Borders and Asylum

Debate between Clive Efford and Yvette Cooper

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The principle behind the France pilot, which we want to build and grow, is that people can apply through a legal process and go through proper security checks but that we will return people who come on these dangerous small boats facilitated by criminal gangs. That principle is really important. We want a system that can better return those who are being exploited by criminal gangs and using illegal entry, and we will do that by undermining their business model. Alongside that, we will do what our country has always done throughout history: provide a legal process—controlled and managed—to support those who have fled persecution and conflict. That is what happened as part of the Ukraine scheme, and it is what we now seek to do as part of a refugee approach to students. We need a proper system across the board that both brings control to a chaotic system and is true to our historic values.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, and I commend her for the way she is working with our neighbouring countries to deal with this problem. The approach of the previous Government was basically to stand on the cliffs of Dover shouting abuse across the channel and to tell them that they should keep all refugees and we would take none. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we are going to provide a solution to this problem, it has to come from the sort of co-operation that she has been working on?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my hon. Friend; we saw what happened under the previous Government and the system we inherited. That Government made grand but empty claims about where people were going to be returned to but had none of the agreements and nothing workable in place to actually do it. Instead, they had people stuck—potentially indefinitely—in the asylum system, which would have meant increasing numbers of asylum hotels. In contrast, we have already achieved a 28% increase in returns of failed asylum seekers and put in place the foundations for building a new approach with France and other European countries. I think that most people recognise the complexity of this issue rather than the fantasy promise approach, which ends up undermining trust.

UK-France Migration: Co-operation

Debate between Clive Efford and Yvette Cooper

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The shadow Home Secretary just wants to pretend that the last eight years never happened. He knows that this crisis—this small boats chaos—went on for 340 weeks under the Tories. During that period, when he was in charge as Immigration Minister, overall migration nearly trebled and the number of small boat crossings increased tenfold. During those 340 weeks when the Tories were in charge, 128,000 people crossed the channel, and how many were returned to France? Zero. How many were sent to Rwanda? He said himself it was zero, because he did not even want to count the four volunteers. He keeps saying that somehow it was ready to start, but if it had been ready to start, the Conservatives would not have called the election. They would have introduced the scheme which had, in fact, been running for more than two years, at a cost of £700 million and with just four volunteers sent.

I can also tell the shadow Home Secretary that since the election this Government have returned more than 35,000 people who have no right to be here. That is a 24% increase in the number of enforced returns compared to the last year in which his party was in charge. It is a 28% increase in the number of failed asylum returns compared to the last year in which his party was in charge.

As for the agreement with France, which he does not seem to want to talk about very much, I asked him about exactly that back in 2020, when I was Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and he was Immigration Minister. I specifically asked:

“what chance do you put on being able to get a bilateral agreement, say with France, for them to take back people who have arrived here from France…?”

He said—this was five years ago—that that was what he was working on. Indeed, he told the Committee:

“one of our priorities will be to reach those agreements and…it is, I think, strongly in the French national interest to agree such a returns agreement… That gives me significant cause for optimism.”

Well, it turns out that he should have been optimistic—about the return of a Labour Government, reaching an agreement where he had failed.

He also said at the time:

“We intend to return as many illegal migrants who have arrived—

by small boats—

as possible… we have flights planned in the coming days to return these individuals back to France and we will be looking to ramp up this activity.”

Well, that was five years ago. The flights never went, and the activity was never ramped up. The shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), tried to return people to France. The shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), tried to return people to France, and even called for the UK

“to take one asylum seeker”

from France

“in return for one illegal migrant that we return to them. Or indeed more than one.”

As for interception in shallow waters, the right hon. Gentleman said, when he was Immigration Minister:

“Some boats that are just 250 yards away from the French coast have not been stopped by the authorities. This must change.”

I agree, but that was five years ago, and he did not change a thing. The Conservatives never understood that it is not possible to change things simply by jumping up and down and shouting about them. It needs partnership working and hard graft, and that is what this Government have done.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary on succeeding in agreeing a deal with France. It just shows that treating people with respect can result in positive action, and treating them with contempt, as the Conservatives did throughout this issue, was never going to provide a solution. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that each of those four volunteers whom the Conservative Government paid to be sent to Rwanda was paid, by the British taxpayer, £150,000 to provide free housing, a free university education and free private healthcare? Who approved that funding in the Department?

[Yvette Cooper]

I can confirm that the deal that the previous Government did with Rwanda involved paying £150,000 for every single individual, to cover food, accommodation and healthcare for five years. Those bills continue. A concern was raised by the accounting officer, so a direction had to be given, on the basis that Ministers had been advised that it was not value for money but they continued regardless.

Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report

Debate between Clive Efford and Yvette Cooper

Monday 16th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the hon. Member’s point. It is immensely important that victims and survivors in every community of every ethnicity can get justice and the support they need, and that issues around race and ethnicity are never used as an excuse to ignore victims or to fail to pursue criminals committing the most terrible crimes. We want to work with the police to ensure not only that we can get effective data and recording on victims, but that the right kind of services and support are in place so that every victim is heard.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

I am shocked that the Conservatives do not seem able to recognise that they were in power for 14 of the 15 years to which Louise Casey refers in her report. If they had had any kind of enthusiasm for an inquiry when they were in government, they would have called one—so we can dismiss them.

Is my right hon. Friend confident that we are hearing the voice of the victims—the children and their parents? When we had a similar problem when I was in local government back in the ’90s, we set up a thing called Childline to give a direct voice to young people so that they could raise their concerns. Does she think that we should have a similar thing here so that victims of child sexual exploitation can have their voices heard?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. On the history and the action that has been taken, one thing that Baroness Casey criticises in particular is a 2020 report produced by the Home Office under the previous Government. She says that the conclusions that it came to were simply not justified by the data, and that the data gathered was inadequate. I think everyone should recognise that sufficient action has not been taken, be it on data, sharing or implementing recommendations. On victims and survivors, the Minister for Safeguarding is doing immensely important work to look at ways of ensuring that their voices can be at the heart of the new national inquiry and all Home Office work in this area.