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 idea is that all the customs forms would be filled in online, customs checks would be carried out at the trader’s own premises rather than at the border, and there would be cameras and automated number plate recognition. An extreme version of that was proposed by the Financial Secretary, who compared it with the congestion charge between the Islington and Camden borders. Let me be clear: I think we could do a great deal more with new technology at our borders. In the interests of trade, we should be improving the technology, and the use of technology, at our borders and at borders throughout Europe and the world. However, there is still a limit to how far we can go. First, it will take a long time and a lot of investment to roll out many elements of the technology.”
“So far the Government have put forward two alternatives: a customs partnership and “max fac”, which seems to be the latest name for a streamlined arrangement described as “maximum facilitation”. The customs partnership—to be honest, I had to struggle to get my head around it—seems to involve our collecting EU tariffs at the border, tracking products, and then paying some of the money to the EU. I understand that both the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and Brussels have agreed that it is unworkable. It is quite a triumph for the Government to have come up with a proposal whose unworkability has managed to unite Brussels and the Brexit Secretary and those whom he defends. The alternative is speeded-up customs arrangements at the border.”
“May I make some progress first? Three specific objections to a customs union tend to be presented. First, people say that we do not need a customs union because there are alternatives, usually based on new technology. Secondly, they argue that we will be better off outside the customs union, and that being outside is a price worth paying for the benefits that we will enjoy as a result. Thirdly, they make an emotional appeal, claiming that it is somehow at the heart of our sovereignty or the Brexit vote. I disagree with all three counter-arguments, and I will deal with each of them briefly. Let me deal first with the claim that a customs union is not needed and we can solve everything with new technology instead.”
“That, I understand, is why everyone, including the Government, has concluded that cameras at the Northern Ireland border are not a sensible solution and should not be part of our approach.”
“The hon. Lady is right. It raises huge questions about the rule of law, about how the system would be enforced, and about how it could operate in a sensible and fair way without being opened up to challenge from other areas. Crucially, the technology approach relies on cameras. I have no doubt that part of the response at Dover will be the introduction of new automated number plate recognition and other such mechanisms. As I said to the Prime Minister before Christmas, cameras are infrastructure. If we add a whole load of cameras to the Northern Ireland border, we will still be creating the infrastructure and—crucially—the targets that the police fear will become a focus for dissident groups who want to disrupt the peace process.”
“The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the concern relates to what happens around the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and the introduction of new infrastructure at that border, especially such symbolic infrastructure, and especially anything that would increase the sense of there being targets for dissident organisations. We do not want them to become more active and have more to focus on.”
“It is significant that the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee concluded last month that there were no technical solutions anywhere in the world “beyond the aspirational” that would remove the need for physical infrastructure at the border.”
“The problem is that the evidence—the Government’s own EU exit analysis, and the findings of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research—shows that the potential benefits of new trade treaties with far-flung countries, even if they could be created quickly, will still be outweighed by the losses resulting from the rules of origin checks and the friction at the border.”
“It would not remove the bureaucratic burdens that would be imposed on manufacturing businesses every time they changed ingredients or components, because those ingredients and components will be subject to different external tariffs if we are outside a customs union, and the businesses will then have to account for their origins. That is why even new technology, however fabulous and whizzy it becomes in the years ahead, cannot solve the wider problem of what will happen if we have no customs union. The second argument advanced by those who object to the customs union is that being outside will be worth it, because the benefits of not having a common external tariff and being able to have our own new trade agreements are somehow better than the benefits of being in the customs union.”
“I completely agree; I think that that is immensely important. It brings me back to what I said about our sense of responsibility. It is no good our pretending to be in a parallel universe when all the things that we might want to be true simply are not. We must face up to the world as it is, and to our responsibility and the consequences of any decisions that we make in the House for a process to build peace that has been going on for so many years. We are only the custodians of that process, and we must not be the ones who put it in jeopardy. Another crucial point is that even if all that technology were possible—even if it were possible to solve all those problems at the border—it would not remove the need for rules of origin checks if we were not party to the common external tariff.”
“Research by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research shows that the overall trade increase from possible future agreements with the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand would amount to less than 3% of our current trade. Are we really going to rip up all the benefits of what we have in a customs union for the sake of a 3% increase that will not be sufficient to balance what we will lose?”
“If the price of a US trade deal is lower environmental standards or giving US private healthcare companies access to, and the right to aggressively compete for, contracts in our NHS, many of us will want nothing at all to do with that. The truth is that any trade agreement will be complicated to agree in this place, never mind with countries across the world. Moreover, as the CBI has pointed out, we can increase our international trade—and our EU trade—while still in a customs union with the EU and without having to spend years negotiating complex new treaties. As the CBI points out, Germany currently sells four times as much as we do to China. We should be trying to make the most of those opportunities.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right. Other Members will have more evidence and experience than I when it comes to all the detailed arguments, but if we are a smaller market offering to trade, we will be in a weaker position to get a good deal than if we are part of a larger argument in that trade negotiation. Trade deals can take a long time, regardless of the best intentions. There can also be winners and losers, which means that even in this country it may take us a long time to agree on whether new trade agreements are right or wrong. For example, consumers might want to enjoy more and cheaper New Zealand lamb, but Welsh farmers might take a different view. Industry might be able to get cheaper Chinese steel, but what about the consequences for the British steel industry?”
“I find that argument illogical as well as inaccurate because, as the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) said, any trade treaty involves signing away some sovereignty. Any kind of trade agreement involves legally binding conclusions and an independent dispute resolution procedure, and once the state has signed up to such an agreement, it might not be able to stop, for example, a US company taking contracts with the NHS or whatever we might have signed away as part of it. Nobody wants to defend a principle of sovereignty whereby we never do any trade agreements with anybody or sign anything away. We should not do that because it would prevent us from getting a good deal with Europe that would help our manufacturing industry.”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right. This is affecting businesses all over the country. I want to make one final point. I have taken a lot of interventions because I know that many Members will not get the chance to speak later and they want to give their views. I am conscious, however, of the time. Time is running out in the negotiations and the clock is even sharper today. The final reason given by those who object to a customs union is that it is a point of principle. They say that it is about our sovereignty and that that was at the heart of the Brexit vote. Even if it is bad for us, it is a point of principle that we should be able to set our own tariffs and sign our own trade deals, and that is somehow at the heart of the taking back control that Britain voted for.”
“Not for me the kind of country where the only thing that matters is a sign on the door that says, “We do our own trade deals.” Instead, I want a country that supports our manufacturing industry and communities and our historic obligations for peace on the island of Ireland. That is why I support a customs union.”
“I will not, because I am conscious of time. We did not do this simply to create a new Department for trade and give certain hon. Members a sign on the door. We did not have the debate so that the only thing we would gain was a label of sovereignty or trade. This has to be about what really happens in communities across the country. I have not heard anyone who voted to leave say that they wanted to hit our manufacturing industry at any cost. I have heard from leave voters, as well as remain voters, who support getting a good manufacturing deal, the Northern Ireland peace process and a customs deal. This is about the kind of country we want to be.”
“Resolved , That this House notes that the EU is the UK’s largest export market for goods, accounting for a total of £145bn of exports and £241bn of imports in 2016; further notes the Government’s expressed aim to secure the freest and most frictionless possible trade in goods between the UK and the EU after 29 March 2019; notes the importance of frictionless trade without tariffs, customs or border checks for manufacturers and businesses across the country who trade with the EU; further notes that the free circulation of goods on the island of Ireland is a consequence of the UK’s and Republic of Ireland’s membership of the EU Customs Union; in addition notes the Government’s commitment to (i), in the UK-EU joint report on progress during phase 1 of the Article 50 negotiations, the maintenance of North-South cooperation and the all-island economy on the island of Ireland, (ii) the Belfast Agreement implemented in the Northern Ireland Act 1998 remaining a fundamental principle of public policy and (iii) the continuation of unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the whole of the UK internal market; and therefore calls on the Government to include as an objective in negotiations on the future relationship between the UK and the EU the establishment of an effective customs union between the two territories.”
“This is about the future of our whole country, the future of our prosperity, the future of our manufacturing industry and whether we have peace within our borders and across our borders. It is immensely important for our entire future, and too important to be simply left to a massive row and crisis afterwards, when it is too late. The Minister knows, and the Government know, that time is running out. It is time for the Government to stop running away. Let us have this debate; let us support a customs union. Question put and agreed to.”
“This has been an excellent debate. We have had substantial speeches drawing on huge evidence and experience from across the country and from so many Select Committees, but what the Minister—he did the best he could—delivered in response was not up to the debate. He had lines to take, the words on the page, but in the end there is no meaning behind them, no evidence that underpins them and no future that we can build on them. In the end, I think in his heart he knows that. That is why I urge the Government to bring forward a proper debate on legislation, on amendments. Give the House the opportunity to steer the objectives of the negotiations before it is too late.”
“I was not going to raise this, but the Prime Minister quoted me. Let me say this to the Prime Minister: do not try to hide behind me or the Labour party when she was warned repeatedly of the damage that her obsession with her migration target was doing. Do not try to hide behind the Cabinet when they do not agree with her on this and are trying to clear up the mess, and do not try to hide behind civil servants— [ Interruption. ]”
“Do not try to hide behind civil servants when she set the policies and instilled in them the culture of hostility, and when the high commissioners told us this morning that they had warned the Foreign Office about the Windrush generation immigration problem in 2016. What did she do? Because a few years ago the Prime Minister said: “I’m actually sick and tired of government ministers…who simply blame other people when something goes wrong”. What has changed?”
“There is a real and widespread concern that there is a culture of disbelief in the Home Office and that changes to the burden of proof have been created by the Government’s net migration target and the desire to get as many people to leave as possible. Will she remove all of that concern by saying now that she will get rid of the net migration target, as the Select Committee has advised?”
“Of course the Home Office should be waiving citizenship fees and providing compensation for Windrush families, but I have been contacted today by someone from Kenya who says that they were turned away from the helpline because they were not part of the Windrush. There are many other people who came as here children with their families who are still having their legal rights denied. The Home Secretary is also not addressing the wider problems. The Home Affairs Committee has warned repeatedly about failures and errors in decision making, about people being pursued who are legally here and about the fact that half of appeals, not just in Windrush cases, are being upheld because the Home Office is getting things wrong.”
“The Home Secretary will know there are people who came here 50 years ago who have now lost their jobs, lost their homes and lost their healthcare as a result of Home Office decisions. Now we discover that some of them have been locked up as a result of Home Office decisions and may even have been deported—wrongly—as a result of Home Office decisions. Can she tell us how many of the Windrush generation have wrongly been deported away from their family and friends, and what action is being taken now to urgently bring them back home?”
“The Home Office has been warned repeatedly about failings in its decision-making processes and weaknesses in the “hostile environment” operation. The Home Secretary’s response to this problem now is far too passive: just a taskforce that relies on the Windrush generation raising their problems with her. That is not good enough. She should now be instituting a huge review, right across the Home Office, of all Windrush-generation cases, and not just suspending deportations and detention, but working urgently with the Department for Work and Pensions and the NHS to make sure that nobody from that generation loses their benefits, their homes or their healthcare, while this is being sorted out.”
“This was clearly a vile attack by Assad on his own people, and we have a responsibility to consider how to respond while also not escalating global conflict. However, Parliament has considered these kinds of complex issues before. We have voted for and against military action. We have got things right and got things wrong, and so too have the Executive. The Prime Minister and her Cabinet appear today not just to be arguing about the circumstances of last week, but to be rejecting the entire principle of consulting, debating and voting in Parliament in advance of military action. Given the importance of us pioneering democratic values across the world, will she clarify her position on that and say how important she thinks it is for Parliament to decide on issues of war and peace?”
“I support the urgent question and powerful words of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), and I welcome both Front-Bench responses. I join the report in paying tribute to the hundreds, if not thousands, of acts of individual bravery and selflessness and to the work of the emergency services and their support for the victims. Does the Minister agree that the seriousness of the failure of the Vodafone contract is compounded by the fact that the contract is drawn on only in such extreme circumstances? Also, in his reflections on the importance of such a report, will he look further at commissioning an independent report on the Parsons Green attack and on the implementation of the Prevent programme in that case, so that lessons can also be learned from that attack?”
“I welcome the Court’s decision. Many of us were shocked and appalled by the original Parole Board decision, given the number of vile sexual assaults and rapes in this case. The Secretary of State is right to put forward reforms and to say that there are serious questions for the Parole Board. I hope that he will make it clear that he recognises that there are also serious questions for the Ministry of Justice, which had to put forward the evidence in this case. It is not a good look simply to say that this is about the responsibility of the Parole Board, if we are to get to the reforms that we actually need. Does he recognise that one of the big failings in this case was about support for, and proper information for, victims throughout the process? Will he make that an urgent priority in the reforms that are put forward?”
“The Prime Minister’s welcome remarks about European co-operation on Russia show the continued importance of co-operation with the EU after Brexit. She has rightly proposed a security treaty on extradition, Europol and data sharing to be in place by the end of the transition period. But she will also know that a new treaty could take 18 months for other countries to ratify, could yet be referred to the European Court of Justice and will have to deal with some tricky legal and constitutional issues—for example, on extradition, which Norway has taken over a decade to try to resolve. So why is there no fallback clause in the withdrawal agreement, why has the Prime Minister set a hard deadline of December 2020, and what will she do if the security treaty is not in place in time?”
“The Minister will be aware of the allegations in the press that the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia owns two flats in Whitehall through a company worth over £11 million. Does the Minister believe that he has the powers to know whether that is true? If he does not, when will those powers be in place?”
“The Minister referred to automated number plate recognition. Will he confirm that he has been discussing with the port of Dover extensive cameras, which could be part of his proposed technological solution? Will he also confirm that the Government rule out having such cameras at the Northern Ireland border, because they have ruled out any physical infrastructure at that border?”
“I, too, pay tribute to the work of the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and The Guardian . Dr Kogan was able to pass the information to Cambridge Analytica. The Secretary of State will know about the reports that Dr Kogan also had teaching posts and grants for social media research from a Russian university, and that Cambridge Analytica did some work for a Russian firm that is currently on the US sanctions list. Has the Secretary of State investigated the veracity of the reports? Has he or a Home Office Minister been in touch directly with Facebook to ask them what further data breaches might have taken place and to ask them to investigate? If they will not provide that information, does he agree with my colleagues’ request that powers should be taken to ensure that we can get it?”
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his important speech. Is he aware that this issue is cited in some areas as the reason why Italy and Greece are not placing children and child refugees in the UK as part of the Dubs amendment? Those countries are concerned that while the children would be able to be reunited with their family in any other country in Europe, that would not be possible in the United Kingdom. Some 240 places offered by local authorities are empty as a result, and we are not filling those Dubs places because there is such a gap between the UK’s position and that of the rest of Europe.”
“The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has said that there are serious problems with the way that it works.”
“We would not expect families to continue to be split up or to suffer simply because a lot of other families in the region are being helped. There is no reason not to help these families as well. Next, the Government say that there is discretion within the existing system, and that there are other ways of doing this. The hon. Member for Colchester referred to the Mandate scheme and others. However, the problem is that they do not work well enough. In too many cases, the entry officers use their discretion to simply say no. Nobody has the resources to overturn that because there is no legal aid in England to be able to deal with some of those cases, and it is too hard and too difficult. The discretionary system is not working at the moment.”
“This Bill is about the family from Syria who cannot bring their 18-year-old daughter here from Lebanon because she is over 18. The Government and other Conservative Members have set out a series of things in response. I want to address their points, because this should be a cross-party issue. So many of the refugee discussions that we have had in the past—on the Dubs amendment or even going back to the Kindertransport—have been cross-party debates, and they should and could be again. The Government’s response has been partly to talk about all the good work that they rightly do to help families and refugees in the region. The Government do do excellent work, and I pay tribute to them, as have other Members. We all want that work to continue. We also know that this is not an either/or situation.”
“Building family relationships is one of the most important things about being human. The refugee scheme and the asylum system are all about being human and standing up for humanity against the worst of inhumanity—against the barbarism, persecution, war and conflict that can cause so much chaos in families’ lives. In the end, that is all that this Bill is about. The current system is not working well enough to keep families of refugees together when they face the most difficult times of all. This Bill is about the Eritrean mother who has come here through a proper, managed, legal resettlement scheme, but who cannot bring her teenage son here because he is over 18. Even though she has been through terrible persecution along the way, she cannot be reunited with him.”
“It is about what happens when families have to go through the most awful things in the world: when they have to watch a parent being murdered or a child being raped; when they have to flee their homes because their neighbours’ homes have been bombed; when they have to make the most difficult journeys, and face exploitation, trafficking and abuse along the way; and when, somewhere along that journey, the family get split up. We know that this happens to so many refugees and we also know that it is in those times—when we face the worst of humanity—that we need our family the most. These people need those with whom they share a history, all that past and all those relationships, even if so much of that history, including their home, has been ripped from them.”
“Although they are in safe places and I know that they will come home very soon, a part of me is away with them too. I keep checking my phone, particularly to make sure that my daughter is okay. That is what we all do with our families, who are immensely important to us all the time. But this Bill is about what happens when people’s families are not safe and when they are not going to come home again because they cannot.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who cares immensely deeply about these issues. During the course of my speech, I hope to persuade him that this Bill should pass its Second Reading and that any concerns he may have should be dealt with in Committee, as that would be an opportunity to improve the Bill further. This Bill is about putting family at the heart of the asylum and refugee system. Family is something that we all care about immensely. In our house, my family is in a state of greater chaos than normal at the moment because Ed, who does all the cooking, is currently several hundred miles in one direction, while our 18-year-old daughter is several hundred miles in the other direction on her first trip abroad alone.”
“Many of them have come through the legal resettlement process that the Government have rightly brought in and extended, and that we all support.”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right. To be honest, it is hard for anybody to navigate our immigration system or asylum system, but for someone who is trying to pull together their family and has been through very difficult circumstances, not being able to get any kind of legal aid makes it so much harder. The next argument that people use is to say that this is going to create a pull factor, and that it will somehow make things much worse. There are three strong responses to that. First, as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) argued, this is only about those who have already demonstrated that they meet all the criteria for being refugees. There are tests in the system already. They have shown that they have been fleeing persecution or conflict, and it is now simply about their ability to reunite with their family.”
“The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. I pay huge tribute to the work he has been doing. Secondly, the current system encourages trafficking. It encourages illegal routes and dangerous routes because there is not a safe and legal route for people to travel on. The concern of the family I spoke to whose daughter is in Lebanon—this was some time ago—was that they were going to face a choice about whether to try and find a route through with smugglers or with traffickers to get her reunited with them because they did not have a legal route. The problem is that we are already driving people into the arms of traffickers and exploitation, and we should not do that.”
“When there is real hardship and real hurt for families who are not being reunited, let us not make them suffer more for the sake of deterring others when there is no evidence that that will happen.”
“The right hon. Lady is exactly right. When people have been through such difficult experiences, and lost the home that they all shared, to be separated across the globe is so much harder—and at a time when they need their family the most. My third response to the pull factor argument is that we are, in effect, saying to people, “You have to suffer more in order to deter others.” We are saying to those who have suffered the most already that they have to suffer more by not being reunited with their families because we are convinced that that might deter some fictional people who we think are going to respond in a particular way, when there is no evidence to show that.”
“I just do not follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument. If he is basically arguing that any kind of family reunion will somehow act as a pull factor and therefore should not happen, that would be an argument for having no family reunion for anybody at all—not for any adult, any husband or any wife. But of course, nobody thinks that. Everybody thinks that family reunion is important and that we must make sure we can keep families together.”
“If the hon. Gentleman was going to make that argument convincingly, he would be making the same argument about the 19-year-old, the 20-year-old, the 30-year-old and the 50-year-old. The problem is the evidence. We must remember that other countries across Europe have these rules about family reunion in place, and we do not see it becoming a pull factor to Hungary, Poland or all sorts of other countries.”
“It is about having a legal settlement route, not unmanaged migration routes. We know that if we do not have legal family reunion resettlement routes, that is when we get people falling into the hands of traffickers, and that is what increases the number of illegal and dangerous journeys. For example, on all the visits that I took to Calais, which was an awful and bleak place with so many young people, pretty much every young person I spoke to had family in Britain. They were trying to get to Britain through these awful, dangerous routes because they were trying to be reunited with family and with people to keep them safe. They were not trying to make the journey to bring other people; they were trying to be reunited. The current system, without that legal family route, is what is causing so many problems.”
“We have to remember that what happened in Germany was at a time when we had huge migration out of Syria by people desperately fleeing at the height of the conflict and a lack of proper support in Turkey, so a huge number of people were crossing the Mediterranean at that time. It was very unusual circumstances and an unusual period. I think all of us would want to ensure that migration, in particular for those who are fleeing, should be provided through legal, safe and settled routes. That is why I support the Government’s Syrian resettlement scheme. It is far better to have legal, safe routes than unmanaged or illegal routes through trafficking and so on. All of that must be right. However, we can ensure that we have a legal, managed scheme to help refugees, and that is exactly what the Bill is all about.”