His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I join speakers from across the House and the country in paying tribute and respect to His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and in conveying heartfelt sympathies and condolences from all our constituents—from people across Normanton, Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley—to Her Majesty the Queen, to all the royal family and to all Prince Philip’s friends and family, who are grieving now.

His has been a remarkable life through a remarkable century: from royal to refugee to royal once more; a naval officer while our world was at war; a champion of science, industry and the environment in the peace; and always a public servant. Every one of us across the country, whether we ever met him or not, could not fail to see the steadfast sense of duty, commitment and devotion that he showed to the Queen and to our country. Their marriage and partnership endured through seven remarkable decades. The role of the monarch, even one as well loved and respected as our Queen truly is, can still so easily become a lonely one, yet for so many decades Prince Philip provided the steadfast support, devotion and comfort that has supported our Queen, and our country owes him thanks.

The great age at which Prince Philip remarkably kept working—well into his 90s—is astonishing. Just six years ago, already well into his 90s, he came to the opening of West Yorkshire police’s new training centre at Carr Lane in Wakefield, where he described himself as the world’s most experienced plaque opener. He was not wrong.

Millions of people will remember him not for those royal visits, many as they were, but for the adventures he led them through with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. On a miserable wet Friday evening close to Easter, in the middle of the 1980s and somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and like millions of teenagers before and since, I climbed out of the school minibus to set off across a muddy field in bucketing rain. Our sleeping bags were soggy by the time we arrived at our campsite, and it poured all night, but the sun shone in the morning, and we loved it. The fact that so many millions of young people across the country and across the generations have done the same thing in the Duke of Edinburgh’s name shows how it has stood the test of time. The expeditions that instilled teamwork, leadership and resilience; the chance to learn new skills; the encouragement of physical activity; the responsibility to take up volunteering and to do duty to others—those elements were things that he himself loved and believed in as ways to build young people’s confidence and opportunities.

Subsequent Governments talked often of and tried to set up versions of national citizen services for young people, but it was the Duke of Edinburgh, back in the 1950s, who actually set up one. It has endured and reached out: a quarter of the young people who started the scheme last year faced some kind of financial hardship or needed support, and so many young people from all corners of the country have had the chance to take part, including students in Normanton, Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley today. New College Pontefract students describe their experiences as bringing them great pride, teaching them about dedication and hard work and building confidence.

Prince Philip resisted the idea of the Duke of Edinburgh scheme’s being seen as his legacy.

“No, no…it’s there for people to use”

he said, yet it feels more important, with more potential and significance on his passing, even than it did more than 60 years ago. When young people have had such a tough time this year, when they have too often been held back or been stuck inside or unable to reach out or spread their wings, the Duke of Edinburgh scheme feels more apt than ever. It is a great legacy, and we now must make sure it keeps reaching more and more young people, so that Prince Philip can keep reaching new generations, just as he did all of us.

Covid-19: Road Map

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Outdoor sport for schools can go ahead from 8 March, as I said earlier. The evidence for all the decisions that we have taken—a massive quantity of scientific evidence—has been deposited today with the House.

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

Our covid rates in Yorkshire have fallen much more slowly than in London and the south-east, partly because fewer people can work from home and more people in our towns have to go out to work to keep our factories and distribution centres running. The Prime Minister keeps saying that he is supporting self-isolation, but most workers are not getting that support, and that is particularly hitting our manufacturing towns. Will he think again? Will he extend that support, help those workers, and help us to get our rates down?

[The Prime Minister]

We are increasing our support, as I have said, for people who are self-isolating and continue to look after our workers throughout the pandemic. The best thing for all those businesses in Yorkshire is to continue, as they are doing, to get the disease down and keep it under control.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I am glad that the Government and the EU have agreed a deal. As the transition ends tomorrow night, our country should start the process of building new relationships and a future outside the EU, based on an agreement and a plan, not on the acrimony or chaos that no deal would have heralded. This is not the deal that the Prime Minister promised everyone—on services, which are left out; on red tape, which will increase; and on security co-operation, which will go down. He should level with people about those problems, not make impossible promises.

There are further urgent things we need the Government to do now to support jobs and security, but we need an agreement as a starting point. We left the EU in January; the transition ends tomorrow. Everyone needs to get on with things and no one deserves the chaos of no deal. Britain’s counter-terror chief told us that that would make us less safe, and employers in my constituency such as Tereos, Burberry, Haribo and Teva would be badly hit under no deal by tariffs and delays.

So it is in the national interest and in our local interest for this Brexit agreement to pass through Parliament now, and I shall vote for it today, but we need urgent action to improve the deal for this country. I am glad that it includes continued security co-operation on criminal records—DNA, Europol and extradition—although arrangements will be more bureaucratic, but there is a huge gap for us. Tomorrow night the police and Border Force will have to remove access to the details of 38,000 wanted suspects and criminals from the EU on the SIS II criminal database, which they check hundreds of millions of times a year. The replacement Interpol information system database is much slower and weaker. That makes our security response weaker too. There is not a proper trade deal on services, and there will be a massive increase in red tape for businesses—11 million customs forms that have to be filled in. Those costs will hit jobs and investment.

So we need to look forward to the things that the Government need to do now, once the Brexit agreement is in place, to support security and jobs—resources for the police to operate the new arrangements; look again at SIS II and work to improve Interpol; a new trade plan for services to reduce customs red tape; a proper industrial policy to support communities; and higher, not lower, environmental and labour standards.

We also need urgent action to heal the divides. The ultimate test of the Prime Minister’s deal and future plan is what he uses it for—whether to strengthen the United Kingdom or to divide and destroy it; whether he pushes Scotland away and deepens the divide between north and south. So far in the north this year we have not seen any of the levelling up that the Government promised. We have seen power and control centralised. Our communities still want a fair deal. That is what we should unite around now.

Covid-19 Update

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is spot on. It is so important to avoid an uncontained second wave in order to protect the NHS, and allow the treatments and therapies for other non-covid afflictions to continue.

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

Just a month ago, the Prime Minister described his moonshot plan, under which millions of tests would be done and returned every day. He said,

“if everything comes together, it may be possible even for challenging sectors like theatres to have life much closer to normal before Christmas.”

Families are now feeling that a normal Christmas is further away than ever, and local health officials in our area have said that people are waiting for six days, not a day, to get their test results. If we could come back from the moon and get back to what is happening on planet Earth, when will he have enough testing capacity in place so that my constituents can get their results in 24 hours?

[The Prime Minister]

The daily test process has gone up by 34% just in the last month, and daily capacity has gone up by 28%. As the right hon. Lady knows, by the end of this month, NHS Test and Trace is confident that it will be doing 500,000 tests—it will have capacity, I should say, for 500,000 tests a day.

Covid-19

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. We are doing everything we can to protect people, particularly those in care homes, who are so vulnerable, as we saw during the early stages of the pandemic. We have massively increased the winter action plan for care homes: putting in another £546 million; stopping movement between care homes; and taking the tough decision to stop visits to care homes in lockdown areas, which is very difficult for elderly people in care homes. The reason that we are taking those and other difficult measures now is that we want to avoid another national lockdown of exactly the type that my hon. Friend also rightly wants to avoid.

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

Some of my constituents have been waiting for four days, five days or even longer to get their test results back. In July, the Government rightly promised that 80% of in-person tests would receive their results within 24 hours of booking. That figure is now down to below 20%. That is dangerous: it means that people are not in the tracing system and their contacts are not being traced; it makes it easier for the virus to spread; and it makes it more likely that we will face even tougher restrictions, which the Prime Minister has described, across the whole country. Given that the Government made so many mistakes on testing in the first wave, we cannot afford for him to get this wrong again now. When will that 80% target now be met?

Civil Service Appointments

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Civil Service Commission has advised, and the Prime Minister has agreed, that it should be either a current or former permanent secretary who becomes the next Cabinet Secretary. He is also right that traditionally the roles of National Security Adviser and Cabinet Secretary have been split. When former Prime Minister David Cameron was in opposition, the then principal national security adviser was of course a political appointee.

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

Will the new politically appointed special envoy and National Security Adviser be responsible for the performance reviews of the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ? Does the Minister agree that nothing should be done to suggest any political interference in the crucial intelligence agencies that support our national interest?

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Lady makes an important point, and of course those reviews are carried out by those who can be fully objective, in the round, in a way that is free of any taint of political interference.

Public Services

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. I join my hon. Friend in thanking our military for all the support they are giving at the moment. It is the case that we have 48 regional test centres up and running. Each has two teams of military capable of dispensing and administering tests at a distance. One thing we are keeping under review is how we can expand that capacity even further in the future. The role of the military has been absolutely vital. I commend, in particular, Alex Cooper, one of the ex-servicemen who has been absolutely critical to making sure that the Department of Health and Social Care can do everything possible to deliver testing.

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

The Health Secretary promised me nearly two weeks ago that the Government would publish the scientific evidence behind the decision not to self-isolate people arriving at ports and airports, but he has not yet done so. If we look on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies website, there has been no update, it appears, in the publication of the scientific advice and evidence to the Government since 16 March, which is six weeks ago. It is inconceivable that the Government have not received more scientific advice and evidence since then. Given that transparency and trust should be at the heart of what the Government do and that getting these decisions right is crucial, why are the Government still not publishing the scientific evidence and advice?

[Michael Gove]

The first thing to say about flights into this country is that many of them are carrying people who are being repatriated and many of them are carrying the personal protective equipment and other goods that we need here, but, as I mentioned earlier, the prospect of changing our approach is something that we are reviewing at the moment. She makes a broader point about the publication of scientific advice, and it is not for me to dictate what SAGE, NERVTAG—the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group—or any of our independent scientific committees should or should not do, but I know that our chief scientific adviser has spoken about the importance of building confidence, and more will I am sure be said in due course.

Ministerial Code

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. We are all aware that progress in the past has depended on strong Ministers, and indeed strong Prime Ministers, setting exacting terms, but it has also depended on having a brilliant and able civil service that can act with confidence and provide candid advice. Those two important pillars of our constitution are at the heart of this Government’s operation.

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

Sir Philip Rutnam’s statement said that he received allegations about the Home Secretary’s behaviour from other civil servants. Will the Minister say how many allegations there have been, from both within and without the Home Office, and will every one be investigated as part of this inquiry?

[Michael Gove]

As the right hon. Lady will appreciate, it would be improper for me to go into individual personnel cases, but every legitimately raised complaint will, of course, be investigated.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Just before I call the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), I will take a point of order from Yvette Cooper.

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

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Home Affairs Committee was due to take evidence from the Home Secretary tomorrow afternoon. I have been trying to speak to the Home Secretary today, because she has now informed the Committee that she does not want to give evidence tomorrow. We have offered to change the timing of the sitting to tomorrow morning—

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)]

indicated assent.

[Yvette Cooper]

I can see the Home Secretary nodding; I hope she can now agree to give evidence tomorrow morning, because we have been seeking to get this session in the diary since the beginning of August.

[Mr Speaker]

This is a matter of diary management between the right hon. Lady and the Home Secretary, but I think the general principle is that if a Minister has for some reason to duck out of appearing before a Select Committee, which sometimes has to happen, an alternative arrangement is made.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for signalling, with her usual good nature, that she is willing to appear before the Committee.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Well, all right: because I am in a generous mood, I will take one more.

[Yvette Cooper]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I would be grateful if the Home Secretary confirmed that she is able to attend, because the sitting was due to be on preparations for Brexit.

[Mr Speaker]

I think the matter will be resolved speedily. [Interruption.] I do not require any help from a Member on the third row who thinks he has some role to play in these matters. He has absolutely no contribution to make whatsoever.

Preparations for Leaving the EU

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

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

It is reported that a Downing Street adviser has threatened that the UK will withdraw security co-operation if Europe does not do what the Prime Minister wants. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that given the common threats that we face—extremism, terrorism, trafficking and organised crime—this is extremely irresponsible and dangerous, and that there is no planet on which this is in our national interest? Whatever the Brexit plans, we need countries to work together, so will he condemn those threats from this Downing Street adviser? Will he agree that any adviser who makes such threats in public or private is not fit to hold any post in No. 10 Downing Street? Will he and the Prime Minister take some responsibility for removing anyone who pursues that course and argument from No. 10 Downing Street, because, frankly, when national security is at stake, we desperately need some advisers, some Ministers and a Prime Minister who are capable of behaving like grown-ups?

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Lady is right that it is vitally important that we maintain security co-operation with our European allies. It is the case that we co-operate with not just the other EU27 nations but nations outside the EU on the exchange of information by security and intelligence agencies to keep us safe. That will continue outside the EU. We will continue to co-operate with the Garda Siochana and other police forces to ensure that our citizens are kept safe and the citizenry in our neighbouring countries is kept safe. One thing that I respectfully say to the right hon. Lady—I know that she take these issues incredibly seriously—is that the Home Secretary has written to Frans Timmermans, who is the member of the EU Commission responsible for these issues, saying that we wish to continue co-operating in a number of areas, and the EU has said that it does not wish to continue co-operation. I absolutely respect the right hon. Lady’s commitment to our co-operation with the EU. It is the case that we want to co-operate with the EU more than it currently wants to co-operate with us.