Gaza and Sudan

Debate between Harpreet Uppal and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I just point out to the right hon. Gentleman that this Government are the first to take the historic decision to recognise the state of Palestine. That was taken exactly because for too long successive Governments have supported a two-state solution and yet recognised only one state. We believe it is right to change that and to recognise the state of Palestine. It is why we have been in continued discussion with the Palestinian Authority, who have welcomed the UN resolution and the peace process and have been involved in detailed discussions with the Arab states, too.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the detainees, those who have lost their lives and the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have lost their lives in Gaza as a result of the war over the past two years. It is also right that we recognise the huge damage that Hamas have done, including through their terrorist attack on 7 October. We need to address all the suffering that has taken place across Gaza and across the region if we are to bring people together to deliver a lasting peace. That is what the current process is working to do, and it is what we are working to do as part of it. There will be difficulties and challenges ahead. It will be complicated, but we need to continue that work.

[Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)]

Given the reports of thousands of civilians being prevented from fleeing El Fasher by the RSF and allied militias, what urgent steps are the Government taking to ensure that there are safe humanitarian corridors to support unimpeded access for aid agencies? That is a particular issue we heard about this morning in the private briefing. What more can we do to ensure that we are holding international backers to account—not only the UAE, but across the region?

[Yvette Cooper]

The UN Human Rights Council resolution that the UK drew up and that was passed on Friday includes the urgent need for humanitarian access, as well as the investigation of the atrocities and the ability to hold people to account. The other important issue is that the Quad—the US, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt—has now committed to the humanitarian truce, to a ceasefire and to ending external support to warring parties. It is essential that we all work to implement the commitment that the Quad has set out and ensure that there is huge international pressure to get that peace in place.

Ukraine

Debate between Harpreet Uppal and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

We always want to ensure that we provide aid and defence support in the most effective way and, crucially, in partnership with Ukraine, which, as a sovereign nation, knows where its greatest need lies. That is what we support.

[Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)]

I welcome the measures that have been announced, particularly on oil and gas revenues. They come as Russia continues to target Ukrainian energy infrastructure, including a state-run power plant last night. How are the Government helping Ukrainian homes to stay warm over winter, and will the Foreign Secretary join me in paying tribute to the Huddersfield Ukrainian club, which has continued to support Ukrainians who have arrived in Huddersfield since the conflict began?

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the support that my hon. Friend’s community is providing in her constituency. That has happened right across the country. She is right to focus on the impact on families. In targeting that infrastructure, Russia is deliberately targeting the heating and lighting of families across Ukraine as they go into winter. We have just announced—I announced it in Kyiv—a £42 million energy support package that is designed exactly to keep homes warm and support the resilience of the Ukrainian people through the winter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Harpreet Uppal and Yvette Cooper

Monday 7th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

As the hon. Member will know, decisions about where police stations are located are for the local force, the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner. She will welcome the news that Hampshire is getting 65 additional neighbourhood police officers, who will be out on the beat this year as a result of the Government’s neighbourhood policing guarantee.

[Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)]

T2.   I join colleagues in paying tribute to all those affected by the 7/7 attacks. In Huddersfield, new neighbourhood policing teams are making a difference in restoring safety to our town centres, with 12 additional officers for the team. I welcome the 6.8% funding uplift received by West Yorkshire police this year, but given the persistent challenges that town centres face—including violent and knife crime, which we have seen in Huddersfield—will the Secretary of State update the House on how the Government will continue to support neighbourhood policing and ensure that forces such as West Yorkshire have the long-term resources that they need to keep communities safe?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that we need the additional neighbourhood policing in West Yorkshire. I welcome the 12 additional officers in her constituency, the 100 additional neighbourhood police officers across West Yorkshire and, of course, the additional police officers in Pontefract and Castleford town centres. We have made it clear to police forces across the country that the focus this summer needs to be on tackling town centre crime.

Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report

Debate between Harpreet Uppal and Yvette Cooper

Monday 16th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I respect the hon. Member’s important points. In fact, inaccurate information was one of the issues that Baroness Casey raised. Whether it is about ethnicity or anything else, inaccurate information can cause huge problems, and the more we ensure that information is robust, the better. As the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee said, Baroness Casey will also give evidence tomorrow, so people will be able to hear directly from her as well as reading her report.

[Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)]

The victims and survivors of grooming gangs and CSE have been institutionally let down, and we must ensure that they are front and centre in our approach. I join other colleagues in saying that court delays must be looked at. They are a particular issue in West Yorkshire, and it is traumatic for the survivors. Baroness Casey reports on the Smith algorithm developed by West Yorkshire police, which brought hundreds of people into scope as victims and survivors and helped prosecution rates. Will that best practice be shared?

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Debate between Harpreet Uppal and Yvette Cooper

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I am happy to follow up with the hon. Lady about the very serious issues she raised. She is right that this cannot be about institutions just marking their own homework. That is one of the reasons why we have made the right to review an independent one. For child sexual abuse cases, where victims feel that they have been let down by a police force or the Crown Prosecution Service, they should be able to take that right to review not back to the same police force, but to an independent child sexual abuse panel to get a right to review in order to see whether they can get their cases reopened and properly investigated and see perpetrators pursued.

The hon. Lady will also know that there are other routes to hold police forces to account, including the police inspectorate. Although it can currently make recommendations—for example, it has just found serious failings in Cleveland police’s response to child sexual exploitation—too often, those recommendations are not followed up because there are no powers to do so. That is why we will also be changing the police performance management framework to strengthen the ability of the inspectorate and the Home Office to ensure that action is taken to improve performance and implement recommendations for improvement where serious problems are found. I am happy to talk to the hon. Lady about the wider policing reform needed to make sure there is accountability.

[Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)]

I welcome the statement from the Home Secretary. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet), who is not in her place, for sharing her story—I know it is very difficult to do—and for her continued work to support victims. It is really important that we finally act for victims and survivors, and I welcome that the Home Secretary will be acting on the inquiry’s recommendations. I urge her to make public the monitoring of the progress of those actions and to return to the House to provide regular updates on those actions.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We will need a process to keep the House up to date on the next steps and actions that are taken forward. We will do that through the victims and survivors panel that will be established by the Safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), and through regular updates on the work of the cross-departmental group of Ministers to pursue and take forward the recommendations.

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Debate between Harpreet Uppal and Yvette Cooper

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Many issues obviously cut across, including issues around policing that apply to England and Wales—for example, the police performance framework that we are talking about, and some of the data issues that we are talking about—so we need to work with Welsh police forces and the Welsh Government on taking the measures forward. They are immensely important, because part of the problem has been that there is no sense of what is actually being measured and what will actually change. What are the performance standards that we expect from all police forces right across the country? If those do not exist, too little changes in practice. A performance management framework has been missing from Wales, as well as from across England, and that is what we are determined to introduce.

[Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)]

The horrific cases of CSE and rape across the country have exposed deep failures in the safeguarding of vulnerable children and, as Members have said, there were unfortunately too many times when they were not treated as children by the agencies that should have supported them. I welcome the steps that the Home Secretary has set out, but will she ensure that there is long-term funding to support survivors in rebuilding their lives, that their voices will lead on reform and that we support local charities such as the Kirklees rape and sexual abuse centre and the Pennine domestic abuse partnership in my constituency, which do fantastic work but have to fight for funding every year?

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the local service; the Safeguarding Minister also is a strong supporter of the work that that service is doing. My hon. Friend is right about the importance of making sure that we support victims and survivors, and we need to work with the victims and survivors panel on how we take that forward. She is also right to say that part of the problem is that the children were not treated or respected as children. They were just treated as somehow being adults and not as being exploited and subjected to the most terrible of crimes. That is one of the fundamental things that has to change.