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Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I hesitate to give way to the hon. Gentleman because I suspect he will quote from page 37, but I will do so briefly, then I want to make final progress.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s intervention will be brief.

[Mr Cash]

Basically, the European Scrutiny Committee, under the chairmanship of the Government at that time, said:

“The presentation of radically changed texts in the last days of a Presidency, with calls for their immediate adoption, does not appear to us to be an appropriate way of determining changes at EU level to the criminal law…The legislative process should be open and transparent and not one of secret bargaining.”

European Convention on Human Rights

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cash]

Is the Home Secretary aware of the series of speeches made by the Lord Chief Justice to the Judicial Studies Board and others? He has made it abundantly clear that in his opinion the judiciary, including the senior judiciary, have given far too much attention to the Strasbourg precedents and not enough to what he describes as the “golden thread” of the English common law. He says that it is therefore essential that we get this right and do not engage in generalised waffle about the question—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has had two interventions that have taken up speaking time. I am sure he would not want to do that, in case he wants to catch my eye later.

[Yvette Cooper]

I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) was accusing me or the Home Secretary of “generalised waffle”. Given his record, I fear that it could have been either of us. It was probably both.

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have read considerably more of the judicial pronouncements on this subject than I have, but the House is being challenged to send a clear signal to the courts, and we are not being clear about what we are doing in the motion. The status of the motion remains unclear because it is neither primary nor secondary legislation.

Border Checks Summer 2011

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Before I give way to Back Benchers, I should like to offer the Home Secretary the opportunity to intervene and tell us whether watch lists were relaxed—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The debate is going to continue, so everybody can listen to the debate, and if the right hon. Lady wishes to give way she will do so. We do not need people to keep coming up, one after another.

[Yvette Cooper]

I should like to give the Home Secretary the opportunity to clarify quickly whether the watch list was relaxed at any ports of entry other than Calais.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alok Sharma]

Listening to the tone of the right hon. Lady’s opening comments, one would almost think that her party had left immigration in absolutely perfect order. Let me remind her that it left a system which her own Home Secretary at the time said was “not fit for purpose”, with a backlog of 450,000 asylum cases, and that Lord Glasman, her own colleague, said:

“Labour lied…about…immigration and the extent of illegal”—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The House will come to order on both sides, and if we are going to have interventions they must be much shorter and we must not make speeches. That will come later.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharman) has obviously got himself into a Whips-induced lather, but if he is concerned about asylum cases he may want to ask the Home Secretary about the 100,000 cases that have now been written off, as identified in the Home Affairs Committee report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In view of the fact that the Government deliberately took an hour away from this time-limited debate with a statement that could easily have been made yesterday, will you make it difficult for hon. Members reading out Whips’ questions to intervene on my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Sir Gerald knows as well as I do that that is not a point of order. He has certainly made the point that people were upset by the statement, but it is for the Government to decide the business of the House, and they control the business of the House. I have certainly already recommended shorter interventions, however, and I am sure that that will have been taken on board.

[Yvette Cooper]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The Home Secretary has still not told us the extent of the reduction in border checks throughout the country. She said on Monday that she had no clue how many people walked into the country under reduced checks. On Monday, she did not even know which airports were covered by her pilot projects and her decisions. Yesterday she told the Select Committee that she knew which airports were covered in theory, but she had no idea which ones had taken up her pilot project.

Data exist, however. According to the internal e-mails that I have seen, downgrading checks to level 2 is recorded by terminals. Indeed, one would expect it to be. How could the so-called pilots be monitored if the data were not being collected on what was happening? So, does the Home Secretary have those data? Can she tell us now how many times checks were downgraded at how many airports since her decision in July? Has she even asked to see those data, and if she has not, why on earth not? What have this Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister been up to?

If the Home Secretary does have access to the data and has seen the figures on the number of times that checks were downgraded to level 2, will she step up to the Dispatch Box now and tell us what the data say? The public have a right to know what the downgrade in security was this summer. Again, we hear a deafening silence from the Home Secretary. Again, we do not know what data were collected.

Points of Order

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Lady has already put that information on the record and I am sure that she will find other ways to ensure that the necessary correction takes place.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Today, we have had a statement from the Home Office and a business statement. It is clear from the few answers that the Home Office Minister was able to give that the Government were not ready to come to the House and would not have done so had we not asked an urgent question this morning. Is there provision for the Home Office Minister to come back to the House at the end of the day, once he has clarification from the lawyers on the position for the police as regards the situation under which they must operate, and is there provision for the Leader of the House to come back and make another business statement now that we know that emergency legislation will definitely be needed and will need to be timetabled as a result?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

It is up to the Government whether they wish to come back, but that would have to be with the permission of Mr Speaker. I am sure that the right hon. Lady’s message has been heard.