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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“Sir Kevan Collins has warned that we will pay the costs of lost learning in lack of productivity growth and lack of economic opportunity for many years to come. Not restoring the funding for our schools to the levels that we had under the last Labour Government for several more years will mean 14 years of lost investment in our schools. That is an entire childhood—a kid’s entire childhood in schools lost. The cost in lower productivity will be felt for very many years to come. If we want an age of optimism, we have to be able to be optimistic for our kids’ future, optimistic for our towns’ future, and optimistic that our children will have a fairer, better and more sustainable future than we have.”
“The OBR forecasts growth—once we come through the bounce-back from the pandemic—of 1.3%, 1.6% and 1.7%. For all the warm words in the Budget, and for all that Conservative Members seize on particular phrases of the Chancellor’s, that is the underlying reality that they should be most worried about: weak economic growth for the future. That is what will hit our future public services and hit future living standards. We do not have the investment in regional economies, in jobs of the future or, particularly, in tackling climate change and the environmental challenges that have been highlighted so heavily this week at COP26. Perhaps the greatest travesty of all is the lack of funding for our children’s education.”
“Underpinning the cost-of-living crisis is the fact that the Government could have taken other decisions. They could have cut VAT on fuel, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) says; they could have raised national insurance thresholds to ease the pressure on lower-income workers; they could have gone further in increasing the minimum wage—but they chose not to. It is not just about the choices that the Government have made. Underpinning those choices is the real story of the Budget, which is that the Conservatives have become the party of low growth. We have had a decade of weak growth in national income, in productivity and in real wages, which is why the Government are now putting up taxes. It will get worse, too.”
“I am glad that campaigning pressure has forced the Chancellor to change the taper rate and take some measures on universal credit, but the reality is that that is not enough to stop people facing huge pressures this winter. It is not enough to stop many families losing hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds. A constituent of mine who has got in touch is in his mid-60s. He has just lost his job and is struggling to find new work: because he is so close to retirement, he cannot find an employer to take him on. He has paid taxes for nearly 50 years and has worked all his life, but is now worried that he will not make his remaining mortgage payments. He is seeing his income hugely cut this winter at a time when he is worried whether he will be able to pay his fuel bills. It is deeply unfair.”
“My hon. Friend is right that there was action that the Government could take to address the cost-of-living crisis. Instead, the Resolution Foundation has said that we have the weakest pay growth since the 1930s, with little prospect of things improving. The Government have failed to take action to ease the bottlenecks that are pushing up inflation. They have failed to boost the productive capacity of the economy, so that when demand rises, prices rise too. Even worse, they are still going ahead with the £20 cut to universal credit and are increasing national insurance contributions and tax on low-paid workers at a time when costs are going up.”
“There are family members of UK citizens and residents whose lives are at risk from the Taliban in Afghanistan but who have no legal route to safety because the Government have not put in place any interim biometrics provision, even though I have raised with the Home Office several ways they could do so. I have also been told that Home Office caseworkers are not deciding any family visa cases because they are still waiting for updated country-specific guidance. There is also no suggestion that there will be provision for them in the resettlement scheme. May I ask the Minister urgently to look into sorting out biometric routes and the updated guidance, and providing for a family route within the resettlement scheme? Those are the families most at risk of being exploited by the criminal gangs if there is no legal route in place.”
“The Minister and the police forces have rightly talked about the importance of rebuilding trust. When serious allegations are made against police officers about sexual assault or domestic abuse—offences that, by their very nature, involve controlling behaviour, the abuse of power, the abuse of vulnerable victims and misogyny—why are they not suspended immediately while investigations take place?”
“I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and, through her, express my thanks for the huge amount of work being done by the police and the Security Service to keep us safe. She will know that some of the targeting online that undermines democracy is particularly aimed at black and minority ethnic MPs, and that there is increased targeting of women MPs too. Could she say something about her approach to that as part of the security assessment?”
“NHS dentistry is facing a capacity crisis. There is a huge backlog of urgent care and treatment, which is leaving many dentists overwhelmed. Patients, including those in Pontefract and in towns across the country, are now unable to get routine check-ups, which is making the urgent care crisis worse and creating a vicious spiral. Will the Health Secretary ask his Ministers to meet dentist groups and patient groups in Yorkshire to hear about the urgent crisis they are facing and set out an urgent plan to deal with the huge capacity crisis in NHS dentistry?”
“When we face awful things happening and extremists try to divide us, we know the most powerful thing in our armoury against them and in defence of democracy is the powerful words said on all sides of the House in unity, in defence of democracy and, now, in respect for David.”
“A knight in shining armour is what David will have been to so many of his constituents. Around the corner, there is a box of nodding reindeer decorations, ready to be spread across the corridors. That was what David would do at Christmas time: spread friendship and joy. If you stand by that knight today, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will also hear the ethereal sound of birdsong, for so many reasons, for David. Jo Cox said to us that we “have far more in common than that which divides us.” —[ Official Report , 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.] David showed us how to do that, because while he had disagreements with pretty much every one of us, he also had the unerring instinct of finding what it was he had in common with each and every one of us.”
“You could never predict what issue he would feel strongly about next, but then you would look back and think that it made absolute sense that that was what he was championing, because kindness, compassion and helping others were so often at the heart of it. David’s office is just above mine, so I would often chat to him while walking to vote and coming across here. Walking across today to come and pay tribute to him, I really felt it, knowing that I would not walk with him again and chat about our families. Coming out of the lift to David’s office, you could never get wrong which floor you were on, because, as many will know, there is, hanging on his door, a giant cardboard cut-out of a knight in shining armour with the helmet tilted in a jaunty way just looking at you.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will just briefly join the tributes that we have heard. Sir David Amess asked all of us about our families, and we now send our condolences to his family, not just from all of us but from all our families, who will very much be feeling the need to reach out to them at this difficult time. We pay tribute, too, to Sir David’s staff, who went to work on Friday morning to try to help his constituents, like all our staff do for every one of our constituents, and had to face the unimaginable. Every one of us has a story of things that we worked with David on. There were so many different issues, but for me it was the work we did together on amendments to help child refugees reunite with their families, which was something he felt strongly about.”
“The Select Committee on Home Affairs heard damning evidence last week from rape survivors about how they have been let down by the criminal justice system. The report is also damning about the scale of the problem and the scale of the change that is needed. I welcome the Minister to her new post and look forward to working with her on the issue, but may I say to her that urgency is hugely important? We have heard very many words about very many reforms over a long period of time, but on rape prosecutions, things have actually gone backwards. I urge her to say that she will support all the recommendations and implement them, not just take them forward. If she cannot commit to implementing them this week, will she come back next week, commit to implementing them and make sure that they actually happen in practice and save women’s lives?”
“There is an important right to peaceful protest in this country, but running on to motorways is just dangerous. It puts lives at risk, so the police and the courts are right to take action to keep people safe. Given the importance of COP26 and action against climate change, and given the strong feelings across the country, what action is being taken to make sure that there can be legitimate, safe and peaceful protests or demonstrations around COP26 so that lives are not put at risk and we do not see such dangerous behaviour?”
“I have been contacted about the harrowing case of a man who worked as a UK contractor on a UK project for many years and had a specific directed threat from a senior Taliban official. He fled his home with his family, but when his wife returned to the house to collect some belongings a few days ago, the Taliban arrived and she was shot in the head. She died a couple of days later. The man applied twice for the ARAP scheme and has still not had a reply. Please could the Secretary of State make sure that this case is pursued? Could he also make sure that everyone who has applied gets a personal response? Will he confirm that contractors on UK projects whose families and who themselves are at mortal danger from the Taliban are eligible for the ARAP scheme?”
“We have not heard any update on that review, so will she update the House now on what work is being done?”
“I thank the Home Secretary for this statement, and for the work of the police and of the intelligence and security agencies to have brought us to this point. The Salisbury attack was a truly appalling attack on UK soil, with charges now laid against the agents of a foreign state. It should be unthinkable that this could happen and for it to come at the same time as the ECHR confirmation that Russia was behind the murder of Alexander Litvinenko is further disturbing evidence of Russia’s willingness to use dangerous weapons in other countries. I support the work the Government have been doing on this, but may I ask her specifically about the review launched three years ago into the so-called “golden visas”, the tier 1 visas, to look at oligarchs with close links to the Russian state who might be using criminal money and others?”
“We all hope that our vaccines will prove effective against any new variants so that we can all get back fully to normal, but we also have to be incredibly vigilant against any possible new variant that develops and that is resistant to our vaccines. The Secretary of State will know that in previous waves—at the beginning or with the delta variant—we have not had either sufficient surveillance or a fast enough response from Government to prevent those variants from spreading. What can he say about his new surveillance regime, both in terms of testing and response, that will prevent those problems from happening again, especially when it looks as though the testing and genomic sequencing is being downgraded?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. A care worker or a low-paid public sector worker—for example, a nursery assistant—who works full time, loves their job and has no prospect of a pay raise any time soon, is now about to be told that they will have £20 a week taken away from them. What does she say to those care workers about why that is fair?”
“The bottom line is that millions of people will be worse off next month because of the Government’s decisions. Some people made more profits during the crisis, and some on higher pay made real savings, but the key workers who kept us all going through the crisis, on the lowest pay, doing the most important jobs, are being hit. Ministers clapped them in the streets; now they are cutting their family income. It is not just a kick in the teeth; it is a complete betrayal. Ministers should have some shame and cancel the cut.”
“Ministers say that the answer is for people to work harder and work longer, but they are already doing that, and care workers doing 14-hour shifts do not have any hours or extra days that they can work. Ministers claim that the £20 must go because it was only ever supposed to be temporary, but why? Price rises are not temporary; they are getting worse. The debt that people have run up because of covid is not temporary; it still has to be paid off. The hardship and hunger that children face is not temporary; it is getting worse. Even before the £20 came in, families had lost nearly £2,000 a year because of previous Government cuts. Why do Ministers want to go back to that? That is not building back better. There is a huge gap between Conservative Ministers’ words and the reality of working people’s lives.”
“We need help.” A constituent in Pontefract who is working to support himself and his disabled partner, on universal credit but paying off rent arrears, talked about the pressure that he is already under. He said: “I don’t know what to do. I have been crying. I have just half a tin of beans left for us.” In Normanton, Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, 10,000 families—nearly half of all families with children in the constituency—will be hit, losing £85 a month or more than £1,000 a year. That means £10 million will be taken out of the five towns’ economy that would have been spent in our local shops when, frankly, our town centres are under real pressure. Care workers, factory workers, warehouse staff, teaching assistants and hairdressers are all being hit.”
“Low-paid workers are facing not a double whammy but a triple whammy, with prices and bills going up, national insurance contributions going up and now a £1,000 cut in universal credit. Ministers are creating a cost of living crisis for low-paid workers. I do not understand how they think people will manage. On what planet do Conservative Ministers think that that is fair? One of many emails that I got last week said: “I am unemployed, 65 years of age and my sole source of income is universal credit. My income will drop from £715 a month (just keeping head above water) to £612 a month (drowning!). When my rent and all other bills are paid, this will leave me with £89 for food, clothing, bus fares for job interviews and everything else for the month.”
“I am one of those who are deeply sceptical about the value for money of this project. I can think of considerable other ways to invest that money that would have a much stronger economic benefit. On the impact of the covid pandemic, has the Minister considered the long-term impact of the growing use of Zoom, electronic communications and so on? Surely any sensible Government would look at the impact of that on business travel, commuter travel and so on as part of this project.”
“Can their applications be automatically considered by the resettlement scheme urgently, or be looked at again by the ARAP scheme? I have been made aware of too many cases where someone is either in hospital or whose mother has been killed who are in that situation now as a result of Taliban persecution.”
“I welcome the Minister’s personal commitment and the intervention of the Home Secretary and other Ministers in trying to solve individual cases, but she will be aware that many MPs across the House have been struggling to get similar help for their constituents, or for families of constituents, and are not getting the same response. May I press her on the situation of those whose lives are still at risk in Afghanistan because they worked with or for the UK Government, but were not directly employed by the UK Government? They have had no response from the ARAP scheme, or have been told that they are not eligible because they were not direct employees. Can she tell me whether they are now eligible for the resettlement scheme, or do they have to apply again from scratch?”
“Jo was a friend and a fantastic West Yorkshire MP colleague, and it is such an honour to have Kim now as our West Yorkshire neighbour. Jo’s “More in Common” values are also the values that Kim and her family have championed so much, and we pay tribute to them too, in West Yorkshire and throughout the country.”
“It is an honour to co-chair with the right hon. Gentleman the committee that is campaigning for this memorial. Does he recognise that the 18 months we have had have really taught us that we should never take for granted those on whom we depend in so many different ways, and our emergency services are at the heart of that because we all depend on them every single day? That is why it would be right to have a tribute to them and the work that they do at the very heart of where decisions are made. Parliament, the Government and the country should come together to support that.”
“May I join in the tributes to our armed forces who have worked so hard? There are still people being persecuted and hunted by the Taliban because they worked for the UK Government, but through contractors, not as direct employees. They have not had replies to their ARAP applications and the rumour circulating is that they may have to wait for the resettlement scheme, but also that many of the places on the resettlement scheme have already been allocated and that the scheme is almost full. Can the Prime Minister clarify the situation for those people, tell us whether some of the resettlement scheme places have been pre-allocated and if so how many, and say what will be done for those contractors as well as direct employees, to whom we owe an obligation?”
“I thank the Prime Minister for giving way, and I welcome his commitment to support in the region, and also the Government’s commitment to a resettlement programme. The Home Secretary announced in 2019 that the UK would continue a resettlement scheme of 5,000 refugees a year after the Syrian scheme closed. Can the Prime Minister confirm that the announcement today of an Afghan resettlement scheme is in addition to that existing 5,000 resettlement commitment, as opposed to simply being a refocusing or displacement of that existing 5,000-a-year resettlement programme?”
“We remain locked inside, fearful of even looking out of the window—every time the door knocks fear goes through my whole body and I fear they are coming for me.” Another, who provided secure accommodation for UK embassy staff and British aid workers, has said: “Taliban fighters arrived at my father’s home this week asking for me by name. I just left my home city three days before and my father told the Taliban I had gone abroad for medical treatment. The fighters still forced their way into the house and searched every room.” We have obligations to these people.”
“For the last 20 years, much of the work of the UK Government, including aid work and nation rebuilding work, has been through contracts with UK agencies and organisations. The Taliban do not recognise the complexities of a contracting-out process, so many of those lives are also at risk. Some organisations have been in touch with their staff and former employees. One has told me that a woman who worked on the UK aid programme for three years and is now in hiding in Kabul has said this weekend: “only 3 weeks ago one of my neighbours told me that when they come he would tell them who I am and who my family is. A couple of days ago, a strange man told me in the streets, ‘I know where you work and who you are.’ I fear seeing my kids tortured in front of my eyes or having my skin peeled off while I am alive.”
“That is what makes it so disturbing, shameful and distressing to watch the events in Afghanistan right now: people who worked with us and helped us now hiding, their lives at risk; women and girls forced to hide in their homes simply because they are women and girls; hard-line extremists and terrorists back in charge, creating a security risk across the globe; and no evident strategy from the US, the UK and our allies, but what instead looks like just a chaotic retreat. We have a responsibility to respond, so I want to focus particularly on some of the practical things that should and can be done now to address the humanitarian crisis that we face. First, I turn to those who have put their lives at risk by working with us. I welcome the Afghan relocation and assistance policy, but it is too narrow. It refers to directly employed staff.”
“We have heard many sobering words in this debate already. I pay particular tribute to the words from our colleagues who have themselves served in Afghanistan, to all their colleagues over many years and to all those in our armed forces, particularly those who have lost their lives, including two brave soldiers from Castleford, Rifleman James Backhouse and Bombardier Craig Hopson. I also pay tribute to those who have worked in our aid agencies and for partner organisations to support development and education projects and to try to rebuild a future for Afghanistan, and to all those who have rightly worked so hard and made it possible for families to live in some semblance of security and for girls—children—to be able to go to school for many years.”
“Again, I urge the Government to work urgently with the agencies on the ground, which can identify straight away the people who are at most at risk, and to recognise the position of those who are currently here, whose applications for asylum may have been turned down before circumstances escalated. Please can those cases be urgently reviewed rather than refused on out-of-date grounds? Finally, I urge the Government to do more to support refugees in the region, because we know more people will flee. We have a responsibility not to turn our backs. The situation may be bleak and the circumstances difficult, but we have a duty not to disengage.”
“People cannot wait for the resettlement scheme to be in place. Let me say something about that too. I welcome the Government’s commitment to a resettlement scheme. The Prime Minister confirmed to me earlier that the pledge to help 5,000 people this year is in addition to the commitment made in 2019 to resettle 5,000 people a year from across the world, not instead of it. That existing resettlement scheme is not fully reinstated after covid and it urgently needs to be, but the fact that that infrastructure, those systems and that funding are in place should make it possible for us very urgently to put in place an Afghan relocation scheme, and to accelerate and be more ambitious than the announcement that the Home Secretary made this morning.”
“My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. This is the kind of flexibility that the UK Government could adopt right now. We need such measures for those who have families at risk, but we also need urgently to review and broaden the scope of the relocation scheme. The Home Secretary said in interviews this morning that those who have worked for NGOs that delivered UK aid programmes would also be included. I say to the Foreign Secretary that that is not happening on the ground right now; it is not reflected in the guidance that the Government are operating at the moment or in the application process, and people are being turned down as we speak. People have been turned down this weekend, even though they are at risk and have worked on UK-funded programmes. I urge the Government urgently to look at the relocation scheme.”
“I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way. May I ask him specifically about the ARAP programme? Will he expand it to cover not just the British Council, but those working for UK aid agencies and UK contractors, and those who have worked for UK-funded programmes, who are also in fear for their lives, hiding from and being chased by the Taliban as we speak? Will he include them in the relocation programme, as Members from both sides of the House have called for?”
“I welcome the measures that the Minister has announced, and I welcome her personal commitment. The challenge is whether these measures match the scale of the problem and the scale of the huge response that she has had from women across the country. I, for one, do not want to wait 10 years for major changes to take place. Much of this feels very incremental—just limited pilots and evidence gathering. In the most awful cases of violence against women, we know that too often the perpetrator has committed previous offences of stalking or domestic abuse, or previous sexual offences. What will the Minister do to make sure that all police forces take much stronger action to identify those repeat perpetrators and intervene early so that lives can be saved?”
“Will the Home Secretary explain why the number of initial decisions—not appeals—made by the Home Office dropped by 27% between 2015 and 2019, before the pandemic started?”
“Does the right hon. Lady agree that part of the concern is about ensuring that the modern slavery provisions do not end up being drawn too tightly?”
“Those whose claims are unfounded will not be assessed or be returned, and those whose claims are justified and who need support will not be able to get on with their lives, to start working and rebuilding their lives here. Moreover, instead they will be waiting, dependent on the support of the Home Office, dependent on making the system more costly for the taxpayer. Rightly, the Government say that we should prevent dangerous routes, but the Government have cut the alternative safe legal routes. The resettlement scheme has been halted, with no commitment for how many people will be supported.”
“However, that is one of the things that troubles me about the debate and the approach Ministers are taking. I also think that the Bill is counterproductive. It is likely to attract more people into the UK asylum system and drive more people into the arms of criminal gangs. The caseload, the backlog, is not a reflection of an increase in applications. In fact, those have stayed at about 30,000 a year—with a drop recently, during the pandemic—but the number of initial decisions made dropped 27% between 2015 and before the pandemic. The Bill will make that worse, because there is no serious return agreement to replace the Dublin agreement for people who have travelled through a third country. Under the provisions of the Bill, asylum seekers who have travelled through third countries will have to wait in the system for six months.”
“I am grateful to be able to follow the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who has worked hard on this issue. There should be widespread agreement that the UK should do its bit to support those fleeing persecution and torture, that the system should be fair and not be undermined, that there should be a crackdown on the criminal gangs who exploit people’s misery and desperation, and that we should prevent the dangerous journeys across the channel in unsafe boats in which lives are put at risk. That includes encouraging asylum much earlier. In this House, we have debated many different ways to tackle those problems in a calm and common-sense way that avoids stoking division or promoting hostility against those who are most vulnerable, because we know where that leads.”
“We need France, Spain, Italy, Greece and countries across the world to work together, but for that we need to show proper international leadership and not undermine our reputation.”
“The Government floated a range of impossible proposals: sending asylum seekers to be processed on Ascension Island or disused oil platforms or, most recently, sending them to Rwanda. Of course those proposals are impossible, but it is deeply troubling that the Minister even thinks that it is okay for them to be floated and for him not to deny them. We heard from Australia about how its offshore processing simply did not work in the end. It stopped doing it in 2014 because there were too many humanitarian and practical problems and it was costing approximately 1 billion Australian dollars a year to accommodate just 350 people. This is not an answer. It is deeply shameful and undermines our international reputation.”
“Safe Passage, which works with young people in need of family reunion, said that last year, under the Dublin scheme, all the young people it worked with on family reunion went through the legal system; they did not try to go with people traffickers or people smugglers through a dangerous route. This year, however, under the new system, a quarter of the children and young people it has worked with had given up in frustration, sought to try illegal routes and ended up in the hands of people smugglers or people traffickers as a result. Those are the dangers that we face: if there are not safe legal routes for family reunion, we end up with more people driven into the hands of dangerous criminal gangs. Clause 26, on offshore processing, is perhaps most troubling of all.”
“Everybody understands the pressures of the coronavirus crisis, but what we need is a commitment to the number of places. The UK has been resettling approximately 5,000 a year over the past few years as a result of cross-party consensus to support Syrian refugees, but we have not yet heard a commitment. Will it be 5,000? Will it be 10,000? What will the support be from the Government to ensure that the resettlement scheme continues? The Dubs scheme has been cancelled, even though we know the need for support for those who are most vulnerable, and the Dublin family reunion system has not been replaced.”
“On the Instagram profiles of England heroes this lunch time, there are still racist posts, including blatantly racist words and emojis, that have been up for more than 24 hours. I have challenged Instagram on this from the Home Affairs Committee repeatedly over the last few days. It told me this morning that using some of those emojis as racist slurs is against its rules, yet inexplicably, they are still up, and it is still taking Instagram days to remove these posts. Speed matters. Can the Minister tell me what the Online Safety Bill is actually going to do to take action on this speed issue and to penalise companies for not moving fast enough? At the moment it looks as though that action will not happen. That is unacceptable. Keyboard cowards are being given a megaphone by these social media companies, and it has to stop.”