Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Yvette Cooper and Naz Shah(1 week, 2 days ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Yvette Cooper)
I returned overnight from a series of meetings across five countries in Europe, the middle east and Asia, and I spoke directly with more than a dozen of my Foreign Minister counterparts, as well as joining the 50-country summit hosted by the Prime Minister and President Macron. This is a critical diplomatic moment. The agreed two-week ceasefire runs until Thursday, and we need it to be extended. We need the negotiations to reach a comprehensive conclusion to this conflict, and we need the reopening of the strait with no conditions and no tolls. Our work is to maintain and build the biggest possible consensus around the rapid opening of the strait.
Naz Shah
Following reports that the Israeli military has published a map designating south Lebanese territory as a buffer zone, and given Israel’s refusal to confirm whether displaced Lebanese families will be allowed to return, can the Foreign Secretary tell the House what specific representations the UK Government have made to Israel to ensure that this does not become a de facto annexation? Does she agree that any permanent occupation of Lebanese sovereign territory would not only violate international law, but actively undermine the US-Iran talks being mediated by Pakistan?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is completely right. Lebanese people need to be able to return to their homes. These are their homes, and it is a humanitarian disaster that so many people have been displaced from them. I have raised this issue directly with the Israeli Government, and we have made continued representations and raised this matter in international forums. We have also raised it with the US, which has been hosting the talks between Israel and Lebanon. It is hugely important that those talks progress, the ceasefire is maintained and Lebanese people can return home.
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Yvette Cooper)
Yesterday, the Prime Minister updated the House on the fact that UK Security Vetting recommended against granting vetting of Peter Mandelson, and that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office instead took the decision to grant the vetting. The Prime Minister, the former Foreign Secretary and I should have been told that there was an issue and I am very troubled that we were not. The result is that Parliament was not given all the information it should have been given. As I informed the Select Committee over the weekend, I have commissioned a review of all the information provided and I will write to the Chair further on that shortly.
The permanent under-secretary is no longer in post, and I want to recognise Sir Olly Robbins’ many years of dedicated public service, as the Prime Minister did yesterday. I also want to pay tribute to the FCDO and the incredible staff who work not just here in the UK but across the world promoting UK interests and values at an incredibly unstable time. That is what has made it possible for me to travel through five different countries in the past six days, pursuing international diplomacy. The scale of global insecurity impacting our economy and our national security will rightly continue to be the central focus of the FCDO and this ministerial team.
Naz Shah
As the conflict in the middle east has fundamentally demonstrated, modern warfare has evolved. Ballistic and hypersonic missiles are capable of overwhelming traditional air defence systems, and energy supplies, food security and critical goods are increasingly weaponised as instruments of coercion. Will the Foreign Secretary set out what specific steps the Foreign Office is taking, in co-ordination with the Ministry of Defence, to ensure that the United Kingdom is prepared for those threats, to protect our people and our country?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the changing technology, geopolitics and security threats. We now face very different threats to our country. That is why we are increasing both the defence budget and the Foreign Office’s work around a range of hybrid threats, including cyber and others, and we will need to continue to do so. I suspect that we will need to accelerate that work, too.
Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report
Debate between Yvette Cooper and Naz Shah(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member makes important points about the seriousness of this crime, and she is right, too, that we need to continue to implement the recommendations of the overarching inquiry into child abuse. The Safeguarding Minister updated the House before Easter on those recommendations and the action we are taking forward on them. I can tell the hon. Lady that in the Home Office, measures are already well under way, and we will continue to do that. It is important that we do not simply have recommendations sitting on shelves—things have to be implemented.
On the Hillsborough law, we are working at pace to get the details right and to bring it before the House. The hon. Lady will understand that it needs to meet the expectations of the Hillsborough families, as well as be right for the House. We will continue to work on the wider issues, too. In her foreword, Baroness Casey says:
“If we’d got this right years ago—seeing these girls as children raped rather than ‘wayward teenagers’ or collaborators in their abuse, collecting ethnicity data, and acknowledging as a system that we did not do a good enough job—then I doubt we’d be in this place now.”
We lost a decade. We cannot lose another one.
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
First, may I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and for her leadership and commitment to getting a grip on this issue? As a Member of Parliament for one of the largest constituencies of Muslim and Pakistani heritage people, I know the sheer anger and condemnation that the vast majority of them share, like all Britons who are against those who commit these vile actions and vile sexual abuse. That is backed up not only by recent polling by Opinium showing that a majority of Muslims are deeply concerned about grooming gangs, but by sermons in mosques, letters from leading figures, demonstrations on the streets and so much more that is often not given the media coverage it deserves. I am pleased to see that the National Crime Agency will be involved in the future inquiries. Let me reiterate in this House that British Muslims stand on the side of victims and support the full force of the law being used against all perpetrators of abuse. Does the Home Secretary agree that those who display selective outrage or fan the flames to blame entire communities do nothing to protect innocent victims or further the cause of victims?
Yvette Cooper
May I welcome my hon. Friend’s points that she makes about the anger in her community and the anger across British Muslim communities towards the grooming gangs, towards the rape of children and towards these appalling crimes? She has long called for work, including stronger action from the police to be able to go after perpetrators and bring them to justice. She is right that the horror at crimes committed against children and in particular against young girls is shared across communities. It is in the interests of those children and victim-survivors that we have reforms now.