be serving in the police. Police officers want to maintain high standards, but they also want to know that where officers are doing their duty to keep us safe and operating in line with their training and the law, they have our strong support. We must ensure that confidence works both ways: that we have confidence in policing and that the police have the confidence to do their difficult job of keeping us safe.”
“I agree that some of the issues around confidence are actually about the responsiveness of police and about having neighbourhood policing and a local response. My hon. Friend is right. We need to respond to major reviews such as the Casey review and the Angiolini review, which found failings around standards, systems and vetting, for example. We must ensure that everything we do responds to those broader reviews, as well as recognising difficult individual incidents, to boost confidence.”
“Neighbourhood policing is the bedrock of the British policing model, yet in many areas of the country it has been decimated in recent years. This Government are committed to rebuilding neighbourhood policing by putting officers, police community support officers and special constables back in our communities with new powers to tackle antisocial behaviour and local crime.”
“My hon. Friend is right that we now have thousands fewer police officers and PCSOs on the streets than we had a decade ago. This includes the previous Government halving the number of PCSOs and cutting the number of special constables by two thirds. This newly elected Government are working at pace to introduce a new neighbourhood policing guarantee, putting police officers and PCSOs back on the streets. We have also announced funding and support for the College of Policing to begin the national roll-out of specialist training for neighbourhood officers in order to professionalise and strengthen the work they do in every corner of the country.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. This is a challenge we are facing across the country. The proportion of people saying that they barely ever see the police is now nearly half, up from a quarter when the Conservatives came to power in 2010. This has been deeply damaging to public confidence, and we need the police back on the beat, but they also need the powers to act. That is why we will also bring forward new powers to tackle shoplifting and antisocial behaviour, especially in our town centres.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. Drug dealing, drug misuse and other forms of antisocial behaviour and crime are a real challenge in many communities. First, we need to get neighbourhood police back on the beat to address these challenges. Secondly, neighbourhood police need greater powers, and we will introduce respect orders that allow the police to take action against repeat offenders and to make sure that our streets and communities can be kept safe.”