Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That has an incredibly damaging impact on the prosecutions of rape and other sexual assaults in the criminal justice system. This has not just happened during the covid crisis—we should be really clear about that—because the delays have been getting worse and worse over many years. It is devastating for victims who may be desperate to get on with their lives. They can end up feeling hugely traumatised by the entire process of the rape being investigated and then being pursued through the criminal justice system. That is badly letting down the victims that the criminal justice system should be standing up for and ensuring justice for. My hon. Friend is right that those delays have got worse—getting worse by hundreds of days—but what it means is that a growing number of victims are dropping out now before it finally reaches prosecution. Some 40% of rape victims withdraw from prosecution because they just cannot bear it any more. That means the entire criminal justice system and this House, which ultimately must have oversight of the criminal justice system, is letting those victims down.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern about a case in my surgery at the weekend? A young woman went to the police to report violence by her partner against her. She was concerned that the officer did not treat the matter seriously enough and made a complaint against the officer. Subsequently, she was then charged with stalking the person who had committed violence against her. I am afraid that this is the way our police in London seem to have got things entirely the wrong way around.

[Yvette Cooper]

That is an incredibly disturbing case. Many of us as constituency MPs will have had deeply troubling cases where, at every stage from the policing response, the investigation and the court response, it feels like not only is there a deep injustice being done, but that the system does not understand what is happening and the nature of violence against women and girls. I would be keen to talk to my hon. Friend further about that individual case and how we can ensure—it is one of the issues we refer to in the motion—there is proper training for police officers across the board on violence against women and girls, and on some of the incredibly serious issues we face.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government decided to suspend the contract three years ago, in 2010. There has been a complete freeze with no contract in place and no proper action taking place. He is absolutely right that we need not just proper checks in place when people arrive, but proper checks on deportations and departures to be able to take follow-up action on illegal immigration.

What was the Government’s flagship policy to tackle illegal immigration, which was trailed by the Prime Minister, who this summer promised new action? It was to hire a man with a van to drive around in circles for two weeks. What was the Home Secretary thinking? Did she really think that people here illegally, who have ignored Home Office letters and avoided UK Border Force scrutiny, would change their minds because they saw one of her posters on an ad van? What did she think people were going to say: “Oh, thank goodness I saw the ad van today. I had just forgotten I was supposed to go home. Hang on while I pop out and get an airplane ticket”? Will she confirm that only one person has rung up to return? He did not even see the vans: he saw a picture in The Guardian. This has not just been a blunt instrument; it has been a complete failure. Will she admit that this has been a pointless gimmick from the start?

Last week the Immigration Minister said that the vans could be rolled out around the country, but instead the Home Secretary strung him out and today decided that the policy is a blunt instrument and she will not do it again. Why did she do it in the first place? Will she stand up and tell the House how many people returned home as a result of it? The Immigration Minister said that only one person returned as a result of the ad vans, but will the Home Secretary say how many people have returned as a result of her ad van approach?

This is not just about a policy that is ineffective and a blunt instrument. The Home Secretary sent the van around four London boroughs with the highest proportion of ethnic minority British citizens. One Brent resident—a British citizen—said:

“As a child in the 1970s with migrant parents I remember how ‘go home’ was shouted at us in the streets and graffitied on walls. One of my earliest memories is of the panic I felt when hearing my parents discussing in hushed tones whether we would indeed have to ‘go home’, as we watched the National Front march on TV.”

The Home Secretary agreed to that slogan. She agreed to send it round communities whose parents heard it from the National Front in the 1970s, and whose British citizens work in our public services, build our businesses, and fight in our armed forces today. She signed off and defended that policy, all for the sake of one person returning. She should be better than that, and I hope she is ashamed of what she did.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene, because Brent was one area where the van came round. On the occasions when it did so, the division and hurt that it caused in the community was extraordinary. Does she agree that the policy could not have been introduced because the Home Secretary genuinely thought it was likely to inspire anyone to leave the country, and that instead it was a calculated political propaganda move? As such, her party should pay back to the taxpayer the cost of those vans.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and the Home Secretary should confirm that she will never pursue such divisive gimmicks again. That is beneath her and ought to be beneath the Government.