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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“The tragedy is that Laura Richards’s report lists case after case where that did not happen, where someone has been murdered and the killer had a history—the killer had abused many times before—and the police, probation services and others did not have a system in place to identify that and to respond. It has happened too many times. If Ministers will not listen to me and will not listen to the Select Committee when we make these recommendations, perhaps they will instead listen to the calls from the families of victims.”
“Nor is it good enough for the Government to simply say, “Well, there’s a lot of good work under way. We’ve got to respond to pilots.” We have already heard them say in response to the powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), on the need to address the issue of no recourse to public funds for migrant women, that we need to wait for pilots. In that case, it is not enough to respond to pilots. We should be taking some action while we wait for those pilots to conclude. Similarly, on serial domestic abusers, by all means let us have pilots and different measures in place on how best to respond to perpetrators, but let us get on with having the systems that can join up the information so that the police and probation can work together and know who those dangerous serial abusers are.”
“In response to the recommendation in our Home Affairs Committee report on this subject a few years ago, the Government said, “Well, we will work with the police and with existing information systems.” Those information systems are not working. The police national database is far too sporadic and patchy with regards to the way in which police officers respond to this issue across the country. The Government have said that they do not want a stand-alone register, but this does not have to be a stand-alone register. The whole point is to bring this into the existing MAPPA and violent and sex offender register—ViSOR—processes that are currently used for sex offenders and the most serious violent offenders. We have processes that can work. Why not use them for serial domestic abusers who can escalate that abuse?”
“As Laura Richards points out, “professionals load the victim up with actions and a safety plan and rarely do any multi-agency problem solving and risk management regarding the perpetrator.” New clause 32 calls on the Government properly to review the way in which serial abusers are monitored and managed, and to publish that review swiftly. New clause 33 sets out a stronger way to respond to serial abusers, by bringing them into the process for managing serious offenders—the multi-agency public protection arrangements, or MAPPAs—so that serial domestic abuse perpetrators and stalkers can be properly addressed. So far, the Government have resisted this.”
“We need to ensure that there are systems in place to join up the dots to link police, probation and support services together and to monitor people who have a series of previous domestic abuse or stalking convictions so that if they start a new relationship, the police and local services know that a new family are at risk and can take action. Too often, that does not happen. Clare’s law does not solve the problem because it relies on an individual asking about an offender’s history. What if they do not know to ask? What if they are too scared? Why is it still left to victims to ask for help, rather than having a proper system in place to monitor serial abusers and offenders?”
“There are systems in place, such as multi-agency risk assessment conferences, to manage the risks to repeat victims, but there are no proper systematic approaches in place to monitor or tackle repeat perpetrators. These are dangerous people—predominantly dangerous men—who may go on to become ever more dangerous. We need to make sure that when the call comes in about domestic abuse by someone who has been convicted before for abuse against someone else, it is not just treated as a new or one-off offence.”
“The importance of this Bill and these measures has only grown during the coronavirus crisis, as perpetrators have exploited lockdown to increase their control and abuse, and calls to helplines and concerns have increased. Since the beginning of lockdown, 35 women and children have been murdered by a partner or ex. I particularly want to speak to new clauses 32 and 33, which have cross-party support. I pay tribute to Laura Richards at Paladin who was behind a lot of this work, and encourage the Government to look at the report that she has published today which shows that there is a serious gap in the way our system responds to the risk from serial perpetrators of abuse.”
“May I begin by welcoming the work that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) has done on domestic abuse over many years, the personal interest that she has taken in the issue, and her work on coercive control and on getting this Bill started in the first place? I welcome the Bill and the amendments that the Government have tabled, particularly those around strengthening protections for children, strengthening protections in court and ending the appalling rough sex defence. I welcome the Government’s response to Members right across the House, who have been campaigning so powerfully for added measures and for changes to protect people from this awful crime—this torture in the home.”
“Although we may have come together and agreed legislation, legislation does not solve everything. This is not just about how legislation is used, but about how Government policies work, how partnerships work and how things happen right across the country. That humility should be even greater at this moment, because we have come together to say how important this legislation is at the same time that domestic abuse has been rising during the coronavirus crisis. It is to all those who are still suffering that we owe an ever greater commitment to help them and to rebuild their lives.”
“We have seen great progress as a result of cross-party working and the decisions that the Government have taken to put these measures into practice. We all owe thanks to the many organisations that work so tirelessly every single day to support domestic abuse victims right across the country and to rescue families, put lives back together and give people a future. I join the tributes to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield). Her words and her bravery in speaking out have already provided great comfort and growing confidence to many other people across the country who have experienced something similar. Her reaching out and saying “You are not alone” has been extremely powerful. We also need to think with some humility about what happens next.”
“In the last few minutes remaining, I want to thank the Government for bringing forward this important Bill and for listening. I thank Ministers and the Labour shadow Front-Bench Members, who have been such passionate advocates for improvements to the Bill. I also thank Members across the House who have tabled important amendments, proposals and reforms, and have very much come together in the kind of cross-party spirit that we would expect in dealing with such a terrible crime—a crime that destroys lives and haunts children’s futures for very many years to come. We have already come a long way since the Home Affairs Committee’s report on domestic abuse two years ago, and since I raised with the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), questions about having a domestic abuse commissioner back in—I think—2012.”
“Will the new politically appointed special envoy and National Security Adviser be responsible for the performance reviews of the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ? Does the Minister agree that nothing should be done to suggest any political interference in the crucial intelligence agencies that support our national interest?”
“Does my hon. Friend recognise that social care workers and NHS porters and cleaners—those who do some of the most important jobs on the covid frontline—have not been included in the free visa extension and, as a result, are also being pressured to pay the immigration surcharge? Does she agree that the free visa extension ought to be extended to cover the lowest-paid staff in the NHS and social care?”
“I welcome the work the Government have done to support Syrian families, to speed up the Dublin scheme and to support the Dubs scheme, as well as the recent flight from Greece. All that work resulted from cross-party debates in this House to which the Government rightly responded. We should not turn the clock back now or rip up that progress.”
“I support the points made by the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) and new clause 2, which was tabled by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), because we have a responsibility to ensure that children in care do not miss out on the European settlement scheme through no fault of their own, and that we do not end up with another Windrush generation because nobody was looking out for those young people and they missed out on their rights—just never got the right papers. I will speak to new clauses 29, 30 and 32, as well as other new clauses that I support. New clause 29 seeks only to continue the UK’s current commitments to help child refugees.”
“Again, those reflect recommendations of the cross-party Home Affairs Committee, because we have found that without a limit on detention and without proper reviews and safeguards, too often, the system just drifts. Too often, people are just left in limbo because there are not proper safeguards to make sure things happen in time.”
“I will also speak to new clause 32, which is about trying to make sure the system operates fairly, because by default, the Bill extends the hostile environment, even though the Windrush scandal has shown the damage that some of those measures can do. The housing provisions do not benefit the immigration system, but they do lead to discrimination for legal residents and British citizens, including discrimination based on the colour of their skin. That is why the Home Affairs Committee recommended a full review of the hostile environment and why Wendy Williams’s report has called for the same. Extending those hostile environment measures now, rather than accepting the recommendation of Wendy Williams’s report, is the wrong thing to do. I also support new clauses 7 and 8, tabled by right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis).”
“Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on the Front Bench—about supporting the contribution made by many of those workers during the covid crisis, I urge the Minister to accept the spirit behind one of the other clauses that we tabled which is not in scope today, but which urges the Government to extend the free visa extension to social care workers, as well as to the NHS, doctors and medics. Supporting doctors and nurses is right, but excluding the care workers who hold dying residents’ hands, the cleaners who scrub the door handles and the floors of the covid wards, or the porters who take patients to intensive care is just wrong. We should be supporting them as well.”
“Desperate young people have already lost their lives; we should not turn our backs on them now. We need to sustain those safe and legal routes. That is why I urge the Minister to support new clause 29. New clause 30 is intended to ensure that the new immigration system helps rather than harms our economy and public services by calling for a proper assessment of its impact on social care, similar to that in new clause 1, which I support. The Migration Advisory Committee said in its report that these changes will “increase pressure on social care”, yet so far there has been no plan from the Government for how they are going to address that. Social care and those workers are far too important to be ignored. That is why, as well as supporting new clauses 13 to 15—tabled by my hon.”
“Whatever other countries decide, we in Britain should continue our support for child and teen refugees who are alone and need support. Any Member of this House who has visited the camps in Greece or northern France will know how desperate, unsanitary and dangerous the conditions can be. No child should be abandoned alone in a dilapidated refugee camp or shelter when they have close relatives here who would welcome them with open arms, care for them, get them back into education and reclaim a future for them. Some child and teen refugees have fled war or escaped being child soldiers. Many have been abused, sexually exploited or assaulted, and many have lost family members along the way. Without safe legal routes to sanctuary, they will be easy prey to trafficking and smuggler gangs, and we know quite how perilous that can be.”
“There are no objective criteria on which an application could be based, no appeal rights and no safeguarding timetables to make sure that a case does not drift endlessly, leaving a child in danger and in limbo, and the child with no family will no longer have legal rights. Let us consider the case of a 14-year-old stuck in the awful Moria camp on Lesbos, whose older sister or aunt is living here and could care for them. If the Home Office loses, ignores or refuses the Greek request for a transfer to the UK to join family, there will be nothing the child, the family or anyone else can do. That is wrong. The Government do not need to wait for the negotiations to be completed. We should just decide what we think is right. We have the ability to do that.”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right. We are talking about children and teenagers who are alone, with no one to care for them, but who have family here who could look after them. The Government have said that we should instead rely on the draft text they have put forward in the transition negotiations. However, the Minister knows that the draft text represents a major downgrade in support and rights for lone child and teen refugees. All it does is allow EU member states to request the transfer of an asylum claim. There is no obligation on the UK even to consider it, never mind accept it.”
“I will not—I am conscious of time. The Government have a responsibility through this Bill to ensure that they build a system that can build consensus and cross-party support; that supports our economy and public services, and does not undermine that; that recognises and rewards the huge contribution that people have made to this country, including and especially during the covid-19 crisis; that is fair and respects people; and that continues to support those who are most vulnerable, particularly children and child refugees. The amendments that I and others have put forward are in that spirit of building a system that can provide consensus across the country. I urge the Minister to accept them.”
“Given that the Minister must have been asked about and consulted on those moves of people into hotel accommodation, why did he not consider providing additional financial support—otherwise it is withdrawn from people in hotel accommodation —that they could have used for things such as hand sanitation, additional food needs or basic provisions that they could not get?”
“We will debate those issues tomorrow. It is important that there are guarantees that young people can join family who are here and who can care for them, whatever reciprocal arrangements are in place. May I ask the Minister specifically about support for asylum accommodation? I join you, Mr Speaker, and Members across the House in sending our best wishes to those affected by the awful incident in Glasgow. The Home Affairs Committee has been told repeatedly of serious concerns about asylum seekers being left in hotel accommodation for long periods and about the rushed move of so many people into hotel accommodation in Glasgow during the crisis.”
“Lady accept that keeping people in hardship and waiting in limbo like this compounds the injustice that they have already felt? Will she tell the House how many cases have now received payments? What proportion are still outstanding? Is it true that that is still over 90%? How many people have been waiting more than a year? Will she increase the staffing of the compensation unit, so that we can urgently get people support and compensation for the injustice that was so wrongly meted to them?”
“May I warmly welcome the Home Secretary’s commitment to accept all of Wendy Williams’ recommendations, but also ask her about the compensation scheme, because she did not include the latest figures in her statement? She will know that in our Home Affairs Committee report on Windrush two years ago, we raised four personal cases of injustice. Sadly, two of them have since died without receiving anything at all. I have heard from several people who were told in January that their case was nearly finalised and was in quality assurance, but have seen no progress since, including Anthony Williams, who served in our armed forces for 13 years, and Andrew Bynoe, who was made homeless as a result of the Windrush scandal. Does the right hon.”
“Can she confirm that each of those will be included in the Government’s new counter-extremism strategy and tell us when she expects to publish that?”
“I join those from all parts of the House who have paid tribute to those who lost their lives in this awful attack and also to the emergency services, which responded so fast. Our thoughts will be with those who have lost loved ones, but also with everyone in the community in Reading, who will be dealing with the shock and trauma of this attack, as my hon. Friend for Reading East (Matt Rodda) so powerfully expressed. The Home Secretary will know that this is the most recent in a series of attacks by lone individuals, which are harder for the police and security services to anticipate. That emphasises the importance of tackling some of the vile extremism and radicalisation that can lead to attacks, including online, in the community and in prison.”
“We tried to make that pressure permanent 10 years ago by bringing in the Child Poverty Act 2010, which at that time had cross-party support, to keep the pressure up to end child poverty. However, that has been ditched by the Government, and instead we have seen things such as the two-child limit and the five-week wait for universal credit, which have caused so much damage. I would urge them to join in that cross-party spirit again to end child hunger and to end child poverty. It is morally wrong that, in the 21st century, any children should go hungry.”
“Our councillors and volunteers are the best of Britain, and part of the proud tradition in our towns of people rallying round when things are tough. It has been the best of Britain that we have seen in this phenomenal personal campaign from Marcus Rashford, but also from hundreds of thousands of people across the country joining the campaign to end holiday hunger. Today’s U-turn from the Government is welcome, but we need action all the time to stop child hunger and poverty, not just when there is a big campaign. Under the last Labour Government, in the run-up to every Budget—every Budget—we had a big debate on what should be done that year to tackle child poverty and to make progress.”
“We remember Jo Cox today. She would have been speaking with great passion in this debate. Since the coronavirus crisis began, St Mary’s in Pontefract has delivered food parcels to help nearly 250 children. Thank you to David Jones, Denise Pallett and all the volunteers. In Castleford, we have been delivering food parcels and kids activity packs, with great leadership from Kath Scott and Saney Ncube. We have talked to families where children are making do with snacks for lunch—something sweet and cheap to eat, because there is no food in the house. Paul Green and the volunteers at Kellingley club have been doing an amazing job supporting families in Knottingley. In Normanton, Michelle Newton, Ash Samuels and the Well Project have been helping families across the town.”
“I join the tributes to our police force and police officers, and also to PC Keith Palmer. The Home Secretary will be aware of the involvement of far-right extremist groups in organising this weekend’s appalling violence and the vile attacks on the police. There were people giving Nazi salutes and also people who have been involved in promoting vile racism and in extremism on and offline. The Government’s independent adviser on countering extremism recommended that the Home Secretary chair a new taskforce on countering hateful extremism. Has she set up that taskforce, and what action is it taking?”
“The problem, listening to the Education Secretary, is that he just does not convey any sense that the Government have a grip or a proper plan for the future. Let me ask him specifically: what support is he going to guarantee for the 16 to 18-year-olds, who feel particularly let down? They have lost their final term, when they might have been getting additional support to get an apprenticeship, a course or a place for the future. Currently, they are getting nothing. When will the guarantee for them be in place?”
“Is the Secretary of State aware of cases in respect of which he, the Home Secretary or others think that a TPIM should have been granted but could not be because the burden of proof was set at the wrong level?”
“I raised questions in 2011 about what that would mean for the small number of people who might still be extremely dangerous after two years and what provisions would be in place to ensure that the public were protected. Again, Ministers have now recognised that issue and are changing it back. In many ways, we have had an unnecessary 10 years of administrative going round in circles and changing the burdens on the Security Service and police forces, when we could have made more sensible amendments at the beginning to address those issues. It would be interesting to know whether Ministers now recognise that those changes were wrong and that we should not have made them in the first place.”
“The Government’s independent reviewer, Lord Anderson, recommended that relocation be reintroduced, which eventually happened in 2015. My second concern was about preventing the ability to constrain some communications for dangerous terror suspects. Again, many of those measures have been changed since, because the Government have recognised that some restrictions need to be in place for online or phone communications where there is significant evidence that someone poses a danger to the public. My third concern was about the two-year limit set for TPIMs. Control orders were set for a year but could be renewed. TPIMs were fixed at two years.”
“Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) about the decision made in 2011 to end control orders and replace them with TPIMs, rather than simply amending control orders to deal with some of the areas that needed improving. I thought it was wrong to make the decision to downgrade some of the powers in the TPIMs that were introduced. It is worth briefly addressing why, because it has an impact on the decisions that Ministers are making today. First, I thought it was wrong to remove the ability to relocate dangerous terror suspects and to remove any possibility of doing so, to remove them from dangerous networks. The consequence was that two people who were on TPIMs managed to abscond—something that had not happened in relocated cases.”
“TPIMs came in after control orders, which were introduced to deal with difficult situations where perhaps the evidence relating to dangerous terrorist suspects depended on intelligence that could not be dealt with in the same way through the courts. There were similar approaches in cases where someone had become so dangerous and still proved dangerous even after their sentence had been served. Those were very difficult circumstances that only applied to a minority of cases. Control orders were not perfect, and they were applied in those limited circumstances. Long-standing Members will know that I have spent almost a decade arguing with the right hon.”
“Many of the challenges relating to this legislation are the same ones that we have addressed and dealt with for many years—how to deal with people who have such warped ideology that they are determined to wreak huge destruction, including killing children; how to deal with people who have become so dangerously radicalised that they may be hard to address through traditional criminal justice system measures; and how to ensure that while we protect our national security, we also protect our democratic values and our freedoms and sustain justice, the rule of law and community cohesion. To do so, we need strong powers to tackle terrorism but also strong safeguards and strong checks and balances. I want to talk specifically about some of the Home Office measures in the Bill, particularly around TPIMs and the Prevent programme.”
“We face threats not just from Islamist extremism and terrorism, but from far-right extremism and terrorism, where the threats have grown in recent years. We have to always be vigilant, to ensure that those extremists and terrorists can never succeed in dividing our communities and undermining the democratic values for which we have fought for so long.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) , and he is right: this has been a thoughtful debate, often in a cross-party spirit. Terrorists want to destroy our way of life, divide our communities and undermine our democracy and our values, and we can never let them succeed. We rightly pay tribute across the House to those on the frontline, fighting terrorism, preventing and tackling attacks, in our police forces and security services, those in local government and communities who work so hard on prevention, and those in faith groups and our prisons. We remember, too, those who have lost their lives or who have lost loved ones to appalling terror attacks.”
“That is why I asked him specifically what the evidence was for changing the burden of proof and for not having safeguards in place at the two-year point as well. The Bill does not include any safeguards requiring judicial scrutiny after two years. That was a weakness in the original control orders as well: those sorts of independent safeguards were not in place, where they could be continued.”
“I do recognise that these are always difficult judgments, and I say this in a cross-party spirit. These are always difficult judgments and difficult cases to deal with. It is because I have spoken consistently about the importance of having strong powers that I say to Ministers now that it is hugely important to have strong safeguards and strong checks and balances. That is where I think Ministers are getting some of the provisions wrong in the Bill. They will know, with my record of arguing for those powers, that I say with the greatest sincerity to the Secretary of State that he is getting the judgments wrong on the kinds of safeguards that might be needed, because the flipside of those strong powers is having the checks and balances to make sure that they cannot be abused or misused.”
“We do not apply flexibility to proof, just as we do not apply it to truth.”
“In addition, no explanation has been given about the burden of proof. I asked the Secretary of State to tell me, hand on heart, whether he knew of cases—I do not ask for the detail—where he believe the wrong decision had been made not to put somebody on a TPIM because of the burden of proof, and he was not able to do so. I am therefore really concerned that there is not the evidence to justify lowering the burden of proof in this way. He referred to the idea that we somehow need greater “flexibility”. I hope he will reconsider his use of that word, because the powers are flexible; they can be used to apply to all sorts of different circumstances and different kinds of threats that an individual might pose. He should not use the word “flexibility” to apply to the burden of proof.”
“There is when the TPIMs are first set out—the hon. Gentleman is right about that. My argument about the control orders at the beginning, where I thought they should have been amended back in 2011, was for introducing stronger safeguards. I have always believed that we need stronger safeguards in place, but the Bill does not include any safeguards for judicial scrutiny after two years if these measures are going to be extended—if they are going to be for longer. The independent reviewer, Jonathan Hall, has suggested a solution would be to require the Secretary of State to seek the court’s permission for any extension beyond two years, in the same way that she currently does when a TPIM is first made. That would seem to be a sensible additional safeguard to put in if those TPIMs are to be extended.”
“Finally, we should also be looking at deradicalisation more widely, both as part of the Prevent programme and in our prisons, as well as at how we can do more to prevent extremism and radicalisation, and at how to turn people back towards a better course once things have gone wrong.”
“It is clear that we still have no reviewer in place for the Prevent programme, so they will obviously not complete the review by August, but that in itself is a huge disappointment. The timetable has been extended again, as has the application process. There is no deadline at all, and it is immensely important that the review is not just chucked into the long grass. Will the Minister include an alternative date? A date was included for a good reason, after debates about previous legislation, to ensure that the review happened. A programme that is so important, and has had different questions about it raised, should be effectively reviewed to see how it should work.”
“Initially he argued for increasing the burden of proof, and he has said that the Home Secretary should at least have to “believe” someone is a terrorist, not just “suspect” it. That is the important criterion if these powers are to be used. I urge the Government to rethink these safeguards. If we are to have these strong powers to keep us all safe, prevent terrorist attacks, and protect us from people who may be immensely dangerous, we should also ensure the right kinds of safeguards to make sure that those powers are not misused, abused, or used in the wrong cases. On the Government’s Prevent programme and the review of it, I am disappointed that there is now no date in the Bill—it has been removed altogether.”