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.”
The complete record
Every one of 8,060 lines we hold for Yvette Cooper, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 47 of 162.
“They were warned about the damage their cuts would do: arrests have halved; prosecutions near-halved; community penalties halved; crimes solved halved; more crimes reported and recorded, but hundreds of thousands fewer crimes are being solved—hundreds of thousands fewer victims getting justice every year. The Home Secretary claimed on the television this morning, “Oh, it’s irrelevant what happened over the last 10 years”: not to the millions fewer victims who have had justice in the last decade as a result of what this Tory Government have done. As for the policing Minister’s claim that “Criminals must be cursing their luck” because we are “coming after them”, who is he kidding? The charge rate hit a record low last year: 95% of criminals not charged—for rape it is over 98%. The charge rate has dropped by two thirds since 2015 alone.”
“The Home Secretary has been out on the airwaves this morning but she is scared to defend her record in this House, and little wonder because that statement was a joke. Where are the Tories pretending to have been for the last 13 years? They cut 20,000 police officers. Belatedly, they set a target to patch up their own cuts and now they want us all to be grateful. They want the country to applaud them for their attempts to patch up some of the criminal damage this party of Tory vandals has done to policing and the criminal justice system over the last 13 years.”
“The Minister has raised the awful case of Thomas Roberts. I have asked him repeatedly why it was not known that the murderer was wanted for murder in Serbia and why it was also not known that he had already been turned down for asylum in another European country. Why did the authorities and Border Force not know that information?”
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on secret police stations operated in the UK by the Chinese Communist party.”
“Can the Minister tell us the full extent of that individual’s involvement with the Conservative party and contact with any Ministers? What actions have Ministers and the party taken? What have the Government done about the alleged secret police stations in Croydon and elsewhere? Have their operations been closed down? The lack of answers will raise grave concerns that the Government are not addressing the scale of this threat and are not updating Parliament for fear of party political embarrassment because of the connections with the Conservative party. That is not good enough. Party political concerns must never—repeat: never—be put before our national security. The country deserves answers.”
“He provided no information, but said he would come back with an update. He has not done so. Nor has he met with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), despite promising to do so. Other countries have taken visible action. This week, two men were arrested by the FBI in New York for suspected operations, and in the Netherlands similar operations have been shut down. In the UK, however, we have heard nothing—no reports of arrests and no reassurance that these operations have been closed down. Instead, we are told that one key individual has been vice-chairman of the Chinese group fundraising for the Conservative Association in the City of London, and has attended party-organised events with two out of the last three Conservative Prime Ministers.”
“It is reported in The Times this morning that a Chinese businessman linked to an alleged Chinese secret police station in London has attended Chinese Communist party political conferences, is linked to the united front work department and has organised Tory party fundraising dinners and attended events with Conservative Prime Ministers. Those very serious allegations raise vital national security questions, and I think the Home Secretary should be here to answer them. The director general of MI5 has warned about the Chinese authorities both trying to influence our politics and running operations to monitor and intimidate the Chinese diaspora, including forcibly repatriating Chinese nationals. In November, we questioned the Minister for Security about possible secret police stations in Croydon, Hendon and Glasgow.”
“They failed to support Labour’s plan to go after the gangs, to get a new agreement with France and to fast-track decisions and returns. They are flailing around in a panic, chasing headlines—barges, oil rigs, Rwanda flights, even wave machines—instead of doing the hard graft. They have lost control of our border security, lost control of the asylum system, lost control of their budget and lost control of themselves. Will he answer my questions and will he get a grip?”
“The Home Office civil servant said that ferries would end up costing more than the hotels on which they are already spending so much money. So, instead, the Immigration Minister has been sent around the country with a copy of “Waterways Weekly”, trying to find barges, and he still has not found any. Can the Minister tell us: are these sites going to be additional and not instead of hotel use? Will he still be using more hotels, or fewer for asylum seekers in six months’ time? On the 45,000 boat arrivals last year, can he confirm that more than 90% of decisions have not been taken because the backlog is still the Government’s failure? Will the Minister apologise for the Government’s failure on cost control?”
“The Bill makes things worse. There are no returns agreements with France or Europe. The Prime Minister has just said that the Home Secretary was wrong: the Rwanda flights will not start this summer. The Government have nowhere to send people to and, instead of speeding up asylum decisions, they are just going to cancel them, which means more people in asylum accommodation and hotels and more flimflam headlines that just do not stack up. Today, it was barges and it turns out that there are not any. Desperate to distract everyone from the damage that they might want to do to the Dambusters heritage, they instead start talking about ferries and barges. Three years ago, they said the same thing. Last summer, the Prime Minister said that it would be cruise liners.”
“Most ludicrously of all, it says that “different parts of the Home Office operating different schemes…at times, found themselves competing for the same hotel contracts, driving prices up.” This is totally chaotic. Basically, the Government have written a whole load of cheques in a panic. If they had put that money into clearing the backlog instead, we would not be in this mess now. They should have been working with councils to do that, but they did not. Yesterday, Tory MPs again voted against Labour’s plans for a legal requirement for councils to be consulted. Instead, the Minister has Conservative councils, backed by Conservative MPs, taking action against him. So can he confirm that the Foreign Secretary is backing legal action against the Home Secretary? Frankly, that is a first, even for this chaotic Government.”
“The Minister has had to admit that, contrary to all the briefing in the papers this morning, they will not end hotel use—instead, these sites are additional. Ministers should have been finding cheaper sites and properly managing costs years ago. Today’s damning report from the Government’s own independent watchdog, which strangely the Minister did not mention today, says that there has been no cost control; that the Home Office contracts are highly inefficient; that there is no cross-Government transparency and oversight; and that officials did not have financial information on the contracts they were signing and did not compare costs.”
“The asylum system is broken because they broke it; they have let criminal gangs rip along the channel; people smuggler convictions have halved in the past four years, even though more boats and more gangs have been crossing—and yet Tory MPs yesterday voted against Labour’s plan for cross-border police units to go after the gangs; and they have let asylum decision making collapse—we have had a big increase in staff, but 40% fewer cases being decided. So they have failed to take basic decisions and they are still not doing Labour’s plan to fast-track last year’s arrivals from Albania and other safe countries. As for today’s announcements, we need to end costly and inappropriate hotel use, but these plans do not do that.”
“Today’s statement is an admission of failure—perhaps that is why the Home Secretary has asked the Immigration Minister to make it instead. Four years ago, the Cabinet said that they would halve channel crossings; they have gone up twentyfold since then. A year ago, they said they would end hotel use; they have opened more than ever. They keep making new announcements, but it just keeps getting worse. People want to see strong border security, and properly managed asylum and refugee systems, so that the UK does its bit to help those fleeing persecution and conflict, alongside other countries, but we have got neither of those at the moment. There is no point in the Government blaming everyone else, because they are in charge.”
“Will the Home Secretary apologise to people across the country for her cuts of 10,000 neighbourhood police and PCSOs, and for taking the police off the streets, meaning that people do not see them any more? If she does not realise that having fewer police in those neighbourhood teams is causing huge damage and undermining confidence, she just does not get it. Really, after 13 years, is this the best the Conservatives can come up with?”
“Labour has set out a plan for 13,000 more neighbourhood police on the streets, paid for by savings that have been identified by the Police Foundation but which Ministers are refusing to make. Will the Home Secretary now agree to back Labour’s plans to get neighbourhood police back on the beat to start taking action? Hotspot policing is not the same as neighbourhood policing. We support hotspot policing to target key areas, but that is not the same as having neighbourhood teams who are there all the time, embedded in the community, and know what is going wrong and why. There are plenty of things that are already crimes—that are already illegal—on which the police already have the powers to act but do not. No one comes because there are not enough neighbourhood police.”
“They are re-announcing plans on youth support that the Levelling Up Secretary announced more than a year ago. I notice one new thing in the document: an additional 500 young people will get one-to-one support. Well, there were 1.1 million incidents of antisocial behaviour last year, so good luck with that. The Government are not introducing neighbour respect orders. Astonishingly, neighbourhood policing is not mentioned even once in the document. How on earth do the Government think they will tackle antisocial behaviour without bringing back neighbourhood policing teams? Their recent recruitment—to try to reverse their own cuts of 20,000 police officers—is not going into neighbourhood policing. There are 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs in our teams than there were seven years ago.”
“As a result, criminal damage affecting our town centres is up by 30% in the last year alone. It is a total disgrace that too many people, especially women, feel they cannot even go into their own town centres any more because this Government have failed them. They do not see the police on the beat and they do not feel safe. So what are the Government proposing now? We support some of the measures, largely because we have long called for them. We called for hotspot policing; we called for faster community payback. We support stronger powers of arrest and a ban on nitrous oxide. But let us look at the gaps. There is nothing for antisocial behaviour victims, who are still excluded from the victims code and the draft victims law. On the failing community trigger, all the Government are going to do is rename and relaunch it.”
“This is a Conservative Government who weakened antisocial behaviour powers 10 years ago, brought in new powers that were so useless they were barely even used, including the community trigger and getting rid of powers of arrest, even though they were warned not to. The Government abandoned the major drug intervention program that the last Labour Government had in place, slashed youth service budgets—the YMCA says by £1 billion—and have let charges for criminal damage halve. Community penalties have halved and there is a backlog of millions of hours of community payback schemes not completed because the Government cannot even run the existing system properly. Far from punishing perpetrators of antisocial behaviour, the Government are letting more and more of them off.”
“This plan is too weak, too little, too late. The Home Secretary says people are sick and tired of antisocial behaviour. Too right they are—because people have seen serious problems getting worse and nothing has been done. But who does she think has been in power for the last 13 years? It is a Tory Government who have decimated neighbourhood policing. There are 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police and police community support officers on our streets today than there were seven years ago. Half the population rarely ever see the police on the beat, and that proportion has doubled since 2010.”
“Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given that two of the relevant Ministers were sitting in the Chamber at the time, may I ask whether you have ever heard of a situation in which it is abundantly clear from evidence from the UK Statistics Authority that Ministers have given incorrect information to Parliament and they have chosen not to correct it straight away?”
“The Home Office and the Home Secretary are the custodians of that tradition, but the lack of any plan to restore trust, to stand up for policing or to turn things around is letting everyone down. It is not standing up for the police; it is letting both the police and communities down. It is because we believe in policing and because we believe in those Peel principles that we know standing up for the police also means working with the police to deliver change and to restore the trust, confidence and effective policing that all police officers and communities properly deserve.”
“The Home Secretary rightly says she wants discrimination tackled in all its forms, but she has been telling police forces the opposite in telling them not to focus on those issues. Where is her plan now to turn that around? Where is the Home Office plan in response to this, on standards, on neighbourhood policing, on violence against women and girls, and on systemic or institutional discrimination? Where are those plans? The British policing model is precious. The Peel principles, which started in London— policing by consent—said “that the police are the public and that the public are the police”. They are our guardians, not our guards, but that precious policing model is in peril.”
“The report is devastating on the lack of proper public protection arrangements for women and children who have been let down, but again we know that across the country prosecutions for rape and domestic abuse have plummeted and serious cases have too often been dismissed. Again, where is the national action plan to improve public protection? Where is the commitment to specialist rape investigation units in every force and specialist domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms? It is not happening. The findings on institutional misogyny, racism and homophobia are based on evidence and clear criteria that Baroness Casey has set out for measuring change with recommendations.”
“Where is the Home Secretary’s plan to turn that around? The report is damning about the decimation of frontline policing, but neighbourhood policing has been decimated everywhere, not just in the Met. There are 6,000 fewer police officers in neighbourhood teams and 8,000 fewer police community support officers than just in 2016, and it is worse than that because officers are routinely abstracted for other duties. So where is the plan to restore neighbourhood policing? Labour has set out a plan. We would work with the Government on this, but where is the Government’s plan?”
“It is a disgrace that there are still not mandatory requirements on vetting and training, underpinned by law, and that misconduct systems are still too weak. I urge the Home Secretary to commit now that anyone under investigation for domestic abuse or sexual assault will be automatically suspended from their role as a police officer, and that anyone with any kind of history of domestic abuse or sexual assault will not be given any chance to become a police officer. We need an urgent overhaul, underpinned by law. Will she give us that commitment today? The Home Office approach more widely to standards is also failing. Six police forces are in so-called special measures, but it is still too easy for forces to ignore the recommendations from the inspectorate and the intervention processes are too weak.”
“Astonishingly, there is no new action set out in her response, simply words saying that the Met must change. This is a continuation of the hands-off Home Office response that Baroness Casey criticises in her report. Some of the issues raised are particular to the Met because of its size, history and particular culture, where the Home Secretary and Mayor are jointly responsible for oversight and where the commissioner is responsible for delivering, but the report also raises serious wider issues for the Home Office. The failure to root out officers who have been involved in domestic abuse or sexual assault also applies in other forces. The failure to tackle culture has gone wrong in other forces too, with problems in Gwent, Hampshire, Police Scotland, Sussex, Leicestershire and more.”
“Baroness Casey pays tribute to the work that police officers do and the bravery that they show every day, as we all should, because across the country we depend on the work that police officers do to keep us all safe—catching criminals, protecting the vulnerable and saving lives. We support them in that vital work. But that is what makes it all the more important that the highest standards are maintained and the confidence of those the police serve is sustained, otherwise communities and the vital work that police officers do are let down. We support the work the new Met commissioner is doing now to start turning the Met around. He and his team must now go much further in response to the Casey review, but I am concerned that the Home Secretary’s statement is dangerously complacent.”
“The report published today by Louise Casey, commissioned by the Mayor of London, into standards and culture in the Metropolitan police service is thorough, forensic and truly damning. It finds that consent is broken, management of the force has failed and frontline policing,—especially neighbourhood policing—has been deprioritised and degraded after a decade of austerity in which the Met has ended up with £0.7 billion less than at the beginning of the decade. It finds that the Met is failing women and children, and that predatory and unacceptable behaviour has been allowed to flourish. It finds institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia.”
“We welcome the Home Secretary back from her expensive interior design tour. The Louise Casey review will be published tomorrow and is expected to be damning, with far-reaching findings. The Home Secretary has known about failures on standards and vetting in policing for a long time, so why has she repeatedly refused to bring in mandatory vetting standards and automatic suspension for officers under investigation for domestic abuse and sexual assault?”
“The problem is that the Home Secretary’s response is too little and too late. We should all back the commissioner to take urgently needed action in the Met, but confidence in the Met has dropped sharply and confidence has also dropped nationally. The system for national standards that the Home Secretary presides over is far too weak, with no proper regulations or requirements and no proper intervention when things go wrong. Neighbourhood policing, which sustains confidence, is being hollowed out. That is damaging for communities and for the vital work that the police do. Will she now commit to urgent legislation and a full overhaul on standards? The proud British tradition of policing by consent is in peril unless the Government act urgently.”
“The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), said: “Anyone who arrives illegally will be deemed inadmissible and either returned to the country they arrived from or a safe third country.” As a result, 18,000 people were considered inadmissible to the UK asylum system and just 21 people were returned. That is just 0.1%. What has changed with this Bill, and what percentage of those deemed inadmissible does the Home Secretary expect to be returned?”
“The Home Secretary has just admitted that Rwanda does not have thousands of places. She will know that the Rwandan Government have talked about taking a few hundred people and that the Rwanda High Court agreement says that cases need to be individualised, yet she is expecting to find locations for tens of thousands of people expected to arrive this year. She has no returns agreement with France or any other European country, so where is she expecting to send the tens of thousands of people expected to arrive in the UK this year?”
“The Government are still refusing to go after the gangs, and the deputy chair of the Conservative party thinks that we should not even bother.”
“That is what Labour believes in but, right now, after 13 years of Conservative Government, we have none of those things. Our border security has been undermined because they let the criminal, smuggler and trafficking gangs rip, and the asylum system is in chaos, letting everyone down. All that they can offer is this Bill, which makes all those problems worse. Last year, 45,000 people travelled on dangerous small boats, up from just 280 four years ago. That is criminal gangs, making £180 million a year from putting lives at risk, yet over the same period convictions of people smugglers have halved. There has been a massive increase in the gangs who are operating along the channel, and a massive drop in the number of criminals caught.”
“I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add: “this House, while affirming support for securing the UK’s borders, reforming the broken asylum system and ending dangerous small boat crossings, declines to give a Second Reading to the Illegal Migration Bill because the Bill fails to meet its core objectives, lacks any effective measures to tackle the criminal activity of people smuggler gangs, fails to eliminate the backlog of outstanding asylum cases, will increase the number of people in indefinite accommodation in the absence of return agreements, leaves victims of modern day slavery without any protections while frustrating efforts to prosecute traffickers, fails to reform resettlement schemes to prevent dangerous journeys and undermines international co-operation to provide support for those fleeing persecution and conflict.” Most people want to see strong border security and a properly managed and controlled, fair and firm asylum and refugee system, so that we have proper grip along our borders and so that we do our bit, alongside other countries, to help those fleeing persecution and conflict.”
“Immigration law is important, but the problem is that, at the moment, a huge amount of immigration law is not even enforced. There has been an 80% drop in the number of people who have been unsuccessful in the asylum system and been returned—an 80% drop since the Conservatives came to office. At the same time, our asylum system, under the Tories, is in total chaos. Only 1% of last year’s cases have had even an initial decision. Home Office decision making has been cut by 40%, the backlog has trebled in the space of just a few years, and thousands of people are in costly and inappropriate hotels.”
“The former Prime Minister and former Home Secretary is experienced enough to know that that is not an accurate characterisation of what happened. By the time the Labour Government left office, the backlog of initial decisions was just a few thousand. Now it is 160,000, and in fact it has trebled in the past few years as a result of the complete failure of the Conservatives.”
“I will give way to the former Prime Minister; she and I have asked each other questions for so many years that I have to let her do so again.”
“I hope that she and I would agree that it should be possible for our country to have strong border security, and to have strong, fast, and effective measures, which, at the moment, the Government do not have, to deal with asylum cases swiftly and speedily, but also to make provision for those who have fled persecution and conflict, and provide support for those who have been trafficked and those who are the victims of modern slavery. I hope that she agrees with me that the Bill does the total opposite.”
“The important point that the former Prime Minister addresses is that in the late ’90s there was an issue about what had happened with the Bosnian refugee crisis and many others. In fact, it was the action that the last Labour Government took that got a grip of the system and addressed some of the challenges. We took action to make sure that we could have both border security and a system that provided for refugees and those in need of asylum. The former Home Secretary will also know, because she was responsible for introducing the modern slavery law, which I support, that the Bill rips up many of the provisions at the heart of that legislation.”
“It will lock up children, remove support and safe refuges from women who have been trafficked, and deny citizenship to people like Mo Farah. The last law the Government passed on this subject, just nine months ago, made everything worse—dangerous crossings went up, delays went up—and now they seriously expect us to do all the same things again.”
“We need urgent action to stop the dangerous boat crossings that are putting lives at risk and undermining our border security. This Bill is a con that makes the chaos worse. It will not do the things the Prime Minister and Home Secretary have promised. It will not stop the criminal gangs or dangerous crossings; in fact, it makes it easier for those gangs. It will not return everyone; in fact, it makes it harder to get return agreements. It will not clear the asylum backlog; in fact, it will mean tens of thousands more people in asylum accommodation and hotels. It will not deliver controlled and managed safe alternatives; instead, it will cut them back. The Bill will also rip up our long-standing commitment to international law.”
“My hon. Friend is right that the Conservatives have to take responsibility for 13 years in government—13 years in which we have seen refugees left in limbo, even though they have fled persecution and conflict. Those who are not refugees and have no right to be here are never returned; there has been an 80% drop in returns of unsuccessful asylum seekers. At the same time, there has been a 40% drop in refugee family reunion visas, the Afghan resettlement scheme has been shamefully frozen and children are left with no way to rejoin family. Time and again, Ministers just want to blame someone else. All the Conservative Members just want to blame someone else, but they have been in charge for the last 13 years. They keep telling us the asylum system is broken—well, seriously, who broke it?”
“The taxpayer has already written a £140 million cheque. The Home Office says it is unenforceable, with a high risk of fraud and no evidence of a deterrent effect. The Israel-Rwanda deal increased trafficking, rather than reducing it. At most, the Rwandan authorities say that they may take a couple of hundred people, but 45,000 people arrived last year.”
“My hon. Friend is right. Those are damning words that we have heard from the Board of Deputies and many other organisations on the impact this legislation will have. At the heart of the Bill, there is a con. The Prime Minister has pledged that anyone who arrives in the UK without the right papers will be detained and swiftly removed, “no ifs, no buts”. But where to? Not to France, because the Prime Minister failed to get a returns agreement, and he has failed with other countries as well. The Bill makes it harder to get returns agreements, because it undermines compliance with the international laws and standards that those other countries are committed to upholding—standards that we used to be committed to upholding. People will not be removed to Rwanda either; the Home Secretary has admitted already that that scheme is failing.”
“The Immigration Minister shakes his head, but he said in a statement in December in this House that the initial promise was to receive 200 people and the further preparations had not been made.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. In order to have co-operation on return agreements, on alternative arrangements for processing or on any of those things, there must be proper standards in place, and other countries must respect those standards if they are to make agreements with us. Therefore, pulling away from the European convention on human rights makes those agreements more difficult, despite the fact that having those international agreements in place is one of the most important steps to dealing with the challenges we face.”
“I think it adds to the chaos within this piece of legislation that the Government have not worked out what they want to do. As a consequence, they are undermining our reputation as the kind of country that stands up for the rule of law and leads the way in expecting other countries to follow the law and to do their bit as well.”
“I give way to the hon. Member for Eastleigh, who has been patient. I will then make some progress before I take further interventions, because I am conscious of the time.”