Hillsborough

Debate between David Anderson and Yvette Cooper

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my right hon. Friend about the importance of co-ordination and the value of having a special prosecutor in these circumstances. It might be helpful if Ministers said a bit more about whether there is any concern about how long it will take for the DPP to decide whether further criminal prosecutions will be pursued given that a special prosecutor and a special investigative team may not be established until after that decision has been taken. In other words, what resources does the DPP need in the meantime in order to take the decision about criminal prosecutions? The IPCC is beginning investigations now, and there is a question about how long these will take to get going.

[Mr Anderson]

In many years of representing people, particularly in the public services, in some very serious internal disciplinary procedures, it was always the norm that when someone was accused of potential serious misconduct they were suspended. Has anyone been suspended from the police service? If not, who has the power to do that if it is seen to be the right thing to do?

[Yvette Cooper]

There are legal processes in place that allow police authorities to take decisions about the suspensions of police officers. As my hon. Friend will recognise, in taking these decisions it is clearly important that legal processes are followed. In the past, there have been suspensions in a series of such cases.

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Debate between David Anderson and Yvette Cooper

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman has gone £40 billion further. He has proposed an additional £40 billion of cuts that we do not think are the right thing to do. He asks what we would have done, but I am sure that he has read chapter 6 of the March Budget, which sets out £20 billion of saving cuts in some detail and a further £19 billion in tax increases. I shall tell him what else we would not do: we would not waste money on measures such as free schools and the married couple’s allowance.

Nothing in the Government’s plans will get a single extra person back to work. In fact, the opposite is true. The Budget cuts the number of jobs in the economy by 100,000 a year. It increases the number of people on the dole by up to 100,000 a year, and that is on the admission of the experts the Government appointed. At the same time, the Government are cutting 200,000 jobs and training places and the youth guarantee and job guarantee schemes. How on earth will they get more people into work if they keep cutting jobs?

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share the concerns of the Royal College of Nursing, which, in relation to a Department that allegedly is protected, suggests that at least 5,500 and, possibly, as many as 30,000 front-line nurses’ jobs will go?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that the Government’s proposals do not even include the consequences of the spending review and the proposed additional £17 billion of cuts in public services.

We think that it is better for people to be in work than on the dole, and that is why we funded the future jobs fund and additional support and jobs. They were often in the community and run by the voluntary sector, and they helped young people to obtain the skills that they needed and to stay off the dole. Yet, shockingly, the Government have cut 90,000 jobs through the future jobs fund, putting all those people—additionally—back on to the dole and pushing up unemployment bills. As a result, even on the OBR’s calculations, those measures will cost the Government £2 billion more over the next four years. They will have to pay additional benefits for the unemployed, and the financial, economic and social price of higher long-term unemployment will cost us more for years.