Yvette Cooper
Main Page: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley)Department Debates - View all Yvette Cooper's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
We welcome the Home Secretary back from her expensive interior design tour.
The Louise Casey review will be published tomorrow and is expected to be damning, with far-reaching findings. The Home Secretary has known about failures on standards and vetting in policing for a long time, so why has she repeatedly refused to bring in mandatory vetting standards and automatic suspension for officers under investigation for domestic abuse and sexual assault?
Suella Braverman
I regret the tone that the shadow Home Secretary adopts when it comes to Rwanda. I encourage her to ditch her outdated and ignorant views on our friends in Rwanda.
When it comes to the Casey report, which I have read, it is clear that there have been failings within the Met. That is why the commissioner is right to accept those past failings, and that is why he has my total backing in moving forward to turn around performance and standards in the Met, so that every citizen in London has total confidence in those who wear the badge.
Yvette Cooper
The problem is that the Home Secretary’s response is too little and too late. We should all back the commissioner to take urgently needed action in the Met, but confidence in the Met has dropped sharply and confidence has also dropped nationally. The system for national standards that the Home Secretary presides over is far too weak, with no proper regulations or requirements and no proper intervention when things go wrong. Neighbourhood policing, which sustains confidence, is being hollowed out. That is damaging for communities and for the vital work that the police do. Will she now commit to urgent legislation and a full overhaul on standards? The proud British tradition of policing by consent is in peril unless the Government act urgently.
Suella Braverman
I am proud of this Government’s track record on reducing crime and increasing the number of police officers. Since 2010, violent crime is down, robbery is down, neighbourhood crime is down and burglary is down. When the right hon. Lady talks about the Met, what I would gently say is that London has a Labour Mayor—as well as a Labour police and crime commissioner—who has failed to hold the Met to account properly. I am afraid I must encourage her to speak to her Labour colleague and ask him to do a better job of holding the Met to account.