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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“Four out of 10 older people say that the TV is their main source of company, yet as a result of Government decisions, millions of older pensioners are about to lose their free TV licences. The Budget is the last opportunity for the Chancellor to step in and overturn this unfair policy. Will the Secretary of State urge him to do so?”
“The Health Secretary will know that many people are caring for elderly relatives, sometimes just popping in every day to make sure they are fed or to get them up in the morning. If those people end up having to self- isolate or getting ill, what support will there be for them —they may not be getting any sick pay—and for the elderly relatives who depend on some urgent support and may not have any other relatives nearby to provide it?”
“Sir Philip Rutnam’s statement said that he received allegations about the Home Secretary’s behaviour from other civil servants. Will the Minister say how many allegations there have been, from both within and without the Home Office, and will every one be investigated as part of this inquiry?”
“The Home Secretary has said that she wants the new visa scheme to be in place from January 2021. The policy document also says that the deadline for the EU settlement scheme for EU citizens already living here is June 2021, and that until then employers will only be expected to and allowed to check whether someone has an EU passport. Will she therefore confirm that the Home Office does not intend to enforce the new scheme through or with employers for the first six months? If it does intend to enforce it, what is she expecting employers to check?”
“It is right that we do so in these circumstances, but the Government must recognise that it is not ideal to rush through legislation breathlessly. To be honest, there have been many warnings that such an issue was coming down the track, because the Government have known about the problem for some time. The Home Affairs Committee took evidence from Neil Basu in October 2018 during its consideration of what became the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, and he told us: “The point that some of our radicalisers are getting short sentences, coming out early, and being able to continue is a problem, as is not having sufficient resources in place to use desistence or disengagement programmes.””
“Friend the shadow Minister that we must ensure that we keep our communities safe and do what is right while defending the British values of the rule of law and supporting the European convention on human rights—all the very things that terrorists try to undermine and threaten. I also accept the need for emergency legislation and accept the Government’s warnings that they, the police and security services are concerned about other individuals who might otherwise be released without parole assessment and who they believe are a danger to the public and should not be released early without any kind of assessment. However, it is right to raise a concern that it is not ideal to be making this kind of legislation in a day.”
“However, if licence terms are breached, people can be returned to prison to continue their sentence in custody, so that concept of risk is built into the criminal justice system, the system of custody and the system of sentencing. That is why it is right that the Parole Board should be able to assess the risk in such cases, just as they do in many other cases. It is sensible and proportionate. I have already said to Ministers that it is important that this legislation is drawn up in a way that is robust against legal challenge, particularly to ensure that Parole Board assessments can take place. I agree with both the Lord Chancellor and my hon.”
“The seriousness of terror events and the dangers of radicalisation mean that the police often rightly intervene before an appalling attack takes place and charge people with preparatory offences, but in some of those cases the police, the security services, the courts and the Prison and Probation Service are all aware that they are dealing with people who are capable of something even more serious. People have raised concerns about applying these new rules to those currently serving their sentences, and I accept the Government’s legal advice on the fact that the proposal does not change the length of sentences. We have always had administrative rules about the way in which sentences are served. For example, people are out on licence for the bit of the sentence that is served in the community.”
“So it is a sign of our strength and resilience as a country that most people have always been determined to come together in the face of such extremism and attacks and not to let them divide us. The Streatham attack highlights a problem. The police, the courts, the security services, the prisons, the rehabilitation and prevention services and the affected communities all need our support and also Government support to keep communities safe. That is why this Bill is justified and needed. When someone has been convicted of terrorism and they are still dangerous to the public, they should not be released early from prison. Before they are released, they must be subjected to a proper Parole Board assessment of whether they still pose a threat.”
“Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) that we should come together on this, because terrorists seek to undermine our way of life and to divide us, and we cannot let them so do. We have faced terrorist and extremist attacks for many years in this country. We have seen an increase in Islamist extremism and, more recently, an increase in far right extremism. The changing patterns of those threats include an increase in lone attacks by those who have been radicalised, either online or in prison. In those attacks, by extremists on all sides in pursuit of poisonous ideologies, people are hoping not just to hurt and harm us but to provoke fear and reactions that they can further feed upon.”
“In the past few months, we have seen two awful terror attacks—one on London Bridge and one in Streatham—and our hearts go out to those who were killed or hurt, and also to their families and to those who were there and witnessed the awful events. We owe our thanks and tributes to brave members of the public as well as to the police, the security services and the emergency services, and to those such as Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones, who worked so hard on the rehabilitation of offenders in the community, and who worked every day to help keep others safe. They tragically lost their lives in the London Bridge attack. I agree with the Lord Chancellor and with my hon.”
“I should like to start by congratulating the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) on his thoughtful and beautiful speech. To give his maiden speech in that spirit shows the way in which he will work hard for his constituents to tell the stories not just of the two towns he represents but of the people within the towns, and also of the search for meaning and the search for purpose in politics. I really must congratulate him on making such a poignant and powerful maiden speech. I rise to support this legislation. The purpose behind the Bill is the right one. It is to ensure that those convicted of terrorist offences are not released early without a Parole Board assessment of whether they still pose a danger to the public.”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right. There is a danger that we are simply reacting to this situation in a hand-to-mouth way, rather than in a more strategic way that recognises some of the underlying issues that need to be dealt with over a long time. We may need further legislation, but that should be done in a thoughtful way, with proper scrutiny, not left until the last minute and, as a result, done in a breathless rush.”
“It is also imperative on us all to work further across parties to address some of the deeper, longer-term problems, on which the Government need to do more. I hope we will be able to work across parties on addressing those longer-term challenges so that we can do a better job of keeping us safe.”
“We all have a shared interest in ensuring that extremists and terrorists are not able to threaten our way of life, to put people’s lives at risk or to threaten our communities and our democracy. There has often been cross-party consensus on the need to take a sensible approach to ensuring we protect both people’s safety and the values that terrorists challenge—the values of the rule of law and our democratic institutions. We need to challenge their ideology and work ever harder to make sure the systems that are supposed to address this can properly do so. It is therefore not a surprise that we have cross-party consensus in support of the Bill today. This is a sensible and proportionate response to keep people safe and to address a genuine problem to which the criminal system has to adjust and adapt.”
“I do not doubt the huge commitment and hard work of many people across our prison system to try to tackle radicalisation and extremism. However, the evidence we have seen from the outside is that the system simply is not working. It is not enough for the Lord Chancellor simply to give us his word that things have improved if there is no proper system of oversight or checks and balances to ensure that progress is being made. I urge the Lord Chancellor and the Minister to talk to the Justice Committee about what more can be done to ensure proper oversight so that we can be sure we are making progress on what is happening both inside and outside prisons.”
“These are cases not where deradicalisation fails but where, in fact, there is greater radicalisation. Non-radicalised people who go into prison end up being converted not just to Islam but to extreme perversions of the religion that are, in fact, an ideology, not a religion. A Wigan man was convicted of far-right extremism, but the judge concluded that this person would be vulnerable to further radicalisation and chose not to give him a prison sentence on that basis. We are in a very uneasy situation if our courts are reluctant to give prison sentences because they fear greater radicalisation. The prison system, which is supposed to be keeping us and our communities safe from extremism and terrorist threats, may instead be contributing to the problem and, in some cases, making matters worse.”
“He said that frontline prison staff were ill-equipped to handle the situation, prison imams did not possess the tools or the will to tackle extreme ideology, the intelligence gathering system was not working, and there were serious problems of lack of leadership and management and a lack of end-to-end systems. He concluded by saying that, frankly, the prisons are struggling to cope. I heard what the Lord Chancellor said about things having moved on, but there is a problem in that we cannot judge whether that is right because the Government have refused to publish the entire Acheson report. I understand that there are sensitivities around radicalisation, but even Ian Acheson is not able to say, “Yes, all the problems are being addressed.” There are continual reports of people being further radicalised in prison.”
“Academics point out that some prisoners who are willing to go on deradicalisation programmes wait so long to get on them that they are released before they are able to do so. There are, of course, concerns about the effectiveness of the assessment of deradicalisation programmes, the interaction between programmes that may work in the community but not in prison and the best way to do this. Nobody should ever pretend that this is easy or that there is a magical response to solve the problems. However, there are real worries that we are not doing everything we could in prisons. The concerns raised by Ian Acheson, who conducted an independent review of Islamist extremism in the Prison and Probation Service, are really serious.”
“The Minister will know that I opposed the removal of control orders, and we have had debates about the decision to end rather than just to reform IPPs. However, in their absence, the question for the Government is whether the existing arrangements with TPIMs, for example, are sufficient to address the circumstances for individuals coming out at the end of their sentence, having served the full sentence in custody, with no licence conditions attached. Do the Government have plans to address those individuals should they still prove to be a danger? There is also a massive problem with what is happening in our prisons. The Chair of the Justice Committee has already raised this, but we do not yet have effective enough deradicalisation programmes in prison. Former public prosecutors have warned that they have been underfunded.”
“When the Parole Board decides that somebody still poses a serious risk, that person will still, however, have served their time after, say, another couple of years. If they still pose a threat to the public at that point, we still will not have addressed the heart of the problem. The former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Anderson, pointed out that if they are sufficiently dangerous to end up serving their whole sentence in custody, they will not have any further licensing conditions attached at the end of their sentence, nor will they be subject to further supervision. In the past, we had control orders and imprisonment for public protection sentences to address such circumstances.”
“What happens before a terrorist incident happens and what happens afterwards—whether that be in prison or probation or in assessment—need to be properly integrated, and the expertise in different parts of the system needs to be pulled together and effectively co-ordinated. We have known for some time that Sudesh Amman was due to be released this January, for example, so we need a more effective system to anticipate the challenges, because there have been previous opportunities to change the legislation. We also need to address what happens at the end of the sentence, because my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) is right to describe this legislation as a sticking plaster if we do not look more widely.”
“I completely agree. Having a link between Prevent programmes and the MAPPA process is extremely important. There is a question here for the Government about how the MAPPA review and the Prevent review are going to link together. The problem is that we do not have a chair in place for the Prevent review, and I am unsure of the Government’s plans for the timetable for the two different reviews. It might be helpful, in fact, if the Minister were able to say something in his winding-up speech about how the two reviews will interact and how the Prevent review will be put back on track with somebody in place.”
“May I therefore ask the Home Secretary to condemn these threats in the strongest terms, to look into her party’s response, and also to show leadership by urging all political parties to come together and draw up a new joint code of conduct against intimidation? Violent threats must have no place in politics in all parties.”
“The national chair’s letter to me in response to the issue said nothing stronger than “intimidating behaviour has no place in our politics.” I am also disappointed that the neighbouring Member of Parliament chose to give a very positive character reference for that individual, without contacting me first. I have raised that with her directly, but I know that she was unable to be in the Chamber today. I am still concerned about the fact that although I raised this case with senior members of the national party, the individual was still able to be at the general election count after he had been summonsed.”
“On Friday the deputy chair of the local Conservative association was jailed for nine weeks for menacing communications, including these threats against me: “I am already organising her to be hurt. Amazing what crackheads will do for £100. I’m gonna get her beat up.” The chair of the local association wrote to me today expressing regrets and apologies for what he describes as the grave and unacceptable actions of its member, who has since been expelled. I welcome that letter and that support, but it concerns me that, thus far, no similar condemnation or sense of regret has been expressed by the national party.”
“Will the Minister provide the House with some facts, in particular the individual sentences and the offences of those on the flight; the age at which they came to this country; and whether any of them were affected by the lack of mobile phone coverage, which the Home Office recognises was an issue?”
“I have been contacted about someone today who is currently homeless and still struggling to get any support at all. Will she look at these cases urgently to see what hardship support can be given?”
“The Home Secretary is being generous in giving way. I welcome the extension for applications to the scheme, but the Home Secretary will be aware that, nearly two years ago, the Select Committee on Home Affairs also recommended a hardship scheme. We were concerned that, in practice, this compensation scheme would take too long for many people who are in urgent need of compensation and some sort of support following these shocking injustices. Our report mentioned four people: Anthony Bryan, Sarah O’Connor, Hubert Howard and Judy Griffith. Shockingly, two of them have still had nothing, despite facing great hardship, and the other two died before they could get any compensation or hardship support at all. Will the Home Secretary urgently consider a hardship scheme, as well as a compensation scheme, because this affects too many people?”
“I join the Lord Chancellor in his tribute to the Security Service and the police, who work so hard on this issue. He is right to address the concerns relating to sentencing and parole, to ensure that dangerous terrorists and extremists who continue to pose a risk to the public are not released early, but he will know that the problem is not solved if it is just deferred to the end of the sentence. He will know that there have been considerable warnings about these risks, and that Ian Acheson has expressed considerable concern that the recommendations in his review have not been fully implemented. What is the Lord Chancellor’s assessment of the 69 recommendations that Ian Acheson made, and how many of them have been implemented?”
“From Castlefield to Castleford. In West Yorkshire we are grateful that the Government have finally sacked Northern Rail, but we do need investment in our northern infrastructure as well. Will the Minister push for the Department’s plans to include definitive plans for tackling disabled access? I have been raising for a long time the serious lack of disabled access at Pontefract Monkhill and Knottingley. It causes huge problems for parents with buggies, as well as for those in wheelchairs, and they cannot even get on the delayed or cancelled trains.”
“I welcome the debate, because the Home Affairs Committee did a great deal of work on these issues in the last Parliament. I am sorry not to be able to speak in it, but it is my daughter’s parents evening later. I know that Front Benchers on both sides will understand. I want to ask the Minister about the drop in the number and proportion of cases that are reaching charge and summons. Is he as concerned as I am about the drop in justice, and the drop in the number of crimes being solved?”
“Counter-terror police across the country do great and incredibly important work to keep us safe, but that is why this guidance was such a problem: we cannot afford confidence in their work being undermined. When did the Home Office see this guidance, and has the Minister asked to see all similar guidance from all police forces across the country, to ensure that no other counter-terror groups are making the same mistake?”
“The Secretary of State has still given no reason. Why take the provision out of the 2018 Act? It is in previous legislation. There are loads of things in legislation through the decades that the Government say they disagree with, but amendments are not needed because they have said they disagree, and they do not remove those things from the statute book. That is what makes us suspect that he wants to remove it, because for some reason he thinks that it will restrict what he wants to do, and in the end, therefore, he will betray the commitments that have been made to the most vulnerable children. If not, he should keep the provision in the Act.”
“In the last Parliament, the Home Affairs Committee produced a report calling for a declaratory system and also a physical document. It is possible to have a declaratory system that protects rights, but also to ensure an incentive for people to apply and get the document. If all of us in this House were suddenly told that our rights to get healthcare, rent a house or get a job depended on the workings of a Home Office computer system, we would have no confidence in it. That is why people want to know that there is a permanent document. I urge the Secretary of State to think again, because this will go wrong, and also just to accept the Dubs amendment. Do not put at risk or cast any doubt on this country’s commitment to child refugees.”
“I spoke to the previous Secretary of State to ask for Knottingley in my constituency to be included in the towns fund, because the high street is under great pressure and has been heavily hit by public service cuts and Government spending cuts in the last few years. We have lost not only the last bank and local shops, but the sports centre, the library, the Sure Start centre, much policing and local youth services. Knottingley has not been included and, frankly, that means that it is not getting a fair deal. Will the Minister ask the Secretary of State to meet me and see what can be done to make sure that Government investment can go back into Knottingley town centre and that we can get a fair deal for the town?”
“Does the hon. and learned Lady also find it troubling that the Government have chosen to remove the obligations in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 that everyone had accepted? They had been supported by Government Ministers and by this House as a sensible objective to negotiate an agreement to ensure that some of those vulnerable children could be reunited with their families. It was the most innocuous element of that Act, and it is therefore inexplicable that Government Ministers should suddenly decide that they want to take it away.”
“Our July Select Committee report warned that county lines were spreading violence and drug networks into not just cities but towns. In Castleford, in my constituency, where I called a meeting with the police, local schools and community representatives, there is a real sense that the problem is getting worse in our towns, with residents reporting overt drug dealing on the streets and in town centres. People are concerned not just about the halving of our neighbourhood police, but about the fact that the youth endowment fund that the Minister has announced is tiny by comparison with the cuts in the youth service. Does he accept that there is a real perception across the country that the Government’s drug strategy simply is not working, and that unless they invest in the youth service as well, they will not turn this problem around?”
“The Home Secretary will be aware of the disturbing news that children were found in another refrigerated lorry yesterday, this time at Calais. They were reportedly already suffering from mild hypothermia and were, luckily, found before it was too late. The refrigerated lorries are particularly dangerous and make this such an appalling crime. Will the Home Secretary say whether it is correct that hardly any checks of refrigerated lorries are taking place at the moment at Zeebrugge, and that at Purfleet 24/7 checks are still not taking place? She still has not explained what work is being done with Europol’s European Migrant Smuggling Centre. Is she working with that centre, and does she agree that we should continue to participate in it after December 2020?”
“The head of Border Force told the Home Affairs Committee yesterday that there would be checks and said that it is yet to be worked out in detail who would do them between Britain and Northern Ireland. A memorandum from the Home Secretary that we have published this morning rules out checks from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, but accepts that there is going to be a process from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. However, does the Secretary of State not accept that fudging the language on this is a serious problem when trust is needed? Will he clarify that enforcement will be needed if there is a process and, therefore, when he says “minimal targeted interventions”, that includes physical checks?”
“I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. It is really unbearable to imagine people losing their lives in this awful way. Although we obviously cannot pre-empt the investigation, she is right to say that people trafficking is one of the most vile crimes there is. People are profiting from putting other people’s lives at risk and from other people’s desperation. Will she tell the House what engagement has taken place with the Irish police, the Bulgarian police and the European Migrant Smuggling Centre to make sure that there is full international co-operation on this awful crime and that more lives are not put at risk?”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. As the Chair of the Liaison Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), has said, this is now the third time, and the purpose of the Liaison Committee is to take more detailed evidence and scrutinise the Prime Minister in a more detailed way. The Prime Minister has said that he does not want to come now until five or six months after his initial appointment; that means in December or January. At such a time when there are so many important decisions to be made for the country, surely it is utterly irresponsible for the Prime Minister to refuse to answer detailed scrutiny questions from the Committee, and if he has done this three times before, how on earth can we have any confidence in a December or January date either?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Home Affairs Committee was due to take evidence from the Home Secretary tomorrow afternoon. I have been trying to speak to the Home Secretary today, because she has now informed the Committee that she does not want to give evidence tomorrow. We have offered to change the timing of the sitting to tomorrow morning—”
“I can see the Home Secretary nodding; I hope she can now agree to give evidence tomorrow morning, because we have been seeking to get this session in the diary since the beginning of August.”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I would be grateful if the Home Secretary confirmed that she is able to attend, because the sitting was due to be on preparations for Brexit.”
“It is deeply disappointing that the Government seem to be moving away from a Brexit deal with a customs union, rather than towards one, as that idea lost by only three votes in Parliament in the spring and is something that many Opposition Members have argued for. Fundamentally, we have to make a choice about what kind of trading nation we wanted to be: do we want our closest trading relationships to be with our nearest neighbours, through a customs union approach, and built on safeguards, standards and workers’ rights, or do we instead, as the Government seem now to argue, want the price to be deregulation and an opening up of markets to the biggest global corporations, risking cuts in environmental standards and prioritising a deal with Trump’s America?”
“I welcome the cross-party consensus around stronger action on climate change, but action there does need to be, including in the Environment Bill. In 2006, as Labour’s Housing Minister, I put forward a 10-year plan for zero-carbon homes by 2016, including a regulatory timetable, that was backed by the housing industry and environmental groups, but sadly it was ditched in 2013. We still need that stronger action to cut emissions from new and existing homes as part of our action on climate change. I want to talk about the importance of public transport as part of our action to cut carbon emissions and the desperate need for more support for public transport in our towns, which was missing from the Government’s agenda, but first I want to make a point about the Government’s Brexit plans.”
“The numbers of new jobs are growing twice as fast in the cities as in the towns, and as our town centres have shown, foreign direct investment in the cities is accelerating and our towns are not getting a fair deal. The Government’s stronger towns fund is still a top-down approach and only reaches a certain number of towns. Areas still have to bid and most towns still lose out. We need a proper industrial strategy for our towns, which is why the Labour party’s approach of more investment in our towns, listening to towns and putting power back in towns is so important. We need towns to be at the top of the list, not the bottom, so that they can get our fair share of funding. We need public services back in our towns with a proper guarantee. We need a fair deal for Britain’s towns.”
“We have lost libraries, sports centres, magistrates courts, police stations, fire stations, hospital services, maternity units, swimming pools, Sure Starts, jobcentres and council services, as so many of these services have shrunk back into the cities. We are supposed to travel to the nearest cities instead, but the public transport is not there, because bus services have been cut and the trains are inadequate. Private sector investment, always pursuing economies of scale, is pulling in the same direction. Banks, ATMs and post offices in our towns have closed. The big cities and shopping centres may still be able to compete with Amazon, but our smaller town centres are struggling with business rates and parking charges, and having their heart taken out.”
“We had the awful situation of a constituent in a wheelchair having to crawl over a bridge because the Government, despite our requests, refused to fund the basic disabled access. Moreover, we still have rubbish Pacer trains and no proper plan for transport in our towns. That compounds the wider problem of the growing gap between our cities and towns. Our towns, which have strong communities, are great places to live and are proud of their history, are getting an unfair deal, and Tory austerity has hit them harder. As public services budgets have been cut, many public services providers have pulled services out of towns altogether.”