UKPOL.CO.UK

Tag: Yvette Cooper

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Comments on Foreign Interference in British Politics

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Comments on Foreign Interference in British Politics

    The comments made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 13 January 2022.

    The information from the Security Service today is extremely serious. We condemn in the strongest terms the attempts by China to interfere in Britain’s democratic processes.

    We are seeking further information and briefing from the Home Office and MI5 on their assessment of the extent of the deception and interference and the ongoing risks of malign activity from foreign states.

    We are also asking the Government to ensure that all parliamentarians and political parties are given revised information from the Security Service on the security risks and measures to guard against any threat of interference in our democracy or national security.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Comments on the Afghanistan Citizens Resettlement Scheme

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Comments on the Afghanistan Citizens Resettlement Scheme

    The comments made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 7 January 2022.

    It is welcome that the ACRS is finally open, five months after it was promised. However it’s deeply concerning that it seems it still won’t be offering any new places for those fleeing persecution in Afghanistan for many more months.

    Those who worked with the UK, including contractors on security and aid projects, won’t be included until at least next year, despite the risk to their lives as a result of the work they did. There is still no working route for the family members of British citizens trapped in Afghanistan, even after Labour called for a way for them to apply to the Resettlement Scheme. At the same time, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is escalating and there is no co-ordinated international plan to address it.

    Delays getting these programmes in place will mean more lives are at risk and more desperate people vulnerable to exploitation by criminal traffickers as they try to make dangerous journeys by themselves. Already there are reports of more Afghans arriving in Calais and an Afghan soldier and his family travelling to the UK on a dangerous boat. Those who have helped our armed forces in Afghanistan and whose lives are now at risk shouldn’t be ending up on flimsy dinghies in a cold English Channel. We need faster action on the Government’s resettlement promises alongside a coordinated international plan to address the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan to prevent things getting worse.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2022 Comments on Domestic Abuse

    Yvette Cooper – 2022 Comments on Domestic Abuse

    The comments made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 5 January 2022.

    We’ve been putting huge pressure on the Government to lift the time limit so I’m glad they have now accepted our proposal to stop victims of domestic abuse being timed out of justice.

    We will keep up the pressure for more action. This is one of many measures Labour is pushing for to tackle violence against women and girls. Over the last five years prosecutions for rape and domestic abuse have plummeted. Too many perpetrators are being let off, too many victims are being let down and the Conservative Government isn’t doing enough to turn that around.

    Labour has a serious and workable plan to tackle the epidemic of Violence Against Women and Girls. Thank you to everyone who backed the campaign for this change and we will keep pushing for further action.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2021 Comments on the Government’s Drugs Strategy

    Yvette Cooper – 2021 Comments on the Government’s Drugs Strategy

    The comments made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 6 December 2021.

    Action on drugs and crime is long, long overdue as the Government has allowed serious problems to grow over the last few years. Class A drug use has increased by 27% since 2010, drug-related deaths were the highest since records began last year, and the number of children referred as suspected victims of county lines has increased by more than 30% since 2019. Meanwhile, more than £100m has been cut from treatment services, and cuts to policing budgets have meant that specialist drug enforcement teams have taken a backseat, allowing gangs to grow, dealing to increase and demand to soar.

    Ministers need to set out a plan which properly reverses the damage the Government has done, which stops communities being blighted by criminal drug dealing and gangs and which properly addresses the new and serious drug related problems that are emerging. We need action to tackle changing patterns of drug-related crime, including the huge growth in child exploitation and the explosion in online criminal drug networks.

    Too often the Government makes grand promises, but then fails to deliver or does the opposite. Drug use is up, serious violence is up, anti-social behaviour is up. More and more offenders are getting away with their crimes as overall prosecutions have plummeted. Any action from the Government must be substantial enough to undo the damage they have caused.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech in the House of Commons on David Amess

    Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech in the House of Commons on David Amess

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, in the House of Commons on 18 October 2021.

    Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will just briefly join the tributes that we have heard.

    Sir David Amess asked all of us about our families, and we now send our condolences to his family, not just from all of us but from all our families, who will very much be feeling the need to reach out to them at this difficult time. We pay tribute, too, to Sir David’s staff, who went to work on Friday morning to try to help his constituents, like all our staff do for every one of our constituents, and had to face the unimaginable.

    Every one of us has a story of things that we worked with David on. There were so many different issues, but for me it was the work we did together on amendments to help child refugees reunite with their families, which was something he felt strongly about. You could never predict what issue he would feel strongly about next, but then you would look back and think that it made absolute sense that that was what he was championing, because kindness, compassion and helping others were so often at the heart of it.

    David’s office is just above mine, so I would often chat to him while walking to vote and coming across here. Walking across today to come and pay tribute to him, I really felt it, knowing that I would not walk with him again and chat about our families. Coming out of the lift to David’s office, you could never get wrong which floor you were on, because, as many will know, there is, hanging on his door, a giant cardboard cut-out of a knight in shining armour with the helmet tilted in a jaunty way just looking at you. A knight in shining armour is what David will have been to so many of his constituents. Around the corner, there is a box of nodding reindeer decorations, ready to be spread across the corridors. That was what David would do at Christmas time: spread friendship and joy. If you stand by that knight today, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will also hear the ethereal sound of birdsong, for so many reasons, for David.

    Jo Cox said to us that we

    “have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]

    David showed us how to do that, because while he had disagreements with pretty much every one of us, he also had the unerring instinct of finding what it was he had in common with each and every one of us. When we face awful things happening and extremists try to divide us, we know the most powerful thing in our armoury against them and in defence of democracy is the powerful words said on all sides of the House in unity, in defence of democracy and, now, in respect for David.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech on Afghanistan

    Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech on Afghanistan

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, in the House of Commons on 18 August 2021.

    We have heard many sobering words in this debate already. I pay particular tribute to the words from our colleagues who have themselves served in Afghanistan, to all their colleagues over many years and to all those in our armed forces, particularly those who have lost their lives, including two brave soldiers from Castleford, Rifleman James Backhouse and Bombardier Craig Hopson. I also pay tribute to those who have worked in our aid agencies and for partner organisations to support development and education projects and to try to rebuild a future for Afghanistan, and to all those who have rightly worked so hard and made it possible for families to live in some semblance of security and for girls—children—to be able to go to school for many years.

    That is what makes it so disturbing, shameful and distressing to watch the events in Afghanistan right now: people who worked with us and helped us now hiding, their lives at risk; women and girls forced to hide in their homes simply because they are women and girls; hard-line extremists and terrorists back in charge, creating a security risk across the globe; and no evident strategy from the US, the UK and our allies, but what instead looks like just a chaotic retreat. We have a responsibility to respond, so I want to focus particularly on some of the practical things that should and can be done now to address the humanitarian crisis that we face.

    First, I turn to those who have put their lives at risk by working with us. I welcome the Afghan relocation and assistance policy, but it is too narrow. It refers to directly employed staff. For the last 20 years, much of the work of the UK Government, including aid work and nation rebuilding work, has been through contracts with UK agencies and organisations. The Taliban do not recognise the complexities of a contracting-out process, so many of those lives are also at risk.

    Some organisations have been in touch with their staff and former employees. One has told me that a woman who worked on the UK aid programme for three years and is now in hiding in Kabul has said this weekend:

    “only 3 weeks ago one of my neighbours told me that when they come he would tell them who I am and who my family is. A couple of days ago, a strange man told me in the streets, ‘I know where you work and who you are.’

    I fear seeing my kids tortured in front of my eyes or having my skin peeled off while I am alive. We remain locked inside, fearful of even looking out of the window—every time the door knocks fear goes through my whole body and I fear they are coming for me.”

    Another, who provided secure accommodation for UK embassy staff and British aid workers, has said:

    “Taliban fighters arrived at my father’s home this week asking for me by name. I just left my home city three days before and my father told the Taliban I had gone abroad for medical treatment. The fighters still forced their way into the house and searched every room.”

    We have obligations to these people.

    Emma Hardy

    I am sure that my right hon. Friend, along with many other Members across the House, have been contacted by people desperately worried about loved ones in Afghanistan. One of my constituents has contacted me, saying that his pregnant wife is in Afghanistan now. The Taliban have taken out the communication signals, so he is unable to contact her. He did not put in an application for her to come to this country because of the English language requirement on the application form. Surely now is the time to relax that rule temporarily to allow these people to come to our country.

    Yvette Cooper

    My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. This is the kind of flexibility that the UK Government could adopt right now. We need such measures for those who have families at risk, but we also need urgently to review and broaden the scope of the relocation scheme. The Home Secretary said in interviews this morning that those who have worked for NGOs that delivered UK aid programmes would also be included. I say to the Foreign Secretary that that is not happening on the ground right now; it is not reflected in the guidance that the Government are operating at the moment or in the application process, and people are being turned down as we speak. People have been turned down this weekend, even though they are at risk and have worked on UK-funded programmes. I urge the Government urgently to look at the relocation scheme. People cannot wait for the resettlement scheme to be in place.

    Let me say something about that too. I welcome the Government’s commitment to a resettlement scheme. The Prime Minister confirmed to me earlier that the pledge to help 5,000 people this year is in addition to the commitment made in 2019 to resettle 5,000 people a year from across the world, not instead of it. That existing resettlement scheme is not fully reinstated after covid and it urgently needs to be, but the fact that that infrastructure, those systems and that funding is in place should make it possible for us very urgently to put in place an Afghan relocation scheme, and to accelerate and be more ambitious than the announcement that the Home Secretary made this morning. Again, I urge the Government to work urgently with the agencies on the ground, which can identify straightaway the people who are at most at risk, and to recognise the position of those who are currently here, whose applications for asylum may have been turned down before circumstances escalated. Please can those cases be urgently reviewed rather than refused on out-of-date grounds? Finally, I urge the Government to do more to support refugees in the region, because we know more people will flee.

    We have a responsibility not to turn our backs. The situation may be bleak and the circumstances difficult, but we have a duty not to disengage.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech on HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

    Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech on HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, in the House of Commons on 12 April 2021.

    I join speakers from across the House and the country in paying tribute and respect to His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and in conveying heartfelt sympathies and condolences from all our constituents—from people across Normanton, Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley—to Her Majesty the Queen, to all the royal family and to all Prince Philip’s friends and family, who are grieving now.

    His has been a remarkable life through a remarkable century: from royal to refugee to royal once more; a naval officer while our world was at war; a champion of science, industry and the environment in the peace; and always a public servant. Every one of us across the country, whether we ever met him or not, could not fail to see the steadfast sense of duty, commitment and devotion that he showed to the Queen and to our country. Their marriage and partnership endured through seven remarkable decades. The role of the monarch, even one as well loved and respected as our Queen truly is, can still so easily become a lonely one, yet for so many decades Prince Philip provided the steadfast support, devotion and comfort that has supported our Queen, and our country owes him thanks.

    The great age at which Prince Philip remarkably kept working—well into his 90s—is astonishing. Just six years ago, already well into his 90s, he came to the opening of West Yorkshire police’s new training centre at Carr Lane in Wakefield, where he described himself as the world’s most experienced plaque opener. He was not wrong.

    Millions of people will remember him not for those royal visits, many as they were, but for the adventures he led them through with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. On a miserable wet Friday evening close to Easter, in the middle of the 1980s and somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and like millions of teenagers before or since, I climbed out of the school minibus to set off across a muddy field in bucketing rain. Our sleeping bags were soggy by the time we arrived at our campsite, and it poured all night, but the sun shone in the morning, and we loved it. The fact that so many millions of young people across the country and across the generations have done the same thing in the Duke of Edinburgh’s name shows how it has stood the test of time. The expeditions that instilled teamwork, leadership and resilience; the chance to learn new skills; the encouragement of physical activity; the responsibility to take up volunteering and to do duty to others—those elements were things that he himself loved and believed in as ways to build young people’s confidence and opportunities.

    Subsequent Governments talked often of and tried to set up versions of national citizen services for young people, but it was the Duke of Edinburgh, back in the 1950s, who actually set up one. It has endured and reached out: a quarter of the young people who started the scheme last year faced some kind of financial hardship or needed support, and so many young people from all corners of the country have had the chance to take part, including students in Normanton, Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley today. New College Pontefract students describe their experiences as bringing them great pride, teaching them about dedication and hard work and building confidence.

    Prince Philip resisted the idea of the Duke of Edinburgh scheme being seen as his legacy.

    “No, no…it’s there for people to use”

    he said, yet it feels more important, with more potential and significance on his passing, even than it did more than 60 years ago. When young people have had such a tough time this year, when they have too often been held back or been stuck inside or unable to reach out or spread their wings, the Duke of Edinburgh scheme feels more apt than ever. It is a great legacy, and we now must make sure it keeps reaching more and more young people, so that Prince Philip can keep reaching new generations, just as he did all of us.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

    Castleford has put in a bid to the towns fund, and I have been working with Wakefield Council, community organisations and local businesses to draw up plans for badly needed investment here in our town; to restore some of the cuts in investment and jobs we have had over the past 10 years; to regenerate our town centre and reconnect with our riverside; and to build on our community strengths and community pride.

    We want not only to restore our riverside—the River Aire runs straight past the mill here and we want people to be able to enjoy it again—but to boost Henry Moore Square in the town centre; support local jobs; restore Kingdom Hall, one of the oldest buildings in the town centre; and invest in Queen’s Mill, where the old Allinson’s flour mill has been taken over by the Castleford Heritage Trust, a local community organisation that has made it the community hub, not only supporting residents during the covid crisis but growing small businesses as well as new jobs and opportunities.

    We want to boost local skills, working with the Castleford Tigers Foundation to set up a new adult skills centre, because in our town the number of adults in training and education has halved over recent years as adult skills budgets have been cut. That is shocking when we need those skills to boost the jobs of the future. Too often, our industrial jobs and proud heritage have been hit and we have not had the investment for the new jobs of the future.

    I urge Ministers to support not only Castleford’s bid but all our towns, because the problem with the Government’s approach is that the towns fund simply does not go far enough. I have been calling for investment in our towns for many years, as part of the Labour towns campaign, because over the past 10 years the rate of jobs growth in our towns has been half the rate in our cites, the rate of business growth in our towns has been half the rate in our cities, and austerity has hit our towns much harder than our cities. We have lost more public services and seen more services shrink back under 10 years of Conservative Government austerity.

    In Yorkshire and the Humber, 16 towns were chosen for the towns fund. The first eight were those that ranked most strongly against independent criteria on skills need, investment need and deprivation. Rightly, Castleford was chosen in that top eight, but Knottingley was ninth on the list and was left out. Instead, the Government chose to invest in towns that did not have the same level of skills need or deprivation and that had not seen the same scale of cuts—Knottingley has been one of the hardest hit by austerity over the past 10 years, losing its library, sports centre and investment in our town. We need a chance for Knottingley to gets its share of investment, and for Normanton and Pontefract to get their share too. We need a comprehensive approach, not just a towns fund.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech on Covid Security at UK Borders

    Yvette Cooper – 2021 Speech on Covid Security at UK Borders

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2021.

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), a fellow Select Committee Chair, although I take a very different view from him, based on the evidence that the Home Affairs Committee has heard. This debate is urgent. We need to protect the vaccine programme from new variants, such as those from South Africa and Brazil. Ministers have rightly said that border measures are needed to stop the spread of those new variants, but with news today of the increase in the number of new South African variant cases in the UK, it is clear to us that those measures are not working. The Government have not done enough and we have not learned sufficient lessons from abroad and from the first wave. I urge Ministers to do more.

    For a month after the South African variant was found, the only focus was on direct flights, even though our Committee report showed that direct flights were not an issue in the first wave—only 0.1% of cases came from China, but 62% came from France or Spain where there were no restrictions in place. Even now, people returning from high-risk countries are not tested on arrival, still do not have quarantine hotels to go to, and can still go straight onto the tube or train at Heathrow. The promised new plans from the Government still have big holes. The majority of travellers will not be covered by quarantine hotels and, again, they will not be tested on arrival, even though they could have been on long and crowded journeys since their last test several days ago. All the additional police checks in the world will not make a difference if, when the police find that there is nobody home, no further enforcement action is taken.

    The UK got things badly wrong the first time round: barely any quarantine; no testing; and all restrictions inexplicably lifted on 13 March so thousands of covid cases were brought back into the country, accelerating the pace and scale of the pandemic. The countries that have controlled covid best—New Zealand, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, and Taiwan—are those that took early firm action at the borders to try to stop any covid cases at all. They are global trading nations, but they took early action and, as a result, kept schools, businesses and communities open and saved so many lives.

    There are two ways that the Government could be learning from those countries now: extend quarantine hotels to cover far more travellers, as New Zealand and Australia did, or follow the South Korean approach, which combines additional testing on arrival with a mix of quarantine hotels and designated quarantine transport, much stronger checks on home quarantine, and no trips on public transport. South Korea has lost 1,400 people to covid; we have lost 100,000. If we had our time again in the first wave and had the chance to take much stronger border action to save lives and keep our communities open, we would have done so in a shot, so please let us learn those lessons now as we deal with the new variant.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2015 Comments on Migrants in Mediterranean

    Yvette Cooper – 2015 Comments on Migrants in Mediterranean

    The comments made by Yvette Cooper, the then Shadow Home Secretary, on 23 April 2015.

    This summit must urgently restore full search and rescue. The British Government and all of Europe must stop turning its back on people drowning on Europe’s shores.

    David Cameron and Theresa May were very wrong to oppose search and rescue, immoral to argue removing rescues would end the ‘pull factor’ and wrong to turn their backs since October in the face of continued tragedy. They must reverse their position this week.

    Refusing search and rescue means letting people drown to try to deter others and it is immoral. As we have argued for six months, search and rescue must be restored and Europe must work together to help those in peril.

    And while it is welcome that Europol is increasing its investigations and operations against the traffickers profiting from death, this Council must ensure the full weight of the EU is put behind a drive to end these criminal operations which are capitalising on the instability in Libya and conflicts in the region. That also means a much more effective long-term strategy for managing EU external borders – to ease the burden on countries managing the seas and the land borders to the east.

    This summit is the result of a serious moral failure in British and other European Governments. It needs to generate a plan that puts European leadership back on the right path.