Jimmy Lai Conviction

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Yvette Cooper

Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank my hon. Friend for his words about the appalling attack on Bondi Beach, and also for championing the case of Jimmy Lai. Both the Prime Minister and I have met Sebastien Lai previously, and I will very happily do so again.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

The whole House will welcome the Foreign Secretary’s words on the terrorist attack on Bondi Beach.

Without seeking to interfere directly in matters before the court in Hong Kong, we note that Jimmy Lai is 78, he is held in solitary confinement, his health is in sharp decline, he is unable to practise his religious beliefs and he is a British citizen. Surely this case cries out, at the least, for clemency. In view Jimmy Lai’s British citizenship, will the Foreign Secretary directly engage afresh with her opposite number, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and the Chinese state to mount the very strong case for clemency for Jimmy Lai?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with the right hon. Member that, given the immediate circumstances for a 78-year-old man in poor health, there is an urgent need for clemency and humanitarian recognition of those circumstances. We of course have strong differences on the national security law, which we are very clear is a breach of the declaration, but we surely have a shared humanity. We urge the Chinese authorities to recognise that shared humanity and release Jimmy Lai immediately.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the way that my hon. Friend has continued to raise this issue, and to shine a spotlight on Sudan and the atrocities. One of the emergency room volunteers from Sudan I met last week is involved in providing support to young women, including children and young girls, who have been brutally raped. What is happening is horrendous, and I have to commend the incredible bravery of those community volunteers in Sudan. Frankly, I think the international community is letting Sudan down, and we need a concerted effort. We recently put forward a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council, but we will continue to raise this issue with all our international partners.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for her answer, and for seeing the volunteers from the emergency rooms last week. We are advised that during his visit to the White House, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked President Trump to help stop the slaughter in Sudan and come up with a plan of action, and President Trump agreed to do so. As Sudan is a UK lead at the United Nations, will the Foreign Secretary ensure that this issue is on the agenda the next time the President and our Prime Minister have one of their telephone calls?

[Yvette Cooper]

I have already discussed Sudan on several occasions with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and I will continue to do so. We have further direct discussions on Sudan between other Ministers and other US envoys, because it has to be a central priority for the entire international community. Currently, neither side is accepting the US-led ceasefire proposals. We need continued pressure from all sides on the warring parties to sign up to the ceasefire, or even a humanitarian truce, so that we can get the talks started and get the aid in.

Gaza and Sudan

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend has been raising her deep concerns and championing these issues for some time, including in her work to deliver the London Sudan conference, which took place last year. She asks a series of questions about the ICC forensic teams and the ICRC, and I agree with her.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement, but she will know that, in plain sight of the international community, a slaughter of immense proportions is taking place in El Fasher. There have been clear and present warnings and evidence that this is ethnic cleansing, far worse than anything that took place in Srebrenica, and as the Foreign Secretary made clear in her statement, it is spreading outwards. This is a specific UK responsibility at the United Nations. Does she agree that it is essential that she and the Prime Minister hit the phones, speak to those at the African Union and in senior UN countries, and use our position to lobby President Trump to act? On solemn occasions each year, we piously intone—including in this place—“never again”. Does she agree that it is happening again, in plain sight before our eyes, and there is no effective plan to end it?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Member has been a champion of the people of Sudan in the face of the most intense suffering for a long time. I agree that there is simply not yet the kind of urgent plan for Sudan that we desperately need. Bluntly, for far too long, the international community has failed and turned its back. The UK put forward the resolution, which has now been fully agreed at the Human Rights Council; when we sought to put a resolution on similar issues to the Security Council a year ago, it was vetoed by Russia. We have sought to increase aid, but that is simply not sufficient if aid cannot get in because of the continuing conflict. When it comes to Sudan, we need the same sustained, intense effort across the international community that rightly went into securing peace in Gaza. It can at least start with a humanitarian truce. That is urgently needed. I can assure the right hon. Member that this is a topic in every phone call that I am having, not just with those in the Quad, but more widely.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

The news overnight from El Fasher in Darfur is truly dreadful, with evidence of summary executions and undoubted ethnic cleansing. Given the pivotal role that Britain plays, as set out by the former Minister for Development, the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), will the Foreign Secretary urgently review everything that we are doing, in order to prevent El Fasher from becoming another Srebrenica?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the grave nature of this crisis and the seriousness of the violence taking place in El Fasher. I agree that we need to put on every possible pressure through both the United Nations and directly through the Quad. We need urgent action to get a ceasefire—the humanitarian truce called for by the Quad—as well as humanitarian aid and the crucial protection of civilians in place. He will know that the UK doubled aid for Sudan and has continued to protect that, but the aid is unable to get through as long as this terrible fighting is taking place.

Immigration System

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Yvette Cooper

Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. If the response to any labour or skills shortages is too often simply to turn to migration without addressing their causes—which might relate to pay and conditions, lack of training, lack of workforce planning and a whole series of different things—all that happens is that UK productivity falls. Alongside ensuring that we get the skills we need and that we benefit from international talent, we must invest to tackle domestic training and skills failures. That is what the increase in the immigration skills charge will help us to do.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

Surely the most immediate challenge is illegal migration across the channel, which is enraging our constituents, but the Home Secretary’s Government have kicked away the tough deterrent measures that they inherited from the previous Government. There are three critical measures that she should take: the first is to work incredibly closely with all our European partners; the second is to look hard at international conventions, particularly the 1951 Geneva convention; and the third—and in many ways the most important—is to work on the upstream problems at source. Increasingly, people are migrating in large numbers from the Sahel in north Africa, fleeing violence, starvation and extreme poverty. Does she accept that she and her European counterparts must lift their ambition and move towards a modern-day equivalent of a Marshall plan if we are to solve this long-term and increasingly serious issue?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with the right hon. Member that we must do more upstream to tackle some of the causes of dangerous journeys. We clearly need to act on the criminal smuggler gangs who are exploiting people and undermining our border security—that is why the legislation on counter-terrorism powers that we will debate tonight is so important—but we also need to do much more work with European partners. We have been working with France, for example, to get it to agree to change its rules so that, for the first time, it will start to intervene in French waters to prevent dangerous boat crossings. I agree with him about the importance of the Sahel and working upstream. We have established a new joint unit between the Home Office and the Foreign Office in order to do some of the work to which he refers.