Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson]

Okay, Conservative Members can make a lot of noise, because that is all they ever do. Thanks.

Is now really the time to decimate rights and standards at work, environmental protections, and health and safety? Conservative Members should consider just how destructive this will be, and just how angry people will be with this wholesale attack on their basic rights and protections. This Bill is not fit for purpose and it should not go ahead.

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

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. At noon, the new Prime Minister promised “integrity, professionalism and accountability”. At 5 pm, he reappointed the former Home Secretary, who resigned from the post just one week ago, saying that she had broken the ministerial code and admitting that she had sent confidential documents outside Government from a private email.

In the urgent question last week, I raised a series of questions about whether there had been an official audit to check what other documents the former, and current, Home Secretary might have circulated from personal emails, because there were suggestions in the media that there had been others; and whether the right hon. and learned Lady’s resignation letter was in fact factually correct, because her account was different from briefings to the media and the statement by the Minister for the Cabinet Office last week.

May I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to help us to get urgent answers to these questions? The Home Secretary has access to the most sensitive information of all, relating to our national security. We cannot have someone careless and slapdash in that job. How on earth does it meet standards of integrity and professionalism to reappoint someone who has just broken the ministerial code, and has just breached all standards of professional behaviour in a great office of state? It looks as if the new prime minister has put party before country. Our national security and public safety are too important for this.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her point of order. While she will clearly have opportunities to address those matters in Home Office questions, I fully appreciate that the next Home Office questions will not be until 14 November. Those on the Treasury Bench will have heard her point of order, and I am sure that they will pass it on to the Home Office.

Royal assent

Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Menzies]

The hon. Lady makes an important point.

On energy security, let me say that there is nobody more committed to it than myself; we manufacture all the nuclear fuel for the UK in my constituency, at Westinghouse. But in order to make up the shortfall of the amount of gas we import, we will be looking at drilling somewhere in the region of 6,000 to 10,000 wells. The quantities we are talking about are astronomical and the timescales involved mean we are not going to get gas into the network any time in the next two years. There is no infrastructure to get the gas from these wells into the grid. The alternative is building gas-fired power stations to turn this into electricity and feed it in through wires, but again the timescales involved simply do not exist. So the energy security argument, important though it is, does not even stack up in the timescales the Government are talking about.

In conclusion, I welcome the fair, transparent and meaningful consultation that both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have committed to today. That gives the people of Fylde the opportunity to reject fracking and, more importantly, to have their voice heard.

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

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Home Secretary has been sacked or has resigned this afternoon—this is utter chaos. The Prime Minister appears to have appointed and sacked both a Chancellor and a Home Secretary, two of the great offices of state, in the space of six weeks. This is no way to run a Government. Have you had any indication from the Prime Minister that she will come to this House to answer questions arising from this?

The former Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), says in her resignation letter that she sent

“an official document…a draft Written Ministerial Statement about migration, due for publication”

from her personal email, and that this was against the rules. This raises huge questions about why a Home Secretary who was responsible for security was breaching basic rules. There are also rumours that in fact this statement on migration had not been agreed across the Government, there were major disagreements and that it had been blocked by the Chancellor. She also says in her letter that she has

“concerns about the direction of this government”

and the breaking of “key pledges”. She says very pointedly that they have made mistakes and that

“hoping things will magically come right is not serious politics.”

There is clearly huge chaos at the heart of the Government. Home affairs is far too important for this kind of chaos. This is about security, public safety and the issues covered by the great offices of state. Given that the Government seem to be imploding, we clearly need not simply a change of Home Secretary, but a change of Government. Can we get a new statement to this House?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her point of order and for advance notice of it. I was made aware of the departure of the Home Secretary in the usual way, but the right hon. Lady is asking whether I have been notified in the usual way as to whether there will be a statement. I have not been notified as such, but should the situation change, Members will be notified via the annunciators and other means. As it stands at this moment, there are no statements to be made today.

We are still on the six-minute limit, and then we will drop to four minutes. I call Barbara Keeley.

Points of Order

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

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

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Earlier this afternoon, in response to the Home Secretary’s very confusing statement on sanctuary arrangements for Ukraine, I asked her whether the elderly Ukrainian mother of a British resident who was prevented by Border Force from travelling from Paris to the UK to join her daughter would now, as a result of this announcement, be able today to return to Gare du Nord to come to the UK. The Home Secretary said, very simply and clearly, “Yes”, which was welcome.

However, the Home Office has since clarified that the arrangements apply only to immediate family—that is, spouses, partners, children under 18 and those in need of care—and do not include elderly parents. In this case, the Ukrainian widow is therefore not covered. Indeed, I have spoken to her daughter this afternoon; she is still waiting in Paris and has been told that there is no family visa route that she can apply for. She is attempting still to find other, quite costly, ways to try to rejoin her daughter here, perhaps through tourist visas instead.

This is totally confusing. Either the Home Office website and the information given to journalists this afternoon about the policy are completely wrong, or the Home Secretary gave wrong information to the House. That is not fair on Ukrainians who are trying to find shelter and solidarity and to rejoin family. Given that Home Office Ministers are in the House all evening, Mr Deputy Speaker, could you endeavour to encourage them to get some clarity for the sake of Ukrainian families? Do the arrangements only cover immediate relatives, as defined by the Home Office, or are elderly parents included? Can elderly parents rejoin their sons and daughters who are resident and settled in the UK?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving me forward notice of her point of order. Clearly, this is an incredibly distressful time for so many people, but the Chair does not audit the accuracy of what hon. Members, including Ministers, say in the Chamber. Having said that, those on the Government Front Bench will have heard the right hon. Member’s point of order and, if the record needs to be corrected, I am sure it will be. Should a Home Office Minister or the Home Secretary want to come to the House and make a statement later today or at some stage in the future, the House will be notified in the usual way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Solloway]

Arm is an important part of the UK tech sector and makes a significant contribution to the UK economy. Although acquisitions are primarily a commercial matter for the parties concerned, the Government monitor them closely. When a takeover may have a significant impact on the UK, we will not hesitate to investigate further and take action. We will be scrutinising the deal carefully to understand its impact on the UK.

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

What recent discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on providing additional support to businesses affected by covid-19 lockdown restrictions in the run up to Christmas.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

The Secretary of State works closely with the Chancellor, and I and my officials have had regular engagement with the Treasury. I recently met the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to discuss ongoing financial support.

We have announced additional cash grants and extensions to the job retention scheme and existing loan schemes.

[Yvette Cooper]

Pubs and high street shops are particularly hard hit by losing pre-Christmas takings. The Minister will know that it is also the hospitality and retail sectors that are most at risk from accelerating automation, which will affect jobs. What will he do to work with those sectors on sector-specific plans to prevent the double whammy of covid and automation affecting jobs, so that our pubs and high street shops can be open?

[Paul Scully]

The right hon. Lady raises a really important point. As well as having regular meetings with the hospitality and retail sectors about the immediate future, we also have the Retail Sector Council and the Hospitality Futures Group, an industry-led a group, which we participate in fully to make sure that we can address such long-term concerns.

Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

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

My hon. Friend is completely right and is making a really powerful case on behalf of mineworkers all over the country. Does she agree that we need to know whether the Government are seeing the mineworkers’ pension as a source of income generation? If they are, that would be utterly morally wrong, given the contribution that the mineworkers have made to our economy over so many years.

[Stephanie Peacock]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am sure that the Minister has heard her question and will address it in good time.

Never mind whether this is fair. From a financial perspective, the scheme fundamentally does not provide value for money for its members. I implore the Minister not to respond with platitudes about the benefits of the Government’s guarantee for the scheme. We know that it has been beneficial, and as many a former miner from Barnsley will tell us, they know there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Office for Students: Appointment

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

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

The problem is that this man thought it was okay to publicly leer at women’s bodies while they were in the workplace, including tweeting repeatedly about women, about their knockers, their breasts, their boobs, their baps—on and on. What does it say to women and young girls across the country that a Minister is defending that—including when this man attacked a woman MP in this House in that way? Instead, why does not the Minister stand with women across the world who are saying to men like this that their time is up?

[Joseph Johnson]

The Government have condemned the tweets. Mr Young has apologised for them. Any repetition of language of that kind will not be tolerated.