High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

If there has simply been no updated assessment, that might explain why so many of my constituents get stuck on platforms in Leeds, trying to get back to Castleford, or on platforms in Castleford, trying to get into Leeds. So many more people are commuting for work, yet the commuter infrastructure for them is just not there. It is continually our towns that are being let down.

[John Redwood]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I am conscious of the time and see Mr Deputy Speaker looking at me, so I shall give way only briefly.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I am very relaxed.

[John Redwood]

How would a review help, given that the right hon. Lady’s Front-Bench colleagues and the current Government are united behind the current scheme, which does nothing to help our towns?

[Yvette Cooper]

Nobody has done a proper assessment of where transport infrastructure investment is going and what the impact is on cities and towns. Some assessment has been made of the impact on different regions of the country, and that is important. Actually, it is significant, because I think the New Economics Foundation cites HS2’s own figures showing that 40% of the benefits from HS2 will go to London, whereas only 10% of the benefits will go to Yorkshire. I want to see a broader assessment of the impact on cities and towns.

Job growth is twice as fast in cities as in towns. New digital jobs, service jobs, university-related jobs and cultural jobs are all being concentrated in cities, but manufacturing, distribution and retail jobs are disappearing from towns. That is a result of automation or changes to our economy, but public sector investment decisions, including on transport priorities, are making that worse. Public services are shrinking back from towns into cities, and the new infrastructure investment is always concentrated on cities rather than towns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Certainly, for bus services, which are crucial for our towns, the loss of revenue has been particularly crucial and devastating. This debate is about towns getting their fair share of both revenue and capital investment. Currently, I do not think we are getting either.

The campaign to power up the north led by some of our regional newspapers is immensely important, and I strongly back it, but I also think that it is time to power up our towns, as they have immense potential and are not getting their fair share of investment. Time and again, whether through HS2 or Crossrail 2, too much money—the big billions—is still going into the cities rather than the towns. That is why I support this review, but ask for it to be broadened.

I urge the Minister to broaden it as well, because the truth is that Members from our towns have been respectful, we have asked sensible questions, we have been patient, and we have waited and waited and, frankly, we have got nothing. We see no sign of anything improving for our transport infrastructure. We see no sign of anything other than warm words about promises in the future. We need that review of the geographic benefits and we need a proper towns plan—a proper plan for major infrastructure investment. Until we have that, the Government’s transport infrastructure plan is simply not in the national interest.

[John Redwood]

My worry about the Labour new clauses is that they will not achieve the objective that Labour seems to think they will achieve. The truth is that, with the legislation already in place and the likely passage this evening of the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill, all the legal powers are there to proceed with the scheme as originally designed. As the contracts are settled, the scope for any fundamental changes arising from a review is either limited or non-existent. As the project develops, there is less and less scope to make any changes to it.

I speak as someone who, when we were first faced with the decision about HS2, decided that it was not the right project. I fully share the ambition of practically everybody in this House that we need an even more successful northern powerhouse and better transport and connectivity throughout those northern cities and towns. As someone who represents a very fast-growing and hard-pressed area of the country, just outside London, I would love to see an even more effective counter-magnet to London elsewhere in the country to pick up some of that growth and some of that prosperity, because we have the difficulties of managing so many people coming in and so many people moving around on transport systems that are woefully inadequate for the task. I share the ambition for the northern powerhouse, but I accept that a decision has already been made in principle, that a lot of money has now been committed and that various works have been undertaken in the name of the project, so it would become more and more difficult to make fundamental change or to think about cancellation.

As it happens, I think that there will be another decision taken quite shortly about this mighty project, because the very likely next Prime Minister has said that he wishes to review it and to think about it again, and I wish him every success with that. It would be a very difficult task, and it would need to be done with reasonable speed. Given that we have committed so much and that there is some reasonable merit in the project, he may conclude that he wishes to go on with it. If he were to make a more fundamental decision, all that we are talking about this afternoon in this House is a waste of time, because, clearly, the project will be cancelled and everything else will lapse.

I work on the assumption that, after review, the new Prime Minister may continue with the project, and that we are in the business of trying to mitigate the difficulties and damages. My colleagues who represent constituencies who are very badly affected by this project deserve special treatment over how it can be ameliorated and improved and how compensation can be paid and businesses dealt with.

Certainly, we need transparency. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) for raising the issue. I want to hear from the Minister about what is going to be done on transparency, so that those who are most adversely affected, should the project go ahead in full, are able to see why the decisions are being made and also have access to the information that they need to get proper compensation.

I myself will not be voting for the Labour amendments, because they simply do not bring any advantage either to those who support the project in full or those who have the problems of handling the disadvantages of the project in their constituencies. I do not see how a further review suddenly will make this a better run project. If the project goes forward, this Minister and any future Minister will have to deal with how the costs will be controlled, how the works will be carried out in a speedy manner and to a high quality with safe standards for the workforce, and how the impact of those works can be minimised on those most affected by them as they go ahead. These remain continuing management problems. An additional independent review is not going to solve any of that. We are now getting to the point where it needs individual management solutions. It is about managers on the ground, how contracts are handled on the ground, and the extent to which Ministers can and should have proper oversight of those contracts, given their commercial nature and given the technical expertise of those actually running the project.

I do not see how an independent review can help at all. I do not believe that any serious change could result from it, because the contracts will be let, and we will be told that the contractors have to get on with it. There does remain the issue of whether a new Prime Minister wishes to reopen the whole question, but assuming that he does not we will need proper answers from Ministers about what action they have taken to control the costs, improve the quality and deal with safety, and about how much power they will have in future, given the commercial nature of the operation.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I completely agree with the right hon. Lady. What I am saying just comes from listening to employers in my constituency who have told me that they have bought all the storage capacity they can find in order to stockpile, but they cannot stockpile more than 10 days’ worth of some of their products, and they are really concerned about the impact of the delays on just-in-time technology.

[John Redwood]

Does the right hon. Lady agree, in wanting to promote stronger and better industry once we have left, that the Government should set zero tariffs on all imported components, which we would be free to do, which would make them cheaper from non-EU countries and preserve zero tariffs for EU components?

[Yvette Cooper]

It is not clear to me how that strengthens our negotiating position with countries all over the world that might then keep their tariffs extremely high on our goods. The whole point is that, if we crash out on WTO terms, it undermines our negotiating power. Whether one thinks that is about negotiating with the EU or negotiating with other countries, we are weakening our position abroad.

We also have the impact on the NHS, which is spending £10 million on fridges: it will have to put more money into this which could be put into patient care. The police have warned that we will be less safe. They and the Border Force would immediately lose access to crucial information that they check 500 million times a year to find wanted criminals, dangerous weapons, sex offenders and terror suspects. We will not be able to use European arrest warrants to catch wanted criminals who fled here having committed serious crimes abroad. We use those warrants 1,000 times a year to send people back to face justice in the countries where those crimes have been committed. If those 1,000 suspects commit more crimes here, MPs will need to explain to the victims why we took away the power from the police to arrest and extradite them by tumbling into no deal.

Customs and Borders

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I do agree with that and it is, interestingly, the view of both the CBI and the TUC that a customs union is particularly important for the future of our economy and the future of trade. Hon. Members can see why it would matter at the border. James Hookham, the deputy chief executive of Britain’s Freight Transport Association, has warned that an average delay of two minutes as a result of new Brexit spot checks at Dover would create a tailback of 17 miles. In a world of just-in-time production and retailing, when companies hold less stock, when supply chains run across borders and back again, it makes even small delays costly.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Can the right hon. Lady explain how it is that we have such a smooth-running, fast-growing and very large trade with the rest of the world, on World Trade Organisation terms, where we have to pay EU tariffs, and we are not allowed to negotiate them down all the time we are a member of the customs union?

[Yvette Cooper]

I think the right hon. Gentleman is simply making the point that our trade was growing, within the current arrangements, with the rest of the world. That seems to be a good thing, and suggests that perhaps, therefore, we can carry on increasing our international trade and our global trade, even within customs union arrangements.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

This has been a very thoughtful debate, and I hope that the Government are in no doubt about the scale of parliamentary concern about the way in which the Bill concentrates powers in the hands of Ministers.

In his opening speech, the Secretary of State recognised that the Bill is not what will take us out of the EU; Parliament has already voted for article 50, which will take us out of the EU—and rightly voted for it, as well. However, Parliament also has a job to do to hold Ministers to account and the Bill, as drafted, stops us doing that. It stops us standing up for democracy in this House, and it stops us making sure, frankly, that the Government do not screw up Brexit in the process they put it through and the decisions they take.

Many of the purposes behind the Bill are right. Parliament will need to repeal the 1972 Act, and Parliament will also need to transfer EU-derived law into UK law. As the Chair of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), has already said, we will have to have a Bill, but not this Bill. There is a choice about the way in which we do this, and we do not have to do it in a way that concentrates so much power in the hands of a small group of Ministers.

Let me run through some of our concerns. The shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), set out a very forensic and powerful account of the Bill and the detailed powers that it will give Ministers, with no safeguards in place. There are the powers in clauses 7 and 17, as well as those in clause 9, and there is the fact that it will reduce British citizens’ rights. Far from allowing Brits to take back control, the Bill weakens protection for employment rights, equality and environmental standards; it weakens remedies and enforcement; and, crucially, it reduces the right of redress. It is both sad and telling that Ministers have chosen to exempt the charter of fundamental rights. I hope that that will be reversed, and that they will change their position.

The greatest concern—I want to focus on this point—is the concentration of powers in a way that, frankly, is not British. Parliament will not be able to do its job to stand up for citizens’ rights against a powerful Executive if the Bill goes through in the way that it has been drafted. The unprecedented powers given to Ministers in certain clauses—clause 7 and, in particular, clause 17 —are powers that would make a Tudor monarch proud. Everyone realises that the sheer extent of the provisions means that we will need both primary and secondary legislation as part of the process, but not to this scale, not with this lack of safeguards and not with this concentration of power in Ministers’ hands.

The Bill will give Ministers the power to change primary legislation for an incredibly broad range of reasons, and the test will simply be whether they think it is appropriate. The test is not whether a change is needed, proportionate or essential, but only whether Ministers consider it to be appropriate. The Bill also includes the power—the Secretary of State made slightly disingenuous remarks in the way he presented this—to create new criminal offences so long as sentences are not more than two years. That is a serious power to give Ministers on such a broad area without parliamentary scrutiny.

Let me give some examples of the things that the Bill would do. I raised the European arrest warrant with the Secretary of State, and his response to my question about what safeguards there would be was simply to point to the Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Act—by the way, Conservative Front Benchers have pledged to get rid of it—is not a sufficient safeguard. We know that we should not rely on the courts to have all the safeguards, and that we in Parliament should provide some of them as well. We also know that within the scope of the Human Rights Act there is a huge range of potential policies on extradition on which Parliament should have a say.

On my past record, I suspect that I am probably closer to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary on what the extradition policy should be than many of their Back Benchers. I still do not think, however, that they should have unlimited powers to decide extradition policy without having to come back to Parliament.

We debated the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 forensically—in fact, it was an example of Parliament at its best. We gave that Act detailed consideration that balanced security and liberty and changed it as it went through. Given, however, that some of the Act’s genesis depended on ECJ judgments and its relationship with EU legislation, the Bill today could give Ministers the power to reopen the Act and change the primary legislation that we put forward with great care, and—again—to do so through secondary legislation only, without there being proper safeguards and checks in place. Ministers will have the power to rip up the working time directive, too, if it does not fit with what they think should happen under the appropriate arrangements after Brexit.

I do not trust the Prime Minister and the Cabinet with these immense powers. One would expect me not to do so, but no parliamentarian should trust them with these powers. None of us knows who the next Prime Minister will be or who will be in the next Cabinet. This is about the powers in principle, not who is doing the job right now. Clause 9 is particularly disturbing; it should not even be in the Bill. We should be legislating separately for the withdrawal agreement. We should have a separate Bill—and, yes, it would need to provide for secondary legislation; we should not be doing it now, when we have no clue what the withdrawal agreement will be, when we have not had a vote to endorse the Government’s negotiating strategy—we do not even know what it is on a whole series of different areas—and when there is not even a statutory commitment to a vote on the withdrawal agreement.

We could start legislating later, in the summer perhaps when we have a bit more of a clue where on earth this is all going, or perhaps in the autumn when the withdrawal agreement supposedly will have been signed. Then we could put the exit date, which some Government Members are concerned about, into primary legislation and legislate without giving Ministers any more powers than is strictly necessary, rather than hand them unrestricted power to do the job.

[John Redwood]

Does the right hon. Lady not accept that the Government are conducting the negotiations? Parliament can say, “We like the result,” or “We don’t like the result,” but we cannot amend it; it is what the negotiation is.

[Yvette Cooper]

I am not comfortable with the right hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for giving the Government blank cheques. Even if he is happy to support the Government and let them do whatever they want on the negotiations, he should be deeply uneasy about giving Ministers unrestricted powers to implement the withdrawal agreement in whatever way they so choose.

The Prime Minister has no mandate to do it this way. To be fair, she asked for one—that is what the election was all about; it was about subverting the Cabinet, her party and this Parliament—but she did not get one. In fact, the Conservative party lost seats. We now have a hung Parliament, and it would be even more irresponsible for a hung Parliament to hand over such huge powers to the Executive than it would be in any other circumstances.

We do not need to legislate like this. This is about more than just Brexit. It is about the precedents we set. Many hon. Members have quoted precedents about different kinds of secondary legislation, but that only strengthens the argument: we should not be setting a precedent in Parliament that hands this stonking great lump of powers into Ministers’ hands without any safeguards. This is about who we are. It is about what kind of democracy Britain should be.

Even before the Brexit legislation, the former Lord Chief Justice warned about the steady diminishing of Parliament, about the handing over of power and control, year after year, to the Executive—to be fair, that includes previous Governments, not just this one—and about the number of statutory instruments and the fact that since 1950 Parliament has said no to only one in 10,000 of those laid before it.

Henry VIII’s Parliament had an excuse. The man had a habit of chopping off people’s heads. What is the excuse for this Parliament? How can we possibly, in this generation, allow ourselves to become the most supine Parliament in history by handing over powers on this scale? We sit in the Chamber and listen to maiden speeches with great respect because we all still think that there is something special about being sent here by our constituents—sent with the power of democracy; sent on the wings of all those many thousands of ballot papers folded up with the crosses by our names. We think that we have a responsibility to hold the Executive to account, and not to hand over to Ministers, in an unrestricted way, all the power given to us by our constituents to do what they like with. Yet that is what the Bill is doing.

History will judge us for the decisions that we make now, for the precedents that we set and the choices that we make. Six months ago, I voted for article 50 because I believe in democracy, but now it is that same faith in democracy that means I cannot vote for the Bill. Let us not choose to be the most supine Parliament in history. Let us be the parliamentary generation that stands up for Parliament: the generation that pursues the article 50 process, but does so in a way that holds Ministers to account.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I do not think that the new clauses would bind the Government’s hands. I agree that there is a concern that we could end up toppling off the edge of the negotiations without having a deal in place, which means that there is an incentive for all of us in Parliament to want a deal to be in place for Brexit, for future trade arrangements and for the transitional arrangements. Given how the Government have set out the arrangements, however, my concern is that there is no incentive for the Executive to try to get a deal that Parliament can support. If the Executive can simply go down the WTO route and reject alternatives without Parliament having any say, they will not have the right incentives to get the best possible deal.

[John Redwood]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that practically everyone in the House and in the Government would like tariff-free trade on the same basis as we have today? We entirely agree on that. The only issue is with what we can do individually and together to make it more likely that the other 27 member states will agree, because they will make that decision.

[Yvette Cooper]

I actually do agree with the right hon. Gentleman. We do want tariff-free trade, but he and I will probably differ on the customs union, for example. There would be huge advantages in staying in the customs union, but that does not affect the decisions that we might make on free movement or other aspects of the single market. I know that he would like us to be outside the customs union, but that may be a crunch question for the deal. The Executive might reject alternative options or better deals on matters such as the customs union on their own rather than give Parliament the opportunity to have its say.

Some of this comes down to timing. I accept that there is an article 50 timescale of two years and that it will be for the EU to decide what happens at the end if no deal is in place, but that also matters for the timing of the vote. At the moment, based on what the Minister said earlier, the vote will come at the very end of the process and could end up being at the end of the two years. The strength of new clause 110 is that it would require the vote to be held before the deal went to the European Commission, the European Council or the European Parliament. The advantage of that is that we would have a parliamentary debate and a vote earlier in the process, and that if there were no agreement, there would still be the opportunity for further negotiations and debates before we reached the article 50 cliff edge.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman can always be relied on to pop up in these debates. I have heard that his support for the legislation has made some in this House question whether it is strong enough. Surely it cannot be, if he is supporting it.

The hon. Gentleman will know that I made a speech 12 months ago in which I talked about the need to strengthen the system for commissioners and for oversight in this area, and that I made a further speech at the beginning of March in which I raised specific issues about online security and liberty. The Deputy Prime Minister also made a speech that week which raised some of these issues. I am concerned because I think that, overall, the Government have not responded to some of the challenges. They still have not recognised the wider need for public debate and reform.

[Mr Redwood]

Does the right hon. Lady think that in striking down a directive that Labour agreed to, the European Court of Justice went too far, or does she think on reflection that the directive went too far?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the directive went considerably further than the regulations we passed in this country. As I recall, the European directive was drawn up in the wake of the 7/7 bombings in London and the terrorist attacks that took place at that time and was designed to provide a framework to ensure that different European countries could legally take the necessary action to investigate terrorism. However, the decision we took in the UK was to implement it much more narrowly, to ensure that safeguards were in place and to ensure that there were safeguards in the operation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. I think that those safeguards now need to go further in the light of changing technology, and it is important that we do that.

I recognise that the Home Secretary wants only to maintain the status quo and to ensure that powers are not suddenly lost over the summer, but the problem for us is that the status quo is being challenged by the pace of new technology, by the struggle of police and agencies to keep up, by the limitations of a legal framework that dates back to 2000, by the weakness of oversight that does not meet modern expectations, by the Snowden leaks, by the global nature of the internet and by private companies that, in the case of most of us, hold, access and use far more of our private data than any police force or intelligence agency might do.

Justice and Home Affairs Opt-out

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

Monday 7th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman seemed to be opting out and opting in all over the place there. The problem with the opt-out that he wanted is that, by the time we have opted back in to the main measures, it will not really be there at all. Here is what the Prime Minister said about these measures. He described the European arrest warrant as “highly objectionable” and the Home Secretary’s package, which is before us today, as a massive “transfer of powers”.

The Home Secretary said that it was

“the first time in the history of our membership of the European Union that we have taken such a set of powers back from Brussels.”

She described it as

“something that should be celebrated by anybody who cares about national sovereignty, democracy and the role of this place in making the laws of our country.”—[Official Report, 15 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 770.]

So what does she want us to celebrate today? The truth is that the Home Secretary now wants us to opt back into the important measures again—thank goodness. Finally she has listened to reason. I was delighted to hear her list many of the cases in which the European arrest warrant has been used—rightly used—and needed; in fact, they were many of the examples that Labour Members were putting to her 12 months ago when she was refusing to listen. Finally, she has listened to the police, who have said that many of the measures, if we opt out and stay out of them, would let criminals run free. She has listened to the victims who feared that they would be denied justice. Finally, she has listened on cases such as that of Jason McKay, who was extradited from Poland within two weeks for murdering his partner. Under the old extradition arrangements, it would have taken several years to get him back to face justice for a murdered woman. So yes, she has rightly done a U-turn on the European arrest warrant, joint investigation teams, Schengen information sharing and co-operation over online child abuse.

The Home Secretary is right to admit that we cannot go back to the days when it took 10 years to extradite a terror suspect to France, or when it took 11 years to get Ronnie Knight back from the costa del crime. She is right to support the deportation of thousands of foreign suspects to their home countries to face charges. I agree that co-operation is needed in a whole series of different areas. We are glad, too, that the Home Secretary has accepted the need for the exchange of criminal records, Eurojust, the co-operation to protect personal data and measures on football hooliganism. We cannot go back to the days when foreign criminal gangs were untouchable and criminals were able to seek sanctuary on the continent. I am glad that the Home Secretary has decided to ignore her Back-Bench colleagues and the Fresh Start group and to listen instead to Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the police and victims of crime.

What is left that the Home Secretary wants us to remain opted out from? What is the massive transfer of powers—the historic transfer, the repatriation—that the Home Secretary wants us to celebrate today? We will not be signed up to some joint proceedings on driving licences, but they are not in force and are out of date. We will not be signed up to a directory on international organised crime, but it was closed down two years ago. We will not sign up to the guidance on the payment of informers, but we will carry on following it. We will not sign up to guidelines on working with other countries on drug trafficking, but we will carry on doing that anyway. We will not sign up to measures on cybercrime and mutual legal assistance, because they have all been superseded by other measures to which we have signed up instead. We will not sign up to minimum standards on bribery, but we will still meet them because the Bribery Act 2010 is still in place. We will not sign up to measures to tackle racism, but we will still meet them because we have hate crime legislation in place. We will not sign up to measures on accession, because they never applied to us in the first place. And we will not sign up to receive a directory of specialist counter-terrorism officers, but someone will probably send it to us in the post.

That is it. That is the historic transfer of powers that the Home Secretary boasted about—the great liberation from Europe and the great cause for celebration that she promised us when we last debated these matters. We have the power not to do a whole series of things we plan to carry on doing anyway, the power not to follow guidance we already follow, the power not to take action we already take, the power not to meet standards we already meet, the power not to do things that everyone else has already stopped doing and the power not to do a whole series of things we want to do anyway. This is her historic moment. She said it would be a first in the history of our membership of the EU; she wanted it to be her Churchill moment. Churchill? Only if it is the nodding dog in the back of the car.

This is a political charade. Now that we are playing charades, will the Home Secretary at least reassure us that she is not doing any lasting damage? Can she assure us that, for the sake of a few opt-outs, the warrants will not be lost?

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady not understand that if we opt back in to many of the big and serious measures we are discussing, a future Home Secretary in this House would be impotent in large areas of criminal justice?

[Yvette Cooper]

I must say that I am baffled that the right hon. Gentleman could consider a bit of guidance on this and a bit of a directory on that to be a huge, powerful thing in relation to criminal justice—[Interruption.] Oh, he is talking about the European arrest warrant. On that point, I think that he and I simply disagree. He would like us not to be able swiftly to deport foreign suspects to their home country to stand charge. He would like us not to be able swiftly to bring back to this country those who are suspected of serious crimes and need to face justice. Before we had the European arrest warrant, we waited years to get back the people we needed to have charged with serious crimes.

[Mr Redwood]

Of course I do not want to deny us that right, but I want us to have that right in a way that is accountable to this Parliament and in ways that we can amend.

[Yvette Cooper]

Unfortunately, the right hon. Gentleman wants us to sign huge numbers of different extradition treaties when the extradition treaties and arrangements we had before the European arrest warrant took years. I do not think that that is fair on the victims of crime who want to see justice done.

UNHCR Syrian Refugees Programme

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The UN raised with us how important it was that the countries providing the greatest support and generosity to Syria as neighbours should not feel that other countries across the world had turned their backs. That was one of the most important reasons for being part of the support for the programme. I will come later to her point about the UN programme, which is particularly important.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the Opposition use his good offices with the French President? It seems that the French contribution to overseas aid has been tiny compared with the UK’s, and France is surely in a good position to help.

[Yvette Cooper]

As I have just said, the three party leaders jointly called on countries across the world to do more on aid, and it is right that we should continue to do so. France has signed up to the UN programme to take around 500 refugees and provide assistance for the most vulnerable people in the region, which is also right. We want countries across the world to work with the UN and international organisations to provide assistance to those who are most desperate.

As the UN has made clear, some of the most vulnerable refugees are struggling to cope and survive in the camps. It told us about women who have been badly raped and abused, and who are at risk of further abuse in the camps. There are children with no one to look after them whose parents have been killed and relatives lost, and those who have been tortured and are still enduring terrible mental and physical distress. We need to provide help now for those people as a matter of our common humanity.

2014 JHA Opt-out Decision

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way but I do want to come on to some of the measures that the Home Secretary is proposing we opt out of and stay out of.

[Mr Redwood]

Does the shadow Home Secretary accept that if we opt in to a fundamental measure such as the European arrest warrant, some future Home Secretary could find an ECJ judgment that fundamentally went against the view of this House and that Home Secretary’s ability to conduct criminal justice properly, and they would be unable to do anything about it?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that opting into the EAW does mean it will be subject to the ECJ, but I have to say to him that the importance of the EAW, not only to our crime-fighting and to British police forces, but to victims is so immense that it would be highly irresponsible, against the national interest and against the interests of victims of crime to opt out of it. I understand his views, and it is important that he should have the opportunity to express them, but I just disagree with him on this matter, given the serious cases we have seen. About 900 suspected foreign criminals are extradited to other European countries each year as a result of the EAW being in place. Without the EAW it would take far longer to be able to send back the suspected criminals who ought to be returned, be it to their home country or to the countries in which they are alleged to have committed serious crimes, in order to be tried and to face justice.

EU Police, Justice and Home Affairs

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I cannot resist the temptation to give way to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood).

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am very grateful that the right hon. Lady is so attentive. Why does she not understand that what we want is to have democratic accountability to the British people through this House of Commons? We want these things done by agreement between our country and the European Union, but not under European law. Her party gave away 138 vetoes over crucial policy areas, which makes it very difficult to govern this country democratically.

[Yvette Cooper]

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman is really aware of the detailed implications of what he has said. He is arguing for a huge number of different bureaucratic arrangements with every country, whether on extradition or on legal frameworks. Let me give him an example of how the current framework operates. James Hurley, who was convicted of killing a police officer and escaped from custody, was returned two years ago under a European arrest warrant, and is now back in a British prison.

European Union Bill

Debate between John Redwood and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

If only the Foreign Secretary’s willingness to open EU buildings extended to opening a proper debate on European issues in the House. Clause 10 purports to increase Parliament’s role before ministerial decisions are made, yet the truth is that the Government do the opposite. We have had no discussion of the European economy prior to the discussion between European Finance Ministers today, no discussion of practical measures to cut the European budget, such as reform of the common agricultural policy, and no discussion of working with Europe on human trafficking or the directive that the Government continue to opt out of.

This very morning, European Finance Ministers met to discuss the Irish support package and the European economy. In 10 days’ time, decisions will be made on the crisis resolution measures that will affect the entire European economy—not just the eurozone—for many years to come. National leaders will discuss a treaty change to introduce that package, yet when is the debate in the British Parliament? We have no idea what British Government Ministers are proposing or asking for.

We should hold pre-Council debates in this Chamber. The economic and political pressures that Europe faces are serious. European growth is slowing, unemployment has increased and markets are putting pressure on several eurozone countries, all of which matters immensely to Britain, yet we have had no pre-Council debates. At the end of this year, there will have been four European Councils, but no debate.

[Mr Redwood]

The right hon. Lady is raising crucial issues. Does her party support the idea of Britain being part of more EU economic governance powers to help euroland, and does she think we ought to offer more financial assistance to other euroland countries in crisis?