UKPOL.CO.UK

Tag: Yvette Cooper

  • Yvette Cooper – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Yvette Cooper – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Yvette Cooper on 2016-06-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many officials of her Department are on secondment in France to assist with the identification of potential requests for the UK to take charge of an asylum-seeking child in France.

    James Brokenshire

    We have a number of officials already working on migration matters in France, Greece and Italy. A number of deployments to France from the Home Office and Foreign Office are supporting joint efforts with France to ensure Dublin Regulation transfers are carried out effectively and efficiently. Our support included the secondment of a UK asylum expert to the Dublin unit in France to assist and facilitate the improvement of all stages of the process of identifying, protecting and transferring relevant cases to the UK. A team of Home Office officials are part of the joint communications programme in Calais and there are weekly meetings between the heads of the UK and French Dublin Units. There is a Home Official seconded on a bi-lateral basis to the Italian Dublin Unit and we are about to second a UK official to Greece as additional support for Dublin family transfers to the UK.

    Since May we have also deployed asylum experts to support hotspots and Dublin units in both Greece and Italy under the European Asylum Support Office and as notified in my statement of 21 April, HCWS687, up to 75 UK expert personnel will be deployed to Greece to support implementation of the EU-Turkey Migration Agreement. These officials are being deployed in stages. We are considering if we need to deploy any additional resource to assist with the family reunification of children.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on Migration and Economic Development

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on Migration and Economic Development

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 19 December 2022.

    The Government have failed to stop criminal gangs putting lives at risk and proliferating along our borders; they have failed to prosecute or convict the gang members; and they have failed to take basic asylum decisions, which are down by 40% in the last six years. Instead of sorting out those problems, however, they have put forward an unworkable, unethical and extremely expensive Rwanda plan that risks making trafficking worse.

    The Home Secretary describes today’s court judgment as a vindication, but I wonder whether she has read it, because it sets out evidence of serious problems in Home Office decision making. It also identifies the significant financial costs of the scheme and the very limited number of people who will be covered, and certainly identifies no evidence that it will act as a deterrent or address the serious problems that we face.

    The court concluded that the Home Office’s decision making in each of the eight cases considered was so flawed and chaotic that those individual decisions have had to be quashed. There were cases of literally mixing up evidence and the names of individuals, so the Home Office was making decisions on the wrong people; there was confusion between teams in Glasgow and Croydon about who was deciding what and which information should be shared; and evidence of torture and trafficking was not considered. We also know that the Home Office attempted to send heavily pregnant women to Rwanda.

    That is a damning indictment of the decision-making process in the Home Office, which we know is not working because no decision has been made on 98% of the small boat arrivals in the last 12 months. Ministers seem to have decided that they are so incapable of getting a grip on the asylum system and of taking asylum decisions effectively here in the UK that they want to pay a country halfway across the world to take those decisions for us.

    On the lawfulness of the decision, the Court accepted that Rwanda does not have the processing capacity, including interpreters and legal support, needed to take asylum decisions, but it concluded that the agreement was still lawful because of two key points: the number of people Rwanda takes will be very limited; and lots more money will be provided by the UK Government. The Home Secretary did not tell us about any of those things. Will she now tell us, first, how many people she expects to send to Rwanda next year? Rwanda has said that it can accommodate 200 people. That is the people from 0.5% of this year’s channel crossings. The Home Office itself has said that there is no evidence that the scheme will act as a deterrent, and that the scheme is unenforceable and has a high risk of fraud.

    Secondly, can the Home Secretary tell us the full cost? The Court said that significant additional funding would be provided. The Government have already written Rwanda two cheques this year: one for £120 million, and another this summer for £20 million. Millions more are promised—but how much more? How much will the scheme end up costing per person? It looks as though it will be more than £1 million per person.

    Thirdly, the Court judgment says that there is no evidence that the UK Government sought to investigate either the terms of the Rwanda-Israel agreement or the way it had worked in practice. Why on earth not? That agreement was abandoned, and there is evidence that it increased trafficking and the activity of criminal gangs. Convictions for people smuggling have already dropped by 75% in two years; convictions for people trafficking are already pitifully low; and a former chief constable has warned that the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 will make that worse. Time and again, the Government have failed to tackle the criminal gangs driving the problem, and to make them pay the price. Instead of pursuing this unworkable, unethical, extortionately expensive and deeply damaging policy, the Government should use the money that they are investing in it to go after the gangs that are putting lives at risk. All that they are doing, time and again, is chasing headlines, which is a damaging distraction from the serious hard work that is needed to tackle the gangs and sort out the asylum system.

    The Home Secretary has said that the Conservatives are in the last chance saloon. Their policies put them there, and have let the country down. They are always ramping up the rhetoric, and never doing the serious, hard work, or using common sense. Britain deserves better than this. Britain is better than this.

    Suella Braverman

    I am very disappointed by the response from the shadow Home Secretary, and I am concerned that she is seeking to go against a legitimate, rigorous decision set out exhaustively by our independent judiciary, and is still suggesting that this is an illegitimate scheme. We see in the judgment that the scheme is lawful on several grounds. The judgment looked at the legislative authority for the scheme. It looked very closely at the claims that it breached articles 3 and 14 of the European convention on human rights, and article 31 of the refugee convention. It looked closely at whether it was fair, and at whether the right of access to justice was respected. It looked very closely at other public law grounds. On all those claims, the Home Office won. The Court concluded that it was and is lawful for the Government to make arrangements to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda, and for asylum claims to be determined in Rwanda, rather than in the UK. The judgment is a comprehensive analysis of the reasons why.

    The right hon. Lady asks about the eight individual cases. We accept the Court’s judgment on those cases. We have already taken steps to strengthen the caseworking process, including revising the information and guidance given to individuals during their assessment for relocation, but we have been clear throughout that no one will be relocated if that is unsafe for them, and support is offered to individuals throughout the process to ensure that it is fair and robust.

    The simple truth is that Labour Members have opposed every one of our efforts to deter illegal migration. They opposed the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, life sentences for people smugglers, and the removal of foreign national offenders, including drug dealers and rapists. All they offer is obstruction, criticism, the performative politics of opposition, and magical thinking. What do they actually offer? They say that we should return to the failed Dublin scheme—no matter that it was ineffective, and no matter that the EU does not want it. Labour Members want safe and legal routes as the answer, no matter that this Government have done more than any other in recent history, offering sanctuary to more than 450,000 people by safe and legal routes. No matter that Labour Members cannot define what routes they would stand up themselves, or that our capacity is not unlimited, and that there are more than 100 million people displaced globally. Would Labour give them all a safe and legal route to the UK?

    We cannot indulge in fictions. A fundamental reason why Labour Members cannot articulate a plan is that they cannot be honest with the British public about what they really want. The shadow Home Secretary could not even decide whether she would repeal illegal entry, even though she voted against it. Labour’s solution would be to turn our crisis of illegal migration into a crisis of legal migration, with open borders by the back door. Unlimited safe and legal routes are simply open borders masquerading as humanitarianism. Last week the Prime Minister and I announced our plan to tackle small boats. Today the Court affirmed the legality of a central piece of that plan, and tomorrow Labour still will not have a plan.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on the Small Boats Incident in the Channel

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on the Small Boats Incident in the Channel

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 14 December 2022.

    I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement.

    This is truly tragic, deeply distressing news. All our thoughts and prayers are with those who lost their lives, and with the families and friends who lost loved ones in the icy waters of the channel. We are also thinking of those who are receiving support and medical assistance, and who may have been rescued, too.

    We all give our thanks to the brave responders and rescuers from Border Force, the RNLI, the coastguard, the MOD, our emergency services and the French authorities. Not only did they respond to today’s awful, awful tragedy, but they do such heroic work every single day. It is only because of their brave work that more lives have not been lost.

    It was barely more than a year ago that 27 lives were lost when a boat went down, and all of us have warned and all of us have feared that it was just a matter of time before more lives were lost. It is, of course, why the UK and France both need to act to stop these dangerous boat crossings. The brutal truth as well is that criminal gangs have made money from those lives that were lost today; they have profited as people have drowned. Day after day, week after week, criminal gangs are putting lives at risk for money. The other brutal truth is that, far from our stopping those criminal gangs, those gangs have grown and grown. The UK and French Governments and authorities have failed to stop the criminal smuggler and trafficking gangs proliferating around the channel. Those gangs have created a multimillion-pound criminal industry, with lives at stake, and the action against those gangs has been too weak. There have been barely any prosecutions or convictions, and barely any inroads into the smuggler gangs. We have seen just three convictions a month for people smuggling, at a time when tens of thousands of lives are being put at risk each month.

    That is why we have long called for a major boost to the National Crime Agency, because we do need major action. Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced an increase for the NCA. I am glad that he has made some progress on this, but will the Home Secretary clarify what it means in practice? How much additional funding will there be in practice for the NCA and specifically for the action on the smuggler gangs? How many additional full-time staff will there be? What is the sense of scale on this? I fear, still, that this is too low and too little, given the scale of the problem we face. Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced a small boats operational command? How different is that from the previous clandestine channel threat command, led by Commander Dan O’Mahoney, which has been operation for some time? Will it still be led by him or will it be led by somebody else? Will the Home Office or the Ministry of Defence be in charge? Is it correct to say that the Navy has been told that it will be standing down on 31 January? Will the Home Secretary also update us on the French patrols and surveillance? Has the 40% promised increase in patrols started yet? When will it? Was this boat picked up as a result of increased surveillance? If it was not, what was the reason for that?

    The Home Secretary has also referred to safe legal routes. She was pressed at the Select Committee on a lack of safe legal routes for children trying to unite with family in the UK. When will she be taking action to address that, to prevent children who are seeking to rejoin family in the UK from making desperate journeys? She referred also to the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday, so will she clarify something? We have also called for the fast track for safe countries and for the backlog to be cleared. The Prime Minister said that he had set a personal target of 117,000 cases to be cleared by the end of next year. No. 10 later said that that target was 92,000. Will she again confirm which of those it is?

    The responsibility for the lives that have been lost in the channel lies with the criminal gangs. They need to be caught, prosecuted and jailed for the loss of life in the cold sea, and we need comprehensive action. We gathered in this House just over a year ago to lament the loss of 27 lives. None of us wants to do so again—none of us wants to be here again. That is why we need action, before more lives are lost in peril on the sea.

    Suella Braverman

    Today is a day to demonstrate our sympathy for the victims and the families involved in this tragic incident. It is a day to express gratitude to our hard-working emergency services, Border Force, search and rescue and MOD colleagues who at this moment are conducting an operation in the channel, in very difficult and challenging circumstances.

    The right hon. Lady mentions a few points and I want to respond to some of them in detail. The small boats operational command is going to be a new operational command, which the Prime Minister announced yesterday, as part of our plan to go further on our action to stop the boats crossing the channel. This means we are setting up a new headquarters, the small boats operational command, in Border Force, with military support for specialist planning and operational advice. As part of that, we will bring in new air and maritime capabilities, including new drones, land-based radar and fixed-wing aircraft, and we will more than double our current permanent staffing levels, with 100 new staff at HQ and more than 600 new operational staff based at Dover. This is a sign that we are strengthening our resolve, strengthening our will and strengthening our efforts to do whatever it takes—as the Prime Minister has pledged—to stop the boats crossing the channel. It will improve our intelligence and information sharing with the French, and will improve and build on the co-operation that we have with our partners in France.

    The deal that we signed last month with colleagues in France is a big step forward in our cross-channel co-operation, for we share a common challenge. That new arrangement will see more dangerous and unnecessary crossings being prevented. Last year our joint efforts prevented more than 23,000 unnecessary journeys, and this year, to date, the number is 31,000. That in itself is insufficient, but it is a step in the right direction, and the agreement that we have struck afresh with the French will go further to enhance our joint working.

    The right hon. Lady mentioned safe and legal routes. Since 2015 we have made it possible for 450,000 people to come here via safe and legal routes, and that is a record of which I am immensely proud. These are people who have come from countries such as Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan. They are people who have come from all over the world, directly from places of danger—for instance via the UK resettlement scheme, under which people have been selected by the UN Refugee Agency from countries including Ethiopia, Iraq, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. We will extend safe and legal routes once we have dealt with the appalling people-smuggling gangs who are risking people’s lives, as we have seen this morning.

    The right hon. Lady talked about our track record on this issue. The Government will not stop until we have seen progress—until people understand that taking this lethal journey is not safe, is not lawful, and will not lead them to a better life in the United Kingdom. Millions of people around the world are fleeing conflict and poverty and seek a better life elsewhere, and our capacity in this country is not infinite. We cannot accept everyone who wishes to come here. That is a reality of the world and a reality of life, although the Labour party would suggest otherwise. I hope the right hon. Lady will join us in our strength and resolve to stop this problem by supporting our measures and supporting our legislation next year.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on Manston

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on Manston

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 28 November 2022.

    Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for your words about the difficulty of responding to a statement with just 10 minutes’ notice.

    I thank the Minister for the information he has given us, but why is the Home Secretary not here? This is supposed to be her top priority. In the past few weeks we have had two urgent questions, a debate and this statement on the chaos, and she has not done any of them. I have to ask: what is she for? She obviously does not have a grip, and she has made this chaos worse.

    The Government have failed to stop the proliferation of criminal gangs in the channel, are still refusing to adopt Labour’s proposal for a new National Crime Agency unit to target the gangs, and have failed to sort out the chaos in asylum decision making. They are taking only half as many as they were six years ago, even though they have more staff. Just 2% of last year’s small boats cases have been decided, creating a backlog of nearly 100,000 people waiting more than six months for a decision, compared with just 4,000 when they took office. All of this has led to a completely inappropriate use of hotels, at the last minute, with no proper information for local councils or public health officials.

    Then, of course, there is the chaotic handling of the situation at Manston. The Minister has just said that there are 50 diphtheria cases. Can he confirm that that compares with just three cases last year? Can he tell us when Ministers were first told of diphtheria cases at Manston? When were they warned? By mid-October, the Home Office admitted publicly that there were cases at Manston, but Home Office officials told the Home Affairs Committee on 26 October that they had sufficient health arrangements in place to address diphtheria. Clearly they did not.

    The Government still kept thousands of people in overcrowded conditions, described by one person as “huddled around fan heaters, thousands of people in overcrowded conditions trying to stay warm.” These conditions clearly make it easy for infectious diseases to spread. The processes described by the Minister are important, but why on earth were they not put in place many weeks ago? It took until 11 November, after thousands of people had been held there for weeks, for diphtheria screening and vaccinations to be recommended for everyone passing through Manston. What on earth were they doing in the meantime?

    Even then, on that same day, the Home Office was moving people who had been in Manston into hotels across the country, without even telling councils or public health officials. In one case, the council was specifically told that people were not transfers from Manston even though they were. In other cases, councils were told nothing at all, and there was no information for public health officials about whether people needed further diphtheria screening and vaccinations; this included leaving people to seek treatment for themselves for diphtheria symptoms at local accident and emergency departments.

    The Health Secretary has said that 500 people have now been screened and vaccinated, but what about the other several thousand people who have been in Manston? Wherever they now are in the country, have they been screened or vaccinated for diphtheria as well? If not, why on earth not, because that was the public health recommendation nearly three weeks ago and that was already late? Have all those with possible symptoms now been given precautionary antibiotics? Again, if not, why not? We are told that diphtheria is an easy infection to treat and to vaccinate against, which is why we have a universal vaccination policy in the UK. But that needs proper information for health officials to be able to use and the Home Office to get a grip.

    Clearly, the Government have ignored health advice and legal advice. The Business Secretary said publicly that when he was a Home Office Minister he was advised that he had to act as he was breaking the law. The permanent secretary has now said that the Home Secretary was given the same legal advice, so why did she not act, either on the legal advice or on the health advice?

    I am sure that the Immigration Minister is working really hard to try to sort this out. The problem is that everyone else is struggling to clear up the Home Secretary’s chaos and she is not even here. It is chaotic. This issue is too important not to have a grip in place, and if the Home Secretary is too frit to attend this House and take responsibility for her decisions, she should get out the way and let someone else do the job.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on Migration

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on Migration

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 16 November 2022.

    Twenty-seven lives were lost in the channel a year ago, and a criminal gang profited from sending people to their deaths. Will the Minister tell the House whether anyone has been prosecuted or convicted for that awful event? We have long called for a stronger agreement with France to stop these dangerous boat crossings. That is why it is important that there is scrutiny on this issue. Additional beach patrols are welcome, and intelligence sharing is vital—it is unfathomable that it was not happening already.

    The level of convictions is pitiful: just four a month, on average. The Minister said that 21 gangs had been dismantled, but on Monday the Home Secretary said that it was 55. Which is it?

    Journalists report 100 gang members operating in one small corner of Calais alone. The scale of response to the criminal gangs is tiny compared with the scale of the challenge, and the Government are simply not doing enough. This multimillion-pound criminal industry is putting lives at risk. The Minister referred to a joint intelligence cell. How many national crime agencies are currently involved in that, how many are deployed in Europe, and what will that number increase by? We need to know.

    This agreement does not include anything on safe returns or safe family reunion. The number of children safely reuniting with family has plummeted since the end of the Dublin agreement, and charities warn that they are trying to go by boat instead. Asylum returns have plummeted from 1,000 people returned to the EU in 2010 to a tiny handful today. Of the 16,000 referred to the third country unit, just 21 returned. Did Ministers even try to get an agreement on returns and family reunion, and if not, why not? What is the Minister’s timescale for getting a grip on the total collapse in Home Office decisions on asylum, and at what point will they double so that we get a faster pace? The way the Home Office is handling local authorities has been disgraceful, with many of them not being told what is happening.

    Finally, what is the £140 million from the Rwanda agreement actually being spent on? Too often, the Home Office talks about things but is not delivering—this is too important.

    Robert Jenrick

    I am pleased that the right hon. Lady welcomes our agreement with France. She is right to raise the anniversary of the tragic and abhorrent deaths that occurred in the channel one year ago. I am pleased that a concerted effort with partners across Europe has led to arrests and the disruption of gangs, and to the capture and destruction of boats, directly as a result of that. The good work that our intelligence services did with respect to that incident is now being rolled out with respect to other criminal gangs right across Europe.

    The agreement that we have reached with France will enable our world-class intelligence services to be directly in the room with their French counterparts, ensuring that the intelligence they are gathering, which is rich—I observed it myself on visiting the clandestine command in Dover—can now be passed on in real time to their French counterparts, ensuring that more crossings are stopped, more arrests are made and more criminal gangs are disrupted. That will make a positive impact in the months to come.

    I politely point out to the right hon. Lady that she is becoming like a broken record on immigration. She opposes everything helpful that the Government have done and suggests nothing useful. She voted against the Nationality and Borders Act that created deterrents for people crossing the channel. She voted against measures that would have increased sentences for people smugglers. She would scrap our world-leading migration partnership with Rwanda. She voted against our plans to remove dangerous foreign national offenders. One of the key policy platforms on which her leader, the Leader of the Opposition, stood for the leadership of the Labour party was to close down our immigration removal centres—the very centres where we house people like foreign national offenders, murderers and rapists as we are trying to get them out of the country.

    The truth is that Labour is the party of uncontrolled migration and the party of mass migration. We understand the instincts of the British people, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and I will do everything to ensure that their will is implemented and we secure our borders.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on Documents Relating to Suella Braverman

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary and Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

    I beg to move,

    That, given the exceptional security concerns raised regarding the Rt Hon Member for Fareham serving as Secretary of State for the Home Department, this House:

    (1) orders that there be laid before this House, within ten sitting days, a return of the following papers:

    (a) any risk assessment of the Rt Hon Member for Fareham by the Cabinet Office or the Prime Minister’s Office relating to her appointment

    (b) any document held by the Cabinet Office, the Home Office or the Prime Minister’s Office containing or related to

    (i) any security breaches by the Rt Hon Member for Fareham

    (ii) any leak inquiries regarding the Rt Hon Member for Fareham, including during her time as Home Secretary and Attorney General

    (c) the minutes of, submissions relevant to and electronic communications relating to, any meeting within the Cabinet Office or the Prime Minister’s Office at which the appointment of the Rt Hon Member for Fareham, or advice relating to that appointment, was discussed in a form which may contain redactions, but such redactions shall be solely for the purposes of national security; and

    (2) recommends that where material is laid before the House in a redacted form, the Government should at the same time provide unredacted copies of such material to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

    It is 15 days since the Prime Minister appointed his new Cabinet, and 14 days since it was reported that he had been advised not to reappoint certain Ministers, including the Home Secretary and, it was rumoured, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson), to their posts on the grounds of standards and of security. Fourteen days in which it has been reported that the Home Secretary breached Home Office security arrangements not just once but seven times; that she may have also broken insider trading rules; that as Attorney General she was investigated several times by leak inquiries; that she ignored legal advice on Manston, contrary to her statement to Parliament; and that she failed to take the action needed to solve the dangerous overcrowding at Manston, leaving her successor and predecessor to pick up the pieces, and that she may well have run up a huge legal liability for the taxpayer as a result, breaching the ministerial code again in the process.

    It has also been reported that the Minister with Portfolio sent abusive texts to the then Government Chief Whip, that the Prime Minister was told about this and knew the former Chief Whip had put in a formal complaint, and that there are other complaints against the Minister without Portfolio including, most seriously, words used towards a civil servant about slitting his throat or jumping out of windows—words that it is reported the Minister with Portfolio has not denied using.

    This is in the space of two weeks. Many people have been appalled by these appointments, and serious doubts have been raised by many Conservative Members who believe standards need to be maintained. The Prime Minister promised us that this would be a break from his predecessors, from the favours-for-mates culture of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) and from the chaos of the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). Instead, the opposite has happened.

    People have been appointed to senior jobs in the Cabinet, running the country, not because they can do the job or because they will maintain the high standards and security that the Government need but because of dodgy political deals. Here is what we know: the Home Secretary breached the ministerial code, sent Government documents not only to her private email but to other people outside Government who were not authorised to receive them, including a Back-Bench Member, his spouse, and someone else entirely by accident. She was forced to resign and then, six days later, she was reappointed.

    That, in itself, is extremely hard for people outside the Conservative party to understand. For a police officer who breached their code of ethics or who was responsible for security lapses to the point of being forced to resign, or for a civil servant, public appointee or company employee who was found to have broken their employment code or security rules to the point of being required to resign, the idea that they could be reappointed to that same job just six days later is unthinkable—the idea that somehow, because they had apologised in the meantime, six days off is just fine.

    Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)

    I have had letters from upset civil servants who have seen colleagues make lesser misdemeanours and lose their jobs, yet seen the Home Secretary, the woman in charge of national security, hold on to hers. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this shows that there is one rule for the Home Secretary and one rule for everybody else?

    Yvette Cooper

    My hon. Friend is exactly right on that. It is worse, as the Government do believe that standards on ethics and security should be upheld throughout the public sector or across the economy, just not, it would seem, in the Cabinet—not in the post responsible for upholding the law and for maintaining our security. It really is one rule for them and another for everyone else.

    Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)

    I am hearing what the right hon. Lady is saying, but is this motion not an obvious attempt to divert attention away from the fact that the Labour party simply does not have any alternatives or policies in home affairs, or any other area for that matter? This is a simple, naked attempt to play the man not the ball—or in this case, the woman not the ball.

    Yvette Cooper

    The Labour party has set out a whole series of policies, both on what needs to be done to get neighbourhood police back on the beat—I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman’s party has cut 6,000 neighbourhood police from our streets over the last five years—and with the measures to set out a National Crime Agency unit to take on the criminal gangs who, unfortunately, the Conservative party has allowed to proliferate and set up a multimillion-pound criminal industry in the channel.

    There is also a responsibility on the Government to maintain standards, including security standards. It is not just about what happened before the Home Secretary’s breach; since she was reappointed, a Home Office review has found that she had, in fact, sent Government documents to her personal IT seven times in six weeks, which is quite a rate. There have also been reports that when she was Attorney General she was involved in not one but several leak inquiries, including one involving briefing to a newspaper about a security service case. Notably, that briefing was later quoted in court against the Government and made it harder for them to get the injunction they were seeking. Another case involved the leaking of legal advice on the Northern Ireland protocol and another involved the early leaking of a court judgment.

    It has also been reported that both the Cabinet Office and the Cabinet Secretary advised against this appointment. Obviously, this is serious. The Home Secretary is in charge of security and has to show leadership on this issue. She has to be trusted by the intelligence and security agencies, and by senior police officers, not to be careless with information. She has to show that she takes security and standards seriously, because that is what she has to expect of others.

    So this is an exceptional situation, which is why we have laid this motion. If the Prime Minister does have confidence in the Home Secretary not to be careless with public safety or with issues around security, he should release the facts. What other security lapses by the Home Secretary was the Prime Minister informed about before he reappointed her? Did he ask whether there had been other lapses in the Home Office or as Attorney General before he reappointed her? What information was he given about the other reported leak inquiries and whether she might have had a role in them? Was he advised against reappointing the Home Secretary on security and standards grounds? If the advice and the information he was given was all fine, tell us, show us. If it was not, start explaining why on earth the security and public safety of our country is put in careless hands.

    Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)

    Talking about “careless hands” is an appropriate way of starting this intervention, because before 2019 the then Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), actually cast doubt on our security services by questioning the intelligence on the Salisbury poisoning. Did every Labour MP not try to make him Prime Minister of this country? Is the real threat to our national security not Members on the Labour Benches?

    Yvette Cooper

    Members will know that, at the time of the Skripal crisis, I disagreed with some of the words used by the right hon. Member for Islington North, and I was very clear about that in this House and about the importance of backing our security services. However, I would say to the hon. Member that I have a lot more concerns about his right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, who, at the height of the Skripal crisis, chose to go to a place called the Russian Mountain, to a villa in Italy, where he met an ex-KGB agent without his officials. He took a guest, but he did not report who that guest was. He did not report the meeting with the ex-KGB agent to the Department when he returned, nor can he remember whether any Government business was discussed. I suggest to the hon. Member that he should be extremely worried about his right hon. Friend’s careless approach to security and to our national security.

    Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)

    Order. I have allowed a bit of ding-dong there, but please can we now focus on the motion before the House today?

    Yvette Cooper

    This motion provides for redactions if there are any national security concerns about the content of the information requested, and it provides for unredacted information to be sent to the Intelligence and Security Committee instead, so there can be no security objections to this motion—quite the opposite. If Conservative Members care about credibility and security, they should support the motion now.

    Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)

    Is it not rather more fundamental than that? If a constituent comes to me with something important and I have to sort out the problem, it is crucial that that remains confidential. If I break that trust, I will be letting my constituent down, and also damaging democracy itself, because we must trust our politicians. Is not that really what is at stake here?

    Yvette Cooper

    The hon. Member is right that there are standards that have to be followed. When the issues are around important Government business, it is a problem when somebody has breached those standards to the point of effectively being sacked and then is reappointed just six days later. That is what people across the country will not understand.

    Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)

    I apologise for interrupting my right hon. Friend. She is making an excellent speech. This is an incredibly important debate. Is not the problem that the standards being observed in the Government have just sunk too low? Reappointing somebody six days after such serious security breaches brings into question the level at which the Government think it appropriate to guard our national security. The response of Members on the Conservative Benches today suggests that they do not take it seriously either, and that needs to change urgently.

    Yvette Cooper

    My hon. Friend is right. There has been a real sense over many years now that the respect for standards in public life from the Government and the Conservative party has been deteriorating and has been undermining standards in our important institutions. The Prime Minister promised us that there would be something different. Instead, what we have is more of the same.

    The Cabinet Office has already recognised that the Home Secretary broke sections 2.1 and 2.14 of the ministerial code. There are further serious concerns that she may have broken it a third time and also ignored legal advice that the Home Office was breaking the law. Yesterday morning, her successor and predecessor, now the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said that he had had clear advice—legal and policy advice—about dangerous overcrowding at Manston, about being in breach of the law, and about the need to take emergency measures, which he then took. We have deep concerns about how the Government could have allowed this situation to develop in the first place, why they badly failed to crack down on the criminal gangs that have proliferated in the channel and why they allowed Home Office decision making to collapse, so that only half the number of decisions are being taken each year compared with six years ago and only 4% of last year’s small boat arrivals had their claims determined, so that there is now a huge backlog of cases that has led to overcrowding and the last-minute use of costly hotels in inappropriate locations.

    However, there is also a serious question whether the Home Secretary has just made things worse by ignoring legal advice and allowing dangerous overcrowding, leading to even more last-minute inappropriate procurement and running up substantial legal liabilities when she should have an alternative plan to cut the backlog and cut hotel use instead.

    Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)

    Plaid Cymru supports this motion. The context here is the reappointment of the Home Secretary, and the appointment of a Minister without Portfolio despite bullying allegations against him—and all that after one Prime Minister was brought down by scandals and another due to ineptitude. Is it not the problem not just those specific individuals, but the fact that the very systems of accountability here in Westminster are fundamentally unfit for purpose, save for maintaining the thinnest pretence of competency from this Tory Government?

    Yvette Cooper

    The right hon. Lady makes an important point, because the standards in our public life and public institutions have depended on people respecting them and on people across public life believing in them and taking them immensely seriously. That is why it is so corrosive when, bit by bit, they are undermined, and why it is so damaging when a new Prime Minister who promised us he would be so different from his predecessors is simply reinforcing the same problems and the same damaging situation.

    Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)

    The Home Affairs Committee has just returned from a visit to Manston this morning. We heard that the numbers have reduced from over 4,000 at the end of October to just over 1,200 today. What perplexes the members of the Committee is that we do not understand how the number of people could reach 4,000 in a facility designed for only 1,600. How was that allowed to happen? I am very interested in what my right hon. Friend says about Manston and about getting some answers; we very much hope that the Home Secretary will come to the Home Affairs Committee to give those answers shortly.

    Yvette Cooper

    My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. I hope the Select Committee will be able to get answers, because if the then Home Secretary, now the Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), was clear on 20 October that overcrowding was getting worse and that emergency measures were needed to stop the Home Office breaking the law, why on earth did the current, and former, Home Secretary fail to act in her meeting on 19 October, just the day before—a meeting on Manston that she told us about in her resignation letter to my right hon. Friend?

    It has been reported that the Home Secretary was warned in the middle of September about the deteriorating circumstances, the fact that things were going to get worse and the high risk of successful legal challenge because the Home Office was breaking the law. She was warned on 1 October and again on 4 October, but she still failed to take the emergency measures that her successor was forced to take. She told the House:

    “I have never ignored legal advice.”—[Official Report, 31 October 2022; Vol. 721, c. 639.]

    The advice made clear what the law said and how things would get worse unless she acted, so what on earth is her definition of the word “ignored”? The definition I looked up says, “To disregard intentionally”, and that appears to be exactly what she did.

    If the Home Secretary wants to claim it was not intentional, but somehow accidental—that she just did not really have a clue what the consequences were of her inaction—I think that makes things worse.

    Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)

    If my memory serves me correctly, the right hon. Lady brought an urgent question to this place about a year ago opposing the use of Napier army barracks for those who enter this country illegally. She has just said she also opposes costly hotels. Just where would she accommodate those who have entered our country illegally?

    Yvette Cooper

    Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will recall that what happened at Napier was that the Government ended up with a huge outbreak of more than 200 covid cases, at the height of a covid crisis, because they were failing to follow basic public health rules and requirements. To be honest, it was an incident that the Home Office again does not seem to have learned from, as we have had outbreaks of diphtheria, MRSA and scabies at Manston. Frankly, if the Home Office and the Government want to solve this properly, they need to address the total collapse in decision making, with just 14,000 decisions being made a year, which is half the number being decided just five or six years ago. That huge backlog has increased as a result of Government legislation that has added to the bureaucracy and made those delays much worse.

    Dame Meg Hillier

    The backlog is a hugely significant issue. Among my heavy case load, I have a surgeon who cannot move hospitals because he cannot get his visa turned around, families who are separated and spouses who cannot live together. That is the real human impact. We are turning our back on good people who want to work and live in this country because they are caught in the backlog as a result of the Home Secretary’s actions.

    Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)

    Just before the shadow Home Secretary responds, I say to Members on both sides of the House that this is quite a specific motion on the papers relating to the Home Secretary. It is not a general debate on the Home Secretary or other Government Ministers, so please be mindful of that in any interventions from either side of the House, so that we can focus on what this motion is about.

    Yvette Cooper

    The issue is about whether or not the Home Secretary is continuing to breach the ministerial code. We know that on 19 October she had already broken the ministerial code twice, and she may have done so again in a subsequent meeting, also on 19 October. How many times can a Minister break the ministerial code in a single day and still be reappointed six days later?

    Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)

    My right hon. Friend notes that the Home Secretary says that she did not ignore the law, but she does not say that she followed the law or complied with the law. Yesterday, a Minister appeared to be saying that the Home Secretary chose to break the law in one way, rather than another way, which was to put people out destitute on to the streets of Kent. Is that not almost an admission that there has been lawbreaking in this case?

    Yvette Cooper

    The important point here is that Ministers have a responsibility for public safety, security and meeting and upholding standards. Part of the reason we are seeking this information and these facts about the decisions that were made is to find out whether any of these issues and concerns that have been raised in the Home Office were raised with the Prime Minister at the time, or whether the way in which the Home Secretary had behaved was raising concerns within the Cabinet Office and with the Cabinet Secretary.

    Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)

    On what occasions during the previous Labour Government did the Government release legal advice they were given? In particular, did Tony Blair release the advice given to him on the Iraq war?

    Yvette Cooper

    The right hon. Gentleman is rewinding 12 years. We have had 12 years with a Conservative Government in place, and we have been very clear that this is about exceptional circumstances. He will know that a similar motion was supported by this House about Members of the other place, similarly in exceptional circumstances. We have also been clear that if there are any security concerns around the advice or information given to the Prime Minister, that should be shared instead with the Intelligence and Security Committee—that is the responsible way to do it.

    Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)

    As someone who spent a few years working as an official in the Home Office, I am all too aware of how important it is to protect our national security. Is it not the case that the Government failing to provide the report to the Intelligence and Security Committee indicates that this Government are not serious about national security?

    Yvette Cooper

    That is the problem. We have these reports in the papers and the allegations that have been made, and we must bear in mind that this is not simply about the security lapses that the Home Secretary herself has recognised and admitted to; it is also about reports of further leak investigations during her time as Attorney General. We are simply asking for factual information about whether or not these were raised as concerns and whether or not this was an issue of concern for the Cabinet Office and the Cabinet Secretary when the Prime Minister made his reappointment decision.

    This goes to a wider problem about the way in which the Prime Minister appears to have been taking his decisions. The Government have confirmed that the Prime Minister knew about the complaint from the former Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), against the Cabinet Office Minister, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson), which also involves very serious allegations, including about the use of language. We should remember, too, that that Cabinet Office Minister was previously sacked from the Government by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for leaking information from the National Security Council. He has now been reappointed to the Cabinet Office—the very office that is responsible for supporting the National Security Council and leading on cyber-security. This matters—maintaining standards, maintaining the ministerial code and showing leadership on security matters.

    Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)

    Is not the reason that we have to ask for these papers to be laid before the House and put in the public domain that, time and again, those on the Government Benches have shown that they lack any judgment on national security, probity and integrity? They had a Prime Minister who had to resign in scandal, and there have been numerous scandals and leaks and a dangerous lack of regard for national security. In normal times, the Prime Minister would be able to see these documents, and they would not need to be presented to the House because this would have been dealt with, but these are not normal times, because the Conservative party has shown that it does not regard national security in the same way that we do.

    Yvette Cooper

    My hon. Friend makes a really important point: national security matters for all of us. This is a time when the national security threats that our country faces have changed. We face new threats from hostile states who wish to do our democracy harm. We face cyber threats from those who want to undermine our national interest. Cabinet Ministers are the custodians of that national interest, and we need all of them to take that seriously and not be careless about the risks that we face and the impact of a lack of leadership on these kinds of issue.

    Sadly, the reality is that we have had a series of Conservative Prime Ministers who have not taken these issues seriously. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), at the height of the Skripal crisis, as I said earlier, wandered off to a Russian villa in Italy, met an ex-KGB agent, took an unknown guest, did not report it to officials and still cannot remember whether Government business was discussed. The right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) was accused of using her private phone for sensitive Government business, and the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak) has defended them all, reappointing as his Home Secretary someone his own Back Benchers refer to as “leaky”.

    If this is all nonsense, then Government Members should support the motion and show us that there is not a problem—show us that the Prime Minister does take this incredibly seriously, has asked the right questions and has got the right reassurances. He has only been in post two weeks, and already we have this chaos. He said he wants to stand up for integrity, so enforce the ministerial code. He said he wants professionalism, so appoint people who can do the job. He said he wants accountability, so support this motion and show some accountability to the House.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Comments on the Language Used by Suella Braverman

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Comments on the Language Used by Suella Braverman

    The comments made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 1 November 2022.

    No Home Secretary serious about public safety or national security would use the language Suella Braverman did the day after a petrol bomb attack on a Dover centre.

    But that’s the point. She isn’t serious about any of those things

    Ramps up rhetoric because has no answers.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 31 October 2022.

    I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Yesterday’s petrol bomb attack on the Western Jet Foil Centre was truly appalling. I am sure the whole House will condemn it in the strongest possible terms. I echo the Home Secretary’s tribute to the emergency services and Border Force staff who responded. However, I must ask her: can she tell me whether counter-terror police and counter-extremism units are involved in the investigation? It does not make sense for them not to be, so why are they not?

    I turn to the dreadful conditions at Manston. Four thousand people are now on a site designed to accommodation 1,600 people, with some families there for weeks. Conditions there have been described as inhumane, with risks of fire, disorder and infection, there are confirmed diphtheria outbreaks, reports of scabies and MRSA outbreaks, outbreaks of violence and untrained staff. The Home Secretary said nothing about what she was doing to address those immediate public health crises or the issues of untrained staff.

    Behind those problems are deeper failures in the Government’s policies on asylum and channel crossings. Decision making has collapsed: the Home Office has taken just 14,000 initial asylum decisions in the past 12 months, compared with 28,000 six years ago. Some 96% of the small boat arrivals last year have still not had a decision and initial decisions alone are taking more than 400 days on this Conservative Government’s watch. Can the Home Secretary confirm that the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and changes to immigration rules have added further bureaucracy and delays, leading to tens of thousands more people waiting in asylum accommodation and more than £100 million extra on asylum accommodation bills because the Government’s policies are pushing up the use of hotels and the increase in delays?

    There has also been a total failure to prevent a huge proliferation of gangs in the channel. Why has the Home Secretary refused our calls for a major new National Crime Agency unit with hundreds of additional specialist officers to work with Europol and others to crack down on the gangs, as well as the urgent work needed with France to get a proper agreement in place?

    On the Rwanda plan, can the Home Secretary confirm that she has spent an extra £20 million, on top of the £120 million already spent on a policy that she has herself described as “failing” and that her officials have described as “unenforceable” and having a “high risk of fraud”? Is it not now time to drop that unethical and unworkable scheme and to put the money into tackling the backlogs and the criminal gangs instead?

    Let me ask the Home Secretary about her own decisions. There are very serious allegations now being reported that the Home Secretary was warned by officials and other Ministers that she was acting outside the law by failing to provide alternative accommodation. Can she confirm that she turned down contingency plans that she was offered that would have reduced overcrowding, as the reports say? There are also legal obligations, including under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and the Asylum Support (Amendment) Regulations 2018. Can the Home Secretary confirm that she was advised repeatedly that she was breaking the law by failing to agree to those plans?

    One of the meetings on Manston was on 19 October. Can the Home Secretary confirm that she refused those proposals on that date—the same day that she broke sections 2.3 and 1.4 of the ministerial code? Can she tell us whether, in fact, she breached the ministerial code, which provides for Ministers’ abiding by the law, three times in a single day? How is anyone supposed to have confidence in her as a Home Secretary given those serious issues?

    The Home Secretary referred in her statement to security checks. Those are very important, but her statement is undermined by her own disregard for security. Her letter today makes it clear that the incident over which she resigned was not a one-off and that, contrary to her previous claims that she reported the breach “rapidly” as soon as she realised, she instead had to be challenged several times by one of her colleagues. She has also not answered the crucial questions about security breaches while she was Attorney General. Can she tell us whether she was involved in a leak to The Daily Telegraph, reported in that paper on 21 January, on information about Attorney General action on a case involving the security service? Has she sent any other Government documents by WhatsApp, Telegram or other social media?

    It has been less than a week since the Home Secretary was reappointed and less than a fortnight since she was first forced to resign for breaching the ministerial code, and every day since her reappointment there have been more stories about possible security or ministerial code breaches. How is anybody supposed to have confidence in her, given the serious responsibilities of the Home Secretary to stand up for our national security, for security standards and for public safety?

    The Prime Minister promised that this would be a Government of “integrity, professionalism and accountability”. Is the Home Secretary not letting everyone down and failing on all those counts?

    Suella Braverman

    I will pick up on some of the right hon. Lady’s points, but I will not comment on any details relating to the case in question or to the individual under consideration. There has been clear work afoot with the National Crime Agency and all partners to try to tackle the problem of illegal migration. I am very encouraged by the relationship that we have built with the French, and I am grateful to the French authorities for their real commitment to, and work on, tackling this problem.

    As I made clear in my statement, on no occasion did I block hotels or veto advice to procure extra and emergency accommodation. The data and the facts are that, on my watch, since 6 September, over 30 new hotels were agreed, which will bring into use over 4,500 additional hotel bed spaces. Since the start of October, it has been agreed that over 13 new hotels will provide over 1,800 additional hotel bed spaces. Also since 6 September, 9,000 migrants have left Manston, many of them heading towards hotel accommodation. Those are the facts; I encourage the right hon. Lady to stick to the facts, and not fantasy. [Interruption.]

    The right hon. Lady raised other points. My letter to the Home Affairs Committee, sent today, transparently and comprehensively addresses all the matters that she has just raised. I have been clear that I made an error of judgment. I apologised for that error; I took responsibility for it; and I resigned. [Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)

    Order. Does the House want to hear what the Home Secretary has to say?

    Suella Braverman

    I apologised for the error, I took responsibility, and I resigned for the error, but let us be clear about what is really going on here. The British people deserve to know which party is serious about stopping the invasion on our southern coast, and which party is not. Some 40,000 people have arrived on the south coast this year alone. For many of them, that was facilitated by criminal gangs; some of them are actual members of criminal gangs, so let us stop pretending that they are all refugees in distress. The whole country knows that that is not true. It is only Opposition Members who pretend otherwise.

    We need to be straight with the public. The system is broken. [Interruption.] Illegal migration is out of control, and too many people are more interested in playing political parlour games and covering up the truth than solving the problem. I am utterly serious about ending the scourge of illegal migration, and I am determined to do whatever it takes to break the criminal gangs and fix our hopelessly lax asylum system. That is why I am in government, and why there are some people who would prefer to be rid of me. [Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker

    Order. I can hear who is making the noise, and it will be a long time before they are called to ask a question.

    Suella Braverman

    Let them try. I know that I speak for the decent, law-abiding, patriotic majority of British people from every background who want safe and secure borders. Labour is running scared of the fact that this party might just deliver them.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on the Personal Conduct of Suella Braverman

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on the Personal Conduct of Suella Braverman

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 26 October 2022.

    My questions are about security breaches and the protection of our national security. They are questions to the Home Secretary, who was here just five minutes ago and who then left.

    Yesterday the Prime Minister promised “integrity, professionalism and accountability”, yet the Government have discarded the ministerial code and reappointed someone who breached core professional standards and has now run away from basic accountability to this House. It is the same old Tory chaos, and it is letting the country down.

    I have questions for the Home Secretary that the Government need to answer. The Home Secretary accepted that she had sent an official document via her personal email to someone who was not authorised to see it. Is that the only time she has done that? Has she shared other documents, or other sensitive information? The Home Secretary is responsible for national security, so has the Home Office, the Cabinet Office or the Security Service now undertaken an investigation of her security breaches to establish how many others there have been? If not, may I urge the Minister to ensure that that happens as a matter of urgency?

    What security clearance has the Home Secretary been given? Does she still have access to the most sensitive documents and information, and did the Cabinet Secretary warn against her reappointment? She has been Attorney General, she has been a Minister on and off for four years, so she knows the rules about Government documents, yet she sent one to her own private email, to someone outside the Government, and also copied it by accident to someone else entirely. How is anyone supposed to believe that she is such a novice that she did not know exactly what she was doing, and if she really is that much of a novice, why on earth are the rest of us supposed to trust her with our national security? It has been reported that she sent this as an error of judgment because she was tired after going on an early-morning raid. Is the Home Office just supposed to block her phone and email if she has been up half the night because she might do stupid things while she is tired? There are suggestions that the Home Secretary while she was Attorney General was investigated for a leak of information relating to the Security Service; is that true?

    The Minister is a former policing Minister; does he think that if police officers breached their code of ethics and were sacked or forced to resign, they should then be reappointed to their jobs six days later because they said sorry, or is it just one rule for the Cabinet and another for everyone else? Everyone knows this was a grubby deal to get a coronation, to put party before country, but national security is too important for this.

    Jeremy Quin

    The Prime Minister has made it clear that this Government will act with professionalism, integrity and accountability; that is exactly what this Government will be doing. As the right hon. Lady will be aware, I cannot comment on what the Cabinet Secretary may or may not do; that is a matter for the Cabinet Secretary. On the speculation the right hon. Lady raised—I am not going to comment on speculation either; the right hon. Lady would not expect me to do so.

    At the end of the day, it is very simple: the Home Secretary made a mistake, and has acknowledged that she made a mistake, but she offered her resignation and stood down. The Prime Minister has looked again, and has decided, as is his right, that she can return to Government. I believe in redemption; I hope the right hon. Lady can as well. The Home Secretary is busy today, doing the job of the Home Secretary: keeping our borders secure and helping the police do their job—and I am sure that the right hon. Lady welcomes, as I do, the fact that we now have over 15,000 additional police officers, delivering day in, day out for the country. That is what this Government can be relied upon to do.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on the Departure of the Home Secretary

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Speech on the Departure of the Home Secretary

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 20 October 2022.

    I notice that the Home Secretary is not in his place this morning, unless the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith), has been appointed Home Secretary in the last few hours. To be honest, nothing would surprise us at the moment, because this is total chaos. We have a third Home Secretary in seven weeks. The Cabinet was appointed only six weeks ago, but the Home Secretary was sacked, the Chancellor was sacked and the Chief Whip was sacked and then unsacked. We then had the unedifying scenes last night of Conservative MPs fighting like rats in a sack. This is a disgrace.

    The former Home Secretary circulated a letter, and that seems to contradict what the Minister said. She said that the document was

    “a draft Written Ministerial Statement…due for publication imminently”

    that had already been briefed to MPs. Is that not true? Will he explain the answer to that? At what time did the former Home Secretary inform the Cabinet Secretary of the breach? Has a check been made of whether she sent other documents through personal emails, putting security at risk? Was there a 90-minute row about policy between the Prime Minister and the former Home Secretary? Given the huge disagreements we have seen in the last few weeks between the Prime Minister and the former Home Secretary on drugs policy, Rwanda, the India trade deal, seasonal agriculture, small boats—and with a bit of tofu thrown in over the lettuce for good measure—is anything about home affairs agreed on in the Cabinet?

    What we know is that the former Home Secretary has been running her ongoing leadership campaign while the current one is too busy to come to the House because he is doing his spreadsheets on the numbers for whoever he is backing to come next. But who is taking decisions on our national security? It is not the Prime Minister, nor the past or current Home Secretaries. Borders, security and policing are too important for that instability, just as people’s livelihoods are too important for the economic instability that the Conservative party has created. It is not fair on people. To quote the former Home Secretary, this is indeed a total “coalition of chaos”. Why should the country have to put up with this for a single extra day?

    Brendan Clarke-Smith

    I am sure that the right hon. Member is aware that breaches of the ministerial code are a matter for the Cabinet Office, not the Home Office, and that is why I, not the Home Secretary, am here to answer the urgent question. The Prime Minister took advice from the Cabinet Secretary, as we saw from her letter, and she is clear that it is important that the ministerial code is upheld and Cabinet responsibility is respected. The Prime Minister expects Ministers to uphold the highest standards. We have seen her act consistently in that regard.

    These were breaches of the code. The Prime Minister expects her Ministers to uphold the ministerial code, as the public also rightly expect, and she took the requisite advice from the Cabinet Secretary before taking the decision.

    I am mindful that it is not usual policy to comment in detail on such matters, but, if some background would be helpful—I appreciate that much of this is already in the public domain—the documents in question contained draft Government policy, which remained subject to Cabinet Committee agreement. Having such documents on a personal email account and sharing them outside of Government constituted clear breaches of the code—under sections 2.14 and 2.3, if that is helpful to look at. The Prime Minister is clear that the security of Government business is paramount, as is Cabinet responsibility, and Ministers must be held to the highest standards.