Southport Attack

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the Southport murders.

None of us will ever forget the events of 29 July. The school holidays had just started, and little girls were at a dance class to have fun, dance and sing. A moment of joy turned into the darkest of nightmares. We think especially of three little girls—Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice da Silva Aguiar—their precious smiles and the dreams their families had, and we think of their families’ agony to have that future so brutally destroyed. They are in all our hearts and prayers, as are those who survived the attack but live with the physical and emotional scars. Nothing will ever take away their trauma and loss, and we will ensure that they receive the support and care they need in the years to come.

We think, too, of the police and first responders who ran into that scene of unspeakable horror. The courage they showed and the lives they saved are public service at its very best.

Yesterday, Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty to all charges. He stands responsible for one of the most barbaric crimes in our country’s history—the most vile and cowardly attack on little children who could never defend themselves, carried out in the most horrific and traumatic way. The Crown Prosecution Service has described him as

“a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence”

who has

“shown no sign of remorse.”

On Thursday, before sentencing, the prosecution will set out what happened that day and the nature of those offences.

Now that the conviction has been secured, the families, the people of Southport and the entire country need answers about how this horrendous attack could ever have happened. The Government have been constrained in what we could say up to this point about Rudakubana’s past to avoid prejudicing any jury trial, in line with all the normal rules of our British justice systems, because nothing is more important than securing justice, but now we can start to lay out that background.

Multiple different agencies were in contact with Rudakubana and knew about his history of violence. He was referred to Prevent three times between December 2019 and April 2021, when aged 13 and 14. Between October 2019 and May 2022, Lancashire police responded to five calls from his home address about his behaviour. He was referred repeatedly to the multi-agency safeguarding hub. He had contact with children’s social care, the Early Help service, and child and adolescent mental health services. He was convicted of a violent assault against another child at school and was referred to the youth offending team. He was excluded from one school and had long periods of absence from another.

All those agencies had contact with him yet, between them, they completely failed to identify the terrible danger he posed. How did he fall through so many gaps? It is just unbearable to think that something more could and should have been done. There are grave questions about how this network of agencies failed to identify and act on the risks. There were so many signs of how dangerous he had become, yet the action against him was far too weak. Families need the truth about why the system failed to tackle his violence for so many years.

That is why we are setting up an independent public inquiry. Like the Angiolini inquiry into Wayne Couzens, it will begin work on a non-statutory basis so that it can move quickly into action, but with statutory powers added later, as required. We will set out the terms of reference and appoint the chair once we have consulted the coroner and given the families the opportunity to comment. In addition to examining what went wrong in this horrific case, I am also asking the inquiry to consider the wider challenge of rising youth violence and extremism.

I have been deeply disturbed at the number of cases involving teenagers drawn into extremism, serious violence and terrorism—including Islamist extremism, far right extremism, mixed and confused ideology, and obsession with violence and gore. In just three years, there has been a threefold increase in under-18s investigated for involvement in terrorism. Some 162 people were referred to Prevent last year for concerns relating to school massacres; the Met Commissioner has warned about

“young men who are fixated on violence...grazing across extremist and terrorist content”;

and Five Eyes counter-terror partners have warned about growing radicalisation of minors, happening as so many of our children and teenagers are being exposed to ever more disturbing materials online. An online ecosystem is radicalising our children while safety measures are whittled away.

The Online Safety Act 2023 illegal content codes of practice come into force in March and the child safety codes should be in place this summer, but companies should take responsibility before then. The prosecution will provide more detail on Thursday about material Rudakubana searched for online, but I can tell the House that the Government are this week contacting technology companies to ask them to remove the dangerous material that he accessed. Companies should not be profiting from hosting content that puts children’s lives at risk.

Let me set out four other areas where we are taking action in advance of the inquiry. First, on Prevent, the Government and counter-terrorism policing jointly commissioned an immediate Prevent learning review during the summer, and I will publish detailed findings following the sentencing. The three referrals took place between three and four years before the Southport attack, including following evidence Rudakubana was expressing interest in school shootings, the London Bridge attack, the IRA, MI5 and the middle east.

On each occasion, Rudakubana’s case was assessed by counter-terrorism policing, but in each instance there was no onward referral to specialist Channel support. The learning review has concluded that the referrals should not have been closed, and that cases such as these, given the perpetrator’s age and complex needs, should be referred to Channel. It concludes that too much weight was placed on the absence of ideology, without considering the vulnerabilities to radicalisation, or taking account of whether he was

“obsessed with massacre or extreme violence”,

and that the cumulative significance of those three repeat referrals was not properly considered.

The Prevent programme is vital to our national security and its officers work with huge dedication to keep us safe, but we need it to be effective. Some changes have already been made since 2021, including new Prevent duty guidance, new training for frontline workers on radicalisation and stronger policy on repeat referrals. In September 2024, a new Prevent assessment framework was launched, supplemented by robust training for all Prevent police officers, but those changes do not go far enough.

Given the importance of the programme, I cannot understand how it has been allowed to operate for so long without proper independent oversight. That is why I announced before Christmas the introduction of a new independent Prevent commissioner with power to review cases and ensure standards are being met. I am today appointing Lord David Anderson KC as the interim Prevent commissioner, to start work immediately. His first task will be to conduct a thorough review of the Prevent history in this case to identify what changes are needed to make sure serious cases are not missed, particularly where there is mixed and unclear ideology.

I have also tasked my Department with conducting an end-to-end review of Prevent thresholds, including on Islamist extremism, where referrals have previously been too low. We are looking at cases where mental ill health or neurodivergence is a factor, and developing new arrangements with other agencies for cases that may not meet the threshold for Channel counter-extremism support, but where violent behaviour must be addressed urgently.

Secondly, two shocking facts around knife crime have emerged from this case. The Prevent learning review found that Rudakubana admitted to having carried a knife more than 10 times, yet the action against him was far too weak. Despite the fact that he had been convicted for violence and was just 17, he was easily able to order a knife on Amazon. That is a total disgrace and it must change. We will bring in stronger measures to tackle knife sales online in the crime and policing Bill this spring.

Thirdly, as the Prime Minister has set out this morning, we need to ensure our laws keep up with the changing violent and extremist threats that we face. It is for the police and CPS to decide whether individual cases meet the definition set out in the Terrorism Act 2000 when making charges, but given the growing number of cases where perpetrators are seeking to terrorise, even without a clear ideology, we need to ensure that the law, powers and sentencing are strong enough to cope. I have therefore asked the independent reviewer on terrorism powers to examine the legislation in this area in light of the modern threats we face.

Finally, let me address the issue of contempt of court. The British way of justice means that information is presented to the court by the police and CPS with restrictions on what can be said beforehand, so that the jury does not get partial or prejudicial information in advance, and to ensure the trial is fair and justice is done. Social media puts those long-established rules under strain, especially where partial and inaccurate information appears online, and the Law Commission is reviewing the contempt of court rules in that light. But let me be clear that where the police, Government and journalists are given clear advice from the CPS about contempt of court and about not publishing information in advance of a trial, if we did not respect that and a killer walked free, we would never be forgiven.

There are times when something so unfathomably terrible happens that whatever words we find feel grossly insufficient, and that is how it feels over the Southport attack. Let there be no doubt: responsibility for this outrage lies squarely with the perpetrator. Equally, in the wake of such a monstrous atrocity, we have to ask every question, no matter how difficult, and where change is needed, we must act. That now is our task. We owe that to the victims and their loved ones, and we owe it to the country, because protecting the public is the first duty of the Government and the shared purpose of this House. I commend this statement to the House.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement and for the briefing she kindly arranged.

First, let us remember the three young, innocent victims of this savage and senseless attack: Bebe King was just six years old, Elsie Dot Stancombe was seven and Alice da Silva Aguiar was nine years old. Their lives were cruelly cut short as they attended a Taylor Swift dance class. It should have been a time of joy, part of a precious and innocent childhood to be cherished and remembered, and yet the darkest of shadows fell over Southport that day as those girls were robbed of their young lives. Let us not forget that eight more children and two adults were seriously injured on that day as well. Many of us in the House are parents or grandparents, and many people listening today will be too. We can only begin to imagine the pain and grief the parents and family of Bebe, Elsie and Alice must now be feeling. We should recognise and thank the first responders who arrived at the scene.

We owe it to the memory of those children and to their bereaved parents to learn the lessons from this terrible incident and to take steps to make sure it does not happen again. In that spirit, I welcome and support the inquiry announced yesterday. Will the Home Secretary confirm that it will be placed on a statutory footing as soon as possible, to ensure its independence and to enable it to compel disclosure of the evidence it may need? It is vital to get to the truth about the opportunities that may have existed to stop the evil perpetrator, Axel Rudakubana, from committing those sickening murders.

Rudakubana was encountered multiple times, as the Home Secretary has said, by the police, social services, the school system and the Prevent programme over a period of several years. The inquiry will find out, I hope, whether mistakes were made or whether the law needs to change. The Home Secretary mentioned some areas that will rightly be looked at, and I support that. Will the Home Secretary confirm that the inquiry will include consideration of whether the Mental Health Act 1983 was adequate for this case?

The Home Secretary has rightly referred to Prevent. A review of Prevent was conducted by Sir William Shawcross and the last Government responded to that in February 2024. Will the Home Secretary now commit to implementing all the recommendations of the Shawcross review?

I now turn to what happened after the murders and to the importance of openness and transparency. First—this is a serious and important question—will the Home Secretary confirm that the inquiry will also cover the Government, police and CPS response to the murders and especially the handling of public communications and the appalling riots that followed? It is a very important question, and I will be grateful if the Home Secretary answers that directly in her response.

The Prime Minister this morning acknowledged that he knew about the background to the case and to Rudakubana himself, including that he had been referred to Prevent on three separate occasions and that he had been found to be in possession of ricin—a highly toxic chemical—and a manual detailing al-Qaeda terrorist methods, which is itself an offence under the Terrorism Act 2006. The Prime Minister also said this morning that he did not disclose any of that to the public in the days and weeks after the murders for fear of prejudicing the subsequent murder trial.

It is, of course, important for journalists, politicians and this House to do nothing that might prejudice a trial. However, Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said this, in the context of the case, on the “Today” programme in October:

“The Government has to be aware…that if there is an information gap…then there are other voices, particularly in social media, who will try and fill it.”

He went on,

“if there is any information you can give, put it in the public domain, and be really careful that you don’t fall into the trap of saying ‘we can only say zilch, because there are criminal proceedings’.”

He continued:

“Quite often, there’s a fair amount…that can be put into the public domain”.

Jonathan Hall concluded by saying that that police realise now

“that just saying ‘there’s a charge, we can’t say any more’, is not going to cut it these days.”

The independent reviewer is therefore saying that the Government and police can put some material into the public domain without prejudicing subsequent trials.

In fact, on 29 October, Rudakubana was charged with possessing the ricin and the terror manual, and that was then made public. If that can be made public in October without risking prejudice of the murder trial, it follows that it could have been made public in August without prejudicing that same trial. Background facts on other cases over the years have been made public after arrest and before trial without prejudice—the shields relating to two of those cases are in this Chamber. Why, therefore, did the Prime Minister not make public some of that background information in August when he knew it, when later disclosure of that information in October demonstrated that such disclosure could be made without prejudice? Why, too, did the Deputy Prime Minister, on 31 July, dismiss as “fake news” those saying that there may be further facts to come out?

Briefly, before concluding, let me explain why that is important. As Jonathan Hall said, if there is a void, misinformation can fill that void, especially online. That appears to be what happened here and some of that information, it is said, originated overseas from hostile states. It is possible—indeed, even likely—that that misinformation that was put into the void fuelled the totally unacceptable riots we then subsequently saw. Will the Home Secretary therefore accept, given what Jonathan Hall and I have said, that there should and could have been more openness and transparency, as I just set out, without prejudicing the trial, and that disclosing more of that truth openly and transparently would have helped combat the damaging misinformation that circulated and which, arguably, fuelled the riots? Will she confirm the inquiry will look at that aspect of events?

This was an appalling tragedy: young girls, murdered, with their whole lives ahead of them. Let us all learn the lessons from this tragedy in honour of their memory.

[Yvette Cooper]

The shadow Home Secretary raised a series of points, which is obviously a substantial shift in position for him and his party from the one they took in government. He asked about the status of the inquiry. I can confirm that it will start quickly on a non-statutory basis, in the same way that the Angiolini inquiry did. However, I can also confirm that it will be given whatever powers it needs, including on a statutory basis, so that it can get any information that it needs.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Shawcross review. I can confirm that the Government have implemented 33 out of the 34 recommendations. I will gently point out, however, that the approach that the Shawcross review took was to say that the Prevent programme should be narrowed and should focus particularly on the cases around terrorism. That could have risked including fewer cases like this one, where ideology is less clear.

The shadow Minister then raised the issue about the information that was provided. He will know that the Contempt of Court Act was set out in 1981. Jonathan Hall has highlighted the problem of disinformation online, with social media actors not bound by the same rules that the police, the media and the Government follow. He refers, for example, to the name and nationality being provided, which in practice they were in this case after misinformation appeared online. Ultimately, he has also said that all that is governed by the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and the Law Commission is reviewing that. However, it is not for the Government to ignore the law or the advice that we are given when justice for families is at stake.

I will point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the previous Conservative Government did not publish information before the trial about the Prevent referral for the perpetrator who killed Sir David Amess. None of us criticised them for that because none of us wanted to put at risk justice for Sir David’s family. Nor did they publish information before the trial on the Prevent referral of the asylum seeker who killed Tom Roberts. In fact, they did not even publish that after the trial; it only came out in the inquest. Further, the Minister, who even after the trial refused to answer my questions on whether they knew that the asylum seeker was wanted for murdering two people in Serbia when he was allowed to enter the country, was the current shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick).

We have been keen to publish the information on Prevent referrals from the start, but the advice to us has been clear throughout. If we had ignored the advice that we were given about the case that was put to us and about the information that the police and the CPS were working through in order to get justice, and if, as a result, a killer had walked free, no one would ever have forgiven the Government or anyone else. The most important thing is to get justice and then, once justice is secured, to make sure at this point that the questions are answered about what went wrong and why three young girls’ lives were lost. That is the question the shadow Home Secretary should be focusing on right now.

[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

It has been another tough week for my Southport constituency, as I am sure that Members across the House will appreciate. I want to start by thanking the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister for the calm, diligent way in which they have undertaken their work over the last six months, and for the way in which they have been good friends to Southport.

I was clear back in the summer that I did not want people speculating online as to the motives or the background of the person who we can now say was the murderer of those three girls. We were risking prejudicing the trial, and it could have collapsed because of that speculation. In fact, it was not just speculation, but in some respects, downright lies—downright lies that were being circulated in the interests of political gain, with the interests of justice a distant second. Does the Home Secretary agree that the next stage of achieving justice for my community and for the families impacted so desperately by the crime back in July—that is, the public inquiry—should also be allowed to undertake its work and make its recommendations free of the ridiculous nonsense and lies that we have seen from public figures who should know better and which have been circulating purely for their own interests?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend has been an important voice for the people in his community throughout this unimaginably difficult time and has spoken for them with great dignity and passion, including in this House.

My hon. Friend is right that nothing of that sort should be done; it is part of our British justice tradition that information is produced at the trial, but not in advance for fear of prejudicing a jury, of undermining justice and of potentially letting criminals walk free. He is right that we should never do that. He is also right that his community, including the families involved, need answers now. And the answers that they need include how on earth this shocking, disturbing and barbaric attack was able to happen. What went wrong? What could have been done to prevent it? There is also the question of how we as a society face up to the rising youth violence and extremism that we have seen, with this being just one example among some very disturbing cases. That is the justice and the answers that those families need.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. What happened in Southport last year was a horrific tragedy. Three innocent young girls—Alice, Bebe and Elsie—lost their lives to an act of senseless brutal violence, and our thoughts go out to the bereaved families and their friends, for whom this week will be incredibly difficult. We all owe it to these girls to ensure that a senseless tragedy such as this can never happen again.

It has been deeply concerning to hear reports about how, in the lead-up to the attack, warning signs were missed as the attacker fell through the cracks in the system. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s commitment to an inquiry, and, clearly, tough questions need to be asked. The inquiry must not shy away from getting the answers. This inquiry, like others, will only reach its full potential when there is a duty of candour that requires public officials and authorities to co-operate fully. I would welcome more details from the Home Secretary on when her Government plan to finally introduce the Hillsborough law to Parliament.

Our country also deserves a counter-terrorism strategy that keeps our community safe and is fit to tackle the modern challenges that we face in an increasingly complex online world that crosses international boundaries. Will the Home Secretary confirm that these concerns will be addressed in the upcoming counter-terrorism strategy? This must be a watershed moment from which we move forward by building a system that avoids future failures such as we have seen in this case. It is my sincere hope that we can work together across this House to make that a reality.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member makes an important point: we want to introduce the duty of candour as part of the Hillsborough law. She is also right to talk about the challenges of countering terrorism, extremism and these changing patterns of extreme violence. As the Met Commissioner has said, those with a fixation on violence and gore are also consuming different bits of terrorist and extremist material. The ideology may be unclear, but they pose a danger to the public. This inquiry needs to look at all those issues, and, as part of our Prevent work and counter-terrorism work, we need to act at pace in these areas as well.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement this afternoon. As many Members have said, our thoughts remain with Bebe, Elsie and Alice. We can all remember where we were that late mid-morning on 29 July. I had just dropped off my two children at their holiday camp at school. When the news broke, I could feel that panic. I almost stopped for a minute to think: are my children safe? We think about the other children and the trauma that they will be feeling, and the first responders who ran towards that danger knowing that they could be harmed.

The Home Secretary has announced an inquiry, but, sadly, there is also the issue of the nature of the violence that children as young as 15 or 16 are viewing online—the nature of the violence that was used on Elianne Andam when she was tragically stabbed in Croydon on 27 September, and the nature of the violence that Axel Rudakubana used on these three girls. How will the Home Secretary ensure that the institutions which, if we are honest, failed to see those warning signs will not fail in the future? What will the inquiry do differently, so that, as a House, we will not be coming back to recount dangerous tragedies again in the future?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to describe how every parent and grandparent will have felt on hearing those awful descriptions on that day in July. She is also right to focus on what our young people—our children—are seeing online. If we do not face up to this, the damage that we could be doing to generations down the line is disturbing and troubling. That means that social media companies need to take responsibility. The Online Safety Act 2023 will introduce stronger codes and requirements, but the companies themselves also need to take some responsibility, instead of going backwards, which they are at the moment.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, and my thoughts are with everybody involved. The list that she set out of the points where the agencies and institutions could have intervened sooner is truly terrifying. What reassurance can she give the House that this is a cross-Government piece of work and that all agencies and institutions will be involved? Furthermore, as and when the inquiry makes recommendations, which it will hopefully do on an interim basis, will she give a commitment that she will look carefully at them and implement them as soon as possible?

[Yvette Cooper]

We will certainly look at any recommendations that come from this important inquiry. We need to look at what went wrong in this case. This is particularly about the interactions between the different agencies. There were so many agencies involved, but, as a network, they failed to identify the risk and to have sufficient actions in place. Lancashire county council has carried out a rapid initial review, but there still has to be a statutory child safeguarding practice review and a coroner’s inquiry. However, our view is that those are not sufficient, because we need a cross-agency examination of all of the things that went wrong in this case. We have to start with the dangers that were posed to those children in Southport in such a devastating way and then see why the system so badly failed to protect them from those dangers. We need that rather than organisations working in their own silos, doing only their bit and then leaving children at risk.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement and for announcing the public inquiry. I want to remember Alice, Bebe and Elsie, and their families and friends. I also want to remember the other victims of the attack and the first responders, some of whom have given harrowing accounts over the last six months of what they found at the Hart Space in Southport.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we in this House should recommit to the principle that nothing that we say or do in this place or elsewhere should prejudice criminal proceedings or prevent justice from being secured? Does she agree that to have done so in this case would have been an insult to the memories of Alice, Bebe and Elsie, an insult to their families and friends, and an insult to everyone in the community in Southport who were, and remain, so badly affected by what happened on 29 July last year?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The families and all the people across Southport and the country need the truth. They need answers about what happened and what went so badly wrong in this case. That is why the information is put before the trial and then released after the trial. That is how the British justice system works. Crucially, at the heart of this, people need to see justice. There has to be an account for such a terrible, terrible, barbaric crime. All of us have to make sure that justice is delivered, because when lives have been lost in such a terrible way, justice is the minimum that they deserve.

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

I hope the Home Secretary will not take it as a discourtesy if I say to her that it should be the Prime Minister making this statement here today. This morning, he said on television that singleton terrorist attacks are a very new occurrence; they are not. They have been going on for nearly a decade. There have been many in London, including one in the yard of this House of Commons, and one that killed Sir David Amess, our colleague. In that attack on Sir David Amess, the police declared it a terrorist incident the same day. Without three Prevent references, without ricin, and without an al-Qaeda manual, they declared it a terrorist event the same day. So we all wonder why this was not the case here when there was such evidence. This is a clear mistake, is it not?

[Yvette Cooper]

The decision about the application of the Terrorism Act 2000 is one for the police and, ultimately, the CPS when it lays charges based on the operational information that it has. The prosecution will lay out more information before sentencing that they would have put before the court today had the offender not pleaded guilty initially, and that is for them to decide. But the point the Prime Minister made this morning was that this was clearly a case where someone attempted to terrorise the community. That was clearly their intention—to kill those children and to terrorise more widely. That is why we have to ensure that, even in cases where the police and the prosecution say they have not been able to prove ideology, we still have the right powers, sentencing and ability to respond with swiftness and seriousness to the kinds of cases we are facing. That is why the Prime Minister has said this needs to be reviewed—I referred to the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation looking at those issues—and also why we have this statement to the House and are doing this inquiry.

Where I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman is when he said we have had such cases for a long time. We have seen in recent years a big increase in youth violence and extremism on a disturbing scale, and that needs to be part of the inquiry as well.

[Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)]

I associate myself and my community with the statement from the Home Secretary on this tragic incident. Whether it is the purchasing of knives online or the sharing of horrible videos celebrating violence and death, there is clearly a gap in the ability of the state to hold social media companies and online retailers to account. What more can the Government do, together with the intelligence services, to take robust action and hold to account social media companies that are allowing extremism, violence and horror to be present on their sites?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We are raising with the companies some of the particular dangerous material that this terrible offender accessed online, and the police and prosecution will say more about some of that material later this week.

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the issue around online knife sales. We know that in the case of Ronan Kanda, who was brutally murdered with a ninja sword, that the perpetrator was able to buy that online and pick it up with no age checks at all. In this case, for a 17-year-old to be able to get the knife he used online from Amazon, that is frankly shocking. Commander Stephen Clayman has been doing a review for us of online knife sales and the kinds of checks that should be taking place. We will bring forward new measures to tackle this problem based on that review.

[Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

I am particularly drawn to the line in the immediate learning review where it concludes that “too much weight was placed on the absence of ideology, without considering the vulnerabilities to radicalisation”. Much of the challenge over the summer was because there was an understandable lack of public understanding of the distinction between a terrorist incident and a non-terrorist incident. Had this person done exactly the same thing but been driven by a desire to create a caliphate here in the UK, it would of course have been defined as a terrorist attack. The fact that it was not is of no solace to the families who lost loved ones. Is it not now the time—I appreciate this could be part of the review, but I urge the Home Secretary to ensure it is given particular emphasis in the review—to get rid of this entirely arbitrary distinction of motivation and to focus exclusively on the risks and actions?

[Yvette Cooper]

The former Home Secretary makes an extremely important point because, from the point of view of the families and the community, the attack was intended to terrorise the community, and their real concern is about the scale of the harm. They saw the loss of children’s lives and the impact on the community.

The law is set out in the Terrorism Act 2000, and there is serious consideration for different agencies about the nature of the response. If there is an ideological attack or motivation, it may be that a counter-extremism response—the kind of support that the Channel programme provides—is targeted at the extremist ideology that needs to be challenged, tackled and taken down. Alternatively, if the issue is around mental health or an obsession with violence and gore, it may need a different kind of response. But the right hon. Member is right that the threats from the point of view of the community will feel the same. That is why the law needs to be looked at again, but it is also why we need to have this inquiry, which can look at where the gaps are in the way that different state agencies respond, because we have seen those growing gaps—obviously, in the most traumatic of ways in this case.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. In her statement and in the Prime Minister’s speech this morning, they painted a terrifying picture of how terrorism is changing in this country and how the threat we face is evolving, especially with the proliferation of extremely violent online content, which is having an effect on mixed ideologies and ideologies from across the spectrum. Clearly, part of the response will be from the intelligence services. Will the Home Secretary tell us how the intelligence services will be responding to this evolving threat and what the Government are doing to prevent the growth of extremism through extreme online content?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that we seem to have cases where there is extreme violence, or where obsession grows around extreme violence, and then young people cast around to consume different kinds of terrorist or extremist material, but at its heart it may be an obsession with violence. Different circumstances will require different kinds of responses, but the scale of the growing obsession with violence should be a serious concern to us because it makes us think, “What are we allowing to happen to our kids and teenagers if we see this kind of obsession grow?” That is why we need action. Clearly, the focus of the intelligence and security agencies is on those cases where there is organised ideology and radicalisation, as well as state threats, but we have to deal with the kinds of threats that our society faces much more widely, and that means everyone needs to be part of it.

[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

I associate myself with colleagues’ remarks about the murder of those three wee girls and the bravery of the first responders. Most of all, we think about the families left behind. I agree that we have a responsibility to the victims, when talking about these kinds of cases, to ensure that we do so responsibly, while keeping the Government under scrutiny. There is a fast evolving situation regarding technology companies. Will the Home Secretary tell us what areas she is looking at on enforcement? In this diverse, multi-agency case, what interaction has she had with the Scottish Government and the devolved Administrations in the areas where they have responsibility?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right that there are issues around the responsibility of social media companies. Stronger powers will be brought in as part of the Online Safety Act, but we urge the companies to take responsibility now and not to continue to profit from dangerous material that is putting kids at risk.

On the discussions with the Scottish Government, we have broad discussions planned for later this week on some of our shared Home Office responsibilities. The hon. Member will know that policing and crime are devolved, but that national security issues, where terrorism cases may fall or have an impact, are reserved. On such cases, we would expect to consult the Scottish Government and discuss the way forward.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone involved. Acts of terror devastate the families of victims who are left to pick up the pieces, having their closest loved ones robbed from them in the cruellest way. As with the Forbury Gardens terrorist attack in 2020, which saw my constituents Gary and Jan Furlong lose their beloved son James, these acts often take place after multiple agency failings. The Forbury Gardens perpetrator had been referred to Prevent four times and was known to mental health services. It will be important to those families in Southport that lessons are learned and acted on in a timely way. Will the Government engage with me and Survivors Against Terror on its calls for a survivors’ charter, which would extend rights to survivors and the families of victims?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Security Minister has met and had regular discussions with survivors of terror. They raise serious concerns about, for example, the way in which survivors of the Manchester Arena attack ended up feeling badly let down, and the additional support needed in such cases. We will continue to discuss the support that is needed with those organisations.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I trust that the Home Secretary agrees that the courage shown by the dance teacher and the member of the public who intervened should be recognised appropriately. What troubles me is that we seem to have a subtext here of saying that if only that particular ticking time-bomb had been successfully referred to Prevent, it could have stopped him doing what he did. Assuming that someone so committed to fanaticism would not respond to Prevent, will the Home Secretary share with the House what measures are in place to keep such terrible events from happening? Do terrorism prevention and investigation measures, for example, apply in a case like that?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Member makes an important point. Those referrals were three to four years before the attack, and multiple different agencies had contact with Rudakubana, but there is a huge question about the powers and interventions that were available. Even if the scale of the risk and danger that he posed had been sufficiently identified, what could have been done? That is one of the reasons why the Government are determined to bring in a new power, a youth diversion order, to address some of the difficult cases—particularly those involving teenagers—and see what requirements might be put on young people in such cases. We will bring forward legislation as part of the crime and policing Bill.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

The barbaric murder of those three little girls in Southport is part of a growing problem of youngsters fixated on violence and gore, as the Home Secretary said. That worrying phenomenon has been fuelled by the rapid growth of websites and social media forums that promote and revel in such violence. Can the Home Secretary confirm that the inquiry into Southport will look into exactly that danger promoted by such websites?

[Yvette Cooper]

We will certainly ensure that that issue is clearly in the scope of the inquiry, which must consider why so many young people are drawn into an obsession with violence and extremist activity, and what exactly is going wrong and why, so that we can take the action needed across society to keep our children safe.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

The Home Secretary told us that, last year alone, 162 people were referred to Prevent over concerns relating to school massacres—a truly shocking and disturbing figure. How many of those people are currently in detention?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member will know that a referral to Prevent can be for young people who may have expressed an interest in school massacre, as opposed to those who have committed a crime. The point of the Prevent programme is early intervention to take action preventing young people from committing crime. My view is that the powers are not strong enough currently to prevent young people from committing crimes or getting drawn into extremist violence. That is exactly why we need to introduce the youth diversion order—a stronger power for the police to take action in these extremely serious cases.

[Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)]

It is important to note that this attacker is a terrorist. He has been charged under the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Biological Weapons Act 1974. The man is a terrorist. The attack itself has not been labelled terrorism because of the lack of a clear ideological motive—that is a decision for the police and the CPS. Will the Home Office look into how our legal frameworks might be updated to recognise the full horror of acts intended to terrorise?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We need the legal framework to be up to date to ensure sufficient scope, powers and sentencing are in place to deal with acts that are intended to terrorise, even where there is no ideology. He is also right to say that this man has been charged under the Terrorism Act and has pleaded guilty to a terrorist offence, and I can confirm that he will be treated as a terrorist offender in prison.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

If the authorities remain silent, bad people write the script. On 16 October 2021, those authorities, and then their political masters, were frank about what had happened the previous day in Southend, and there were no riots. Why is that different from this?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Member refers to the attack on Sir David Amess, who I regard as a friend, as I know he does—Sir David was a great loss to this House. The Government did not publish crucial information about, for example, the Prevent referral that had taken place. A lot of information was not provided until the trial. In fact, this Government are going further in providing information after the trial than was provided in that case. I do not think that anyone should attempt to excuse people who threw bricks and rocks at police officers by saying that it was something to do with the information they were provided with and when. They committed crimes; they need to take responsibility for those crimes.

[Gregor Poynton (Livingston) (Lab)]

We have heard from Merseyside police, the CPS and counter-terrorism police about the wide range of violent content that the accused was accessing, including on genocide, and about his social media searches for violent and fatal stabbings. I know that the Home Secretary covered some of this in her statement and in response to previous questions, but what more should the social media and search engine giants be doing, first, to prevent our young people from accessing such content in the first place and, secondly, to take it down quickly from their sites once they are aware of it?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The thing about the social media companies is that they have incredibly sophisticated technology and resources. They know exactly how to target every single one of us online with things in which we might be interested, and they use their algorithms in all kinds of sophisticated ways. They have the capability to do far more to identify this dangerous content and take action on it. I believe that they should use those capabilities, rather than rowing back from content moderation and reducing the responsible action that they take.

[Sorcha Eastwood (Lagan Valley) (Alliance)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Constituents across Lagan Valley send their thoughts and prayers not just to the families of Elsie, Alice and Bebe, but to the community of Southport. Something that has deeply concerned me for a long time is the radicalisation of young people in particular. As the Home Secretary explicitly stated, there is an online surge of young people becoming radicalised, including those who are interested in and look at content on violence against women and terror-linked activity. How will a lack of ideology be captured so that we can identify potential perpetrators? What laws can we pass in this House not only to stop social media companies profiting, but to ensure that they are aware of such violent and terrorist content on their platforms?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right to raise that issue. The director of MI5 has talked about how the security services are seeing far too many cases of very young people being drawn into poisonous online extremism, and 13% of all those investigated for involvement in UK terrorism are now under 18. That is a disturbing fact for us all. The hon. Member is also right to say that we need to consider the complexity. Some young people become radicalised around an ideology early on. Others become obsessed with violence, and still others may switch between different extreme ideas and perspectives, but all of them are at risk of becoming dangerous to communities if they get drawn down that extremist track, and if their ideas get poisoned by things that they see online. That is why the issue is so important, and is a central part of the inquiry.

[Josh Simons (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for updating the House, and welcome the uncompromising inquiry that she and the Prime Minister have announced. I would like to ask about social media and the digital information environment. I worked in a technology company for a long time, and I concur with the Home Secretary’s comments: the companies that we are talking about know what is circulating online and what is getting virality. After last summer, does she feel that she and the Prime Minister have the information that they need to make decisions in real time in order to secure our online information environment?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not think anyone would suggest that Ministers are in a position to make decisions on individual cases, but what we need is the right kind of framework. Clearly, the Online Safety Act will put new structures and systems in place. The Prime Minister made it clear this morning that we should not shy away from taking any further action needed to address this issue, because fundamentally, if it is impacting the safety of our children, we need to act.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

The Prime Minister’s denial in August that Rudakubana was being investigated for offences under the Terrorism Act 2006 did not protect the trial, because we found out the facts anyway when Rudakubana was charged in October. The same disclosure did not cause other trials, such as that of the Parsons Green tube bomber, to fail. I am not talking about the detail of Prevent referrals, which the Home Secretary has mentioned in answers to similar questions, but about the information that was disclosed in October. If a jury knew that before the trial, why could the Prime Minister not have told the country the truth in August?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member will know that investigation is carried out by the police. The Crown Prosecution Service decides what charges to bring, and how and when to bring them, based on the evidence it has gathered. That is the British justice system. Decisions are made by the police and prosecutors, who are rightly independent of Ministers. I strongly believe that this independence, which is part of our British judicial tradition, must continue.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

We have heard that the murderer in Southport had a history of violence and a fascination with it, and was just 17 years old at the time of this horrific attack. There are no circumstances in which he should have been able to buy a knife. Does the Home Secretary agree that we have to get to the bottom of how that deadly weapon ended up in his hands, and ensure that teenagers are unable to buy these weapons in the future?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right: the perpetrator should never have been able to buy a knife online. It is really disturbing that despite all the cases we have seen in the past, it is still far too easy for young people to get access to knives online. That is why, through the policing and crime Bill, we will take action, including by ensuring that executives of online companies take responsibility for the checks that need to take place.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Despite the attacker’s three referrals to Prevent, five referrals to the local police force and multiple referrals to multiple hubs, we still did not protect Elsie, Alice and Bebe. We have failed them. We must ensure that this never happens again. Does the Home Secretary agree that whoever the perpetrator is, the victims are always terrorised, and that an obsession with ideology may have been an underlying factor in why we missed this perpetrator? Should we not look again at the Shawcross recommendations on ideology obsession?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right that the Prevent learning review identified that in this case, the focus on ideology may have meant that some of the vulnerabilities to radicalisation were missed. We also have to recognise that cases in which there is ideology are different from cases in which there is not, and may require a different kind of response. The assessment of risk, and of the danger that a young person poses, may be the same, but the action that the state takes may need to change, depending on what is driving that danger and risk. For too long, though, some of those mixed-ideology cases—those unclear cases—may have been missed because we have not had sufficient focus on them. That focus is what the inquiry needs.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, and of course, the victims and all those affected are very much in our thoughts and prayers. Nothing we say should detract from the fact that the perpetrator has sole responsibility for these awful crimes, but it is right to look at what happened beforehand. The Home Secretary has mentioned a few times the involvement of multiple agencies and their warnings. For me, that is one of the most concerning and shocking things. How come so many agencies were aware of the issue and raised concerns? This was not a lone wolf who popped out of nowhere. Who does the Home Secretary think ultimately bears responsibility for managing this perpetrator’s risk?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member’s question gets to the heart of the problem. He is right that the responsibility for this appalling and barbaric attack lies with the attacker, and he needs to face the consequences. He has committed the most heinous crime. However, we have to ask questions on behalf of the families. There should have been a network of responsible agencies, and the inquiry needs to look at why, ultimately, so many agencies together failed to identify the scale of risk, and to take the action that was needed. Part of the challenge is that it can be too easy for each agency to think that somebody else is addressing a particular bit of the problem. There needs to be a much stronger approach to what happens between agencies. That is what the inquiry must look at.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

I think the vast majority of the British people agree with the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, who has said repeatedly that when these horrific crimes take place, more information needs to be put out sooner to avoid an information vacuum. However, that is in conflict with the need to avoid prejudicing a fair trial. Does the Home Secretary agree that it is incumbent on this House to find a way to overcome or reduce that conflict, so that we get more information sooner?

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

In the world of social media, there can be all sorts of information online, but as the hon. Member rightly says, we have to make sure that justice is done. We have to make sure that a jury is not prejudiced by information in such a way that a killer can walk free, but also that people can get answers and the crucial information that they need. The Law Commission is reviewing the Contempt of Court Act, which dates back to 1981, but I know the hon. Member recognises the importance of us following the law in the meantime. We need to make sure that justice is done and, now that we have a verdict, that the families can find out what went wrong in this case and get the answers that they so badly need and deserve.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

I congratulate the Home Secretary on her proposals; she has my full support in turning over every stone in looking into this case, and I wholeheartedly agree with all the powers she is bringing forward. However, that is half of the story. She rightly talks about balancing the risk of a criminal walking free, but we have to bear in mind the riots that happened across this country. Will she consider conducting a review that looks into the creation of a framework for how Government talk about these issues in the media, so that the approach is standardised and there is no political point-scoring across this Chamber? At the heart of this issue is the public perception that information was withheld from them. We could then hold a review on the rioting, to make sure that there are no further riots, because there were no riots in October, when this information came out. There is a discrepancy there that needs looking at, and I would be grateful if the Home Secretary took up this matter.

[Yvette Cooper]

I point out that the violent disorder stopped when people realised that they would face consequences for it, and when there was a clear police and criminal justice system response. There is no excuse for throwing rocks and bricks at the police—the same police officers who had to deal with the most horrendous attack on those little children in Southport. It is really important that the inquiry’s focus is on getting the families of those children the answers that they need about what went wrong in this terrible case, not on trying to excuse a bunch of thugs who were throwing rocks and bricks at the police—something for which there is no excuse at all.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

As we reflect on the horror of the murder of these three young girls, we all have many questions, as do the public. Will the inquiry’s terms of reference permit an answer to this question: how far was the inaction by the various agencies influenced by fear of disturbing race or community relations? Was that a factor in the inaction? We have heard that there were three ineffective referrals to Prevent, and have heard of 162 other referrals to Prevent. Has the adequacy of the response to those referrals been reviewed?

[Yvette Cooper]

I have introduced a new Prevent commissioner—Lord David Anderson is beginning work as the interim commissioner right now—because there is no independent review of Prevent decisions or processes. That is a problem, because the decisions that Prevent takes are incredibly important. They need to be effective, and we need to make sure that standards are maintained. That is why we need an independent review. We have independent inspectors of aspects of the work of other public services, such as policing. We need an independent commissioner brought in to review not just this case, but similar cases. On the scope of the inquiry, the Prime Minister made it clear this morning that this inquiry will follow the evidence wherever it takes the inquiry, and no stone can go unturned.

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

On what dates were the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary made aware that Axel Rudakubana was in possession of ricin and an al-Qaeda training manual, and will the inquiry cover public communications after the murders?

[Yvette Cooper]

Ministers were of course updated throughout. The Home Office was advised about ricin in August, and we were advised about the document much later on in October. We made sure that the official Opposition were also briefed. In the end, those decisions and investigations are matters for the police on an operational basis. The tradition in this country is that we have operational independence for policing, and operationally independent decisions made by the CPS.

It is really sad that so many Opposition Members have chosen to ask questions about the timing of the release of information—they know that such issues are governed by the Contempt of Court Act, and that this is about providing justice for the families who lost their loved ones—rather than asking the serious questions about why that terrible, horrific and barbaric act took place. I would just ask the hon. Member, and others deciding what issues they want to focus on, to think very seriously about what the most important issue is here, when so many lives were lost.

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Reform)]

In her statement, the Home Secretary said, “Let there be no doubt: responsibility for this outrage lies squarely with the perpetrator.” That is indubitably true, but I would argue that there is blood on the hands of the myriad very difficult to understand Government agencies and quangos that charge around in ever decreasing circles, blaming everybody else when something goes wrong. Will she commit to reviewing every single dropped or downgraded case on which Prevent failed to act appropriately, to avoid another heartbreaking catastrophe like this one?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have announced two important things today. The first is the inquiry, which needs to go to the heart of what went wrong in this case—why so many agencies knew about this incredibly dangerous perpetrator who committed this barbaric act. The second is establishing the new Prevent independent commissioner, who can review different cases and ensure that the right approach has been taken, that risks are being identified and, frankly, that action is being taken. What disturbs me about some of the information—particularly the knife crime issues identified in this case—is that strong enough action was not taken. To keep people safe, we need to ensure that such action is taken.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Home Secretary very much for her statement, her tone and her well-chosen words. I think every one of us in the Chamber is heartbroken for the families and their loss. The trust of local communities was damaged by the information that was released, and I believe a lesson about transparency must be learned. Can the Home Secretary outline how the Government will ensure that trust is rebuilt in the system, that misinformation can be corrected and that such corrections are trusted in the future?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right to raise the important issue of trust. The police and criminal justice system are rightly independent of Government and of politics, but there needs to be trust in the work they do. This Government have made it part of our mission to restore confidence in policing, which I think has been undermined for far too long, and to stand up for the rule of law. We must defend the different parts of the justice system, which rightly play different roles, otherwise they will not provide justice for people in the future.

Crucially, to ensure that there is trust, we need to get to the truth about what happened in this shocking, terrible case: what went wrong and why a dangerous man was able to commit this terrible crime. Above all, all of us should keep in our minds and in our hearts the three little children, their families and all those who have been affected by this truly appalling attack. We must ensure that we get them the truth and answers, and do everything that we can to prevent such terrible crimes.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement.

Bill Presented

Arms Trade (Inquiry and Suspension) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Zarah Sultana presented a Bill to make provision for an inquiry into the end use of arms sold to foreign states to determine whether they have been used in violation of international law; to immediately suspend the sale of arms to foreign states where it cannot be demonstrated that arms sold will not be used in violation of international law; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 14 March, and to be printed (Bill 164).

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

Last Monday, I set out the actions this Government are taking to tackle the terrible crimes of child sexual exploitation and abuse, including mandatory reporting, a new victims and survivors panel, an overhaul of data and police performance requirements, tougher sentences for perpetrators, and support for local inquiries, including in Oldham.

The Safeguarding Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), met this morning with survivors from Oldham. Earlier this week, she and I met Professor Alexis Jay, who chaired both the seven-year national independent inquiry into child sexual abuse and the first local independent inquiry into grooming gangs in Rotherham. Professor Jay’s strongest message to us was that the survivors, who bravely testified to the terrible crimes committed against them, must not be left to feel that their efforts were in vain because, despite all the inquiries, no one listened and nothing was done. Following those discussions, I want to update the House on our next steps to take forward the inquiry’s recommendations, and to go further in tackling sexual exploitation and grooming on the streets and online, in order to keep children safe.

The independent national inquiry into child sexual abuse completed its final report in 2022. It took seven years, heard 7,000 personal testimonies and considered 2 million pages of evidence. There were devastating accounts of brutal rapes, sexual violence, humiliation, trauma and the betrayal of vulnerable children by those charged with protecting them, and accounts of people in positions of power who shamefully put the reputation of institutions before the protection of children. The inquiry included separate detailed reports on organised child abuse in residential homes and schools, and on abuse and cover-ups in the Catholic and Anglican Churches.

A two-year inquiry into child sexual exploitation by organised networks and grooming gangs, published in February 2022, examined over 400 recommendations made by previous inquiries and serious case reviews, as well as taking further evidence of its own. There have been further reports since then, including on Telford and on police performance. However, despite all the national inquiries, reports and hundreds of recommendations, far too little action has been taken and, shamefully, little progress has been made. That has to change.

Before Easter, the Government will lay out a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations of the final IICSA report. Four of those are specifically for the Home Office. I can confirm that we have accepted them in full, including on disclosure and barring, and work is already under way. A cross-Government ministerial group is considering and working through the remaining recommendations, and that group will be supported by our new victims and survivors panel. In addition, I can confirm today that the Government will implement all the remaining recommendations in the child abuse inquiry’s separate stand-alone report on grooming gangs from February 2022, including updating key Department for Education guidance.

Let me turn to the areas where we need to go further. As I said last week, the most important task should be to increase police investigations into these horrific crimes and get abusers behind bars. We will introduce stronger sentences for child grooming by making organising abuse and exploitation an aggravating factor, and today I can announce new action to help victims get more investigations and prosecutions under way. I am extending the remit of the independent child sexual abuse review panel to cover not just historical cases before 2013 but all cases since, so that any victim of abuse will have the right to seek an independent review without having to go back to the local institutions that decided not to proceed with their case.

Today, I am writing to the National Police Chiefs’ Council to ask all chief constables to look again at historical gang exploitation cases where no further action was taken, and to work with the child sexual exploitation police taskforce to pursue new lines of inquiry and reopen investigations where appropriate. These new measures will be backed by £2 million of additional funding for the taskforce and the panel, and all police forces will be expected to implement the 2023 recommendations from His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, including producing “problem profiles” on the nature of grooming gangs in their area. I have asked the inspectorate to review progress this year.

As well as reviewing past cases, we need much stronger action to uncover the full scale and nature of these awful crimes. The child sexual exploitation police taskforce, led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, has estimated that of the 115,000 child sexual abuse offences recorded by the police in 2023, around 4,000 involved more than one perpetrator. Of those, around 1,100 involved abuse within the family and over 300 involved abuse in institutions, and the taskforce identified 717 reported cases of group or gang-related child sexual exploitation. However, we know that the vast majority of abuse goes unreported, so we expect all those figures to be significant underestimates.

The taskforce reports that 127 major police investigations across 29 police forces are currently under way into child sexual exploitation and gang grooming. Many major investigations have involved Pakistani-heritage gangs. The police taskforce evidence also shows exploitation and abuse taking place across many different communities and ethnicities, but the data on the ethnicity of both perpetrators and victims is still inadequate.

As I said last week, we will overhaul the data that we expect local areas to collect as part of a new performance management framework. I have also asked the child sexual exploitation taskforce to immediately expand the ethnicity data it collects and publishes, so that data is gathered from the end of an investigation when a fuller picture is available, not just from the beginning when suspects may not yet have been identified.

To go much further, I have asked Baroness Louise Casey to oversee a rapid audit of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country, and to make recommendations on the further work that is needed. The specific 2022 IICSA report on gang exploitation concluded:

“An accurate picture of the prevalence of child sexual exploitation could not be gleaned”

from the data and evidence it had available. This audit will seek to fill that gap.

The audit will look at further evidence that was not previously available, including evidence collected by the police taskforce and the new problem profiles compiled by police forces. It will also include an equivalent audit of child protection referrals; it will properly examine ethnicity data and the demographics of the gangs and their victims; it will look at the cultural and societal drivers for this type of offending, including among different ethnic groups; and it will make recommendations about further analyses, investigations and actions that are needed to address current and historical failures. Baroness Louise Casey was the author of the no-holds-barred 2015 report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, and I have therefore asked her to oversee this rapid three-month audit ahead of the launch of the independent commission into adult social care.

In many areas across the country, the focus must now be on further police investigations and implementing recommendations to improve services, but we will also provide stronger national backing for local inquiries where they are needed, to get truth and justice for victims and survivors. Last week, the Prime Minister and I met survivors from Telford, who had enormous praise for the way that local inquiry was conducted after there had been failings over many years. That inquiry led to tangible change, including piloting the introduction of CCTV in taxis and appointing child sexual exploitation experts in local secondary schools. As we have seen, effective local inquiries can delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally relevant answers and change than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can provide.

Tom Crowther KC, the chair of the Telford inquiry, has agreed to work with the Government to develop a new framework for victim-centred, locally led inquiries where they are needed. As a first step, he will work with Oldham council and up to four other pilot areas. This will include support for local authorities that want to explore other ways to support victims, including local panels or drawing on the experience of the independent inquiry’s truth project. The Government are already drawing up a duty of candour as part of the long-awaited Hillsborough law.

We will also work with mayors and local councils to bolster the accountability mechanisms that can support and follow up local inquiries, to ensure that those who are complicit in cover-ups, or who try to resist scrutiny, are always robustly held to account so that truth and justice are never denied. This new package of national support for local inquiries will be backed by £5 million of additional funding to get further local work off the ground because, at every level, getting justice for victims and protecting children is a responsibility we all share.

Finally, we cannot ignore the way in which child exploitation is changing as offenders exploit new technology to target and groom children. We should all be deeply worried about the pace and growth of exploitation that begins online. We are therefore bolstering the work of the Home Office-funded undercover online network of police officers to target online offenders, and developing cutting-edge AI tools and other new capabilities to infiltrate livestreams and chatrooms where children are being groomed. Further measures will be announced in the crime and policing Bill to tackle those organising online child sex abuse.

Nothing matters more than the safety of our children, yet for too long, this horrific abuse was allowed to continue. Victims were ignored, perpetrators were left unpunished, and too many people looked the other way. Even when these shocking crimes were brought to light and national inquiries were commissioned to get to the truth, the resulting reports were too often left on the shelf as their recommendations gathered dust. Under this Government, that has changed. We are taking action not just on those recommendations, but on the additional work that we need to do to protect victims, put perpetrators behind bars and uncover the truth wherever things have gone wrong. This is about the protection of children, the protection of young girls, and the radical and ambitious mission that we have set for this Government to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. I hope all Members will support that mission and support the measures that we have outlined today to help achieve that aim. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

Smearing those who raised this issue is exactly what led to the victims being ignored and the crimes covered up in the first place. Therefore, will the Home Secretary apologise on behalf of the Prime Minister for his language last week?

It is not true to say that the previous Government did nothing following the IICSA report. They set up the grooming gangs taskforce following the IICSA report, which led to 550 arrests of perpetrators in the first year alone, and I am glad that the new Government are continuing that work.

In April 2023, the data collection on the ethnicity of perpetrators was initiated, but the initial publication of that—I think last November—showed that the collection is incomplete. Will the Home Secretary ensure both that the police follow through on the work initiated in April 2023 and that the data is collected more comprehensively?

The mandatory reporting recommendation was introduced as an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, which fell due to the early general election. I am glad that the Government say that they will now pick that up and take it forward.

Previous reports and reviews did not go far enough. The IICSA report itself was mainly not about these rape gangs. In fact, it barely touched on the issue and looked at only six towns. We now believe that as many as 50 towns could have been affected, so the IICSA barely scratched the surface.

The Home Secretary just announced Government support for only five local inquiries. That is wholly inadequate when we know that up to 50 towns are affected. I have some serious questions for the Home Secretary. First, how are the other 40-plus towns supposed to get answers to the questions that they have, and how will these initial five towns be chosen?

Secondly, the Home Secretary said nothing in her statement about the powers that these local inquiries will have. It seems that they will not be statutory inquiries under the Inquiries Act 2005. That means that these local inquiries will not have the power to compel witnesses to attend, to take evidence under oath or to requisition written evidence. If that is the case, how can they possibly get to the truth when faced with cover-ups? It was precisely that problem—the lack of powers—that reportedly led the chairs of the Manchester local inquiry to resign last year. They were not given the information that they needed by public authorities, and did not have the powers required to force its release, so they resigned.

Legal powers are needed, because these crimes were deliberately covered up in some cases. We heard just a week or two ago from the former Labour MP for Rochdale Simon Danczuk, who said that the then chair of the parliamentary Labour party told him not to raise these issues for fear of losing Muslim votes—truly appalling. Not a single person has been convicted for covering up or ignoring these crimes. In my view, the criminal offence of misconduct in public office might apply. Moreover, those vile perpetrators who can be deported should be deported, every single one of them—changing the law if that is needed to do it, and using visa sanctions on countries such as Pakistan to ensure that they accept eligible perpetrators.

What the Home Secretary has announced today is totally inadequate. It will cover only a fraction of the towns affected, and it appears that the inquiries will not have the legal powers they need. That is why we need a proper, full national public inquiry, covering the whole country and with the powers under the Inquiries Act 2005 that are needed to obtain the evidence required. It is not just me who thinks that; in the last week or two, the Labour Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden) have called for a full national inquiry, as has Andy Burnham, the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester. I commend those Members and Andy Burnham for their courage in speaking out.

Recent polling shows that the vast majority of the public want a full national public inquiry, including 73% of Labour voters. Most importantly, so do victims. Jane was groomed and abused at the age of just 12. She was gang raped repeatedly. She told the police and she told her social worker. At one point, the police even found her being abused by an illegal immigrant, but instead of arresting him, they arrested her. Jane still does not know if any of her abusers have been jailed, or if any of the public officials who let her down so badly have been held to account. Jane now wants a proper national public inquiry—Home Secretary, why don’t you?

[Yvette Cooper]

These are the most vile crimes, against teenagers, children and young girls. Very often they involve sadistic abuse, rape and the most appalling trauma that can last for many years. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse ran for seven years and took evidence from 7,000 victims and survivors across the country. Too many of those voices, and the bravery that those victims showed, have just being ignored. The right hon. Gentleman says that he took action, but I am afraid the Conservative party had 10 years to introduce a duty to report child abuse, make it a responsibility of professionals to report it, and make it an offence to cover up child abuse. I was calling for that 10 years ago. The Prime Minister was calling for it 12 years ago. The right hon. Gentleman failed to do it, and we have lost a decade as a result.

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse also ran a two-year investigation of child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs. One of the shocking things that it found was that less is now known and understood about the prevalence of this appalling crime than prior to 2015. In the period 2015 to 2022, even after we knew about what had happened in Rotherham, and Baroness Louise Casey had identified its impact and the failure to address issues of race and ethnicity, the previous Government went backwards on gathering data and information, and the need for proper evidence. That is why this Government have commissioned Baroness Louise Casey to instigate a rapid review to uncover the prevalence of this appalling crime across the country, with no holds barred, in the way that we know she will conduct this inquiry, to fill the gaps in the evidence, rather than rerun the same questions without the evidence and data that we badly need.

I also point out to the shadow Minister that his party weakened the disclosure and barring rules in 2012, again making changes that I and the Policing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), opposed at the time, and that the independent inquiry rightly recommended reversing in order to keep children safe. Again, his party failed to act.

I hope the action we have announced will be supported right across the country. It includes the duty to report child abuse; proper penalties for covering it up; stronger sentences for grooming gangs; new rights for victims to get an independent review on reopening their case; new action to reopen historical police investigations; new standards for the police to meet; a new victims and survivors panel; a new audit of the scale and nature of child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs, led by someone who uncovered a lot of the problems in Rotherham, including the failure to confront Pakistani-heritage gangs; the gathering and publishing of new ethnicity data, which the shadow Minister failed to do; new national support for local inquiries, including the Telford model; victims panels; new work on accountability linked to the Hillsborough law to hold failures to account, because we will strengthen the law to do so; and a proper timetable for taking forward the independent inquiry, because this has to be about action and protecting children and keeping them safe.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I think I heard the Home Secretary adopting my five-point plan, so I thank her for that and thank everybody across the House who has been campaigning on the issue. If I could ask for some clarity: did the Home Secretary say she will adopt all 20 of the IICSA recommendations or just those in the grooming gang strand? Do local authorities as well as police forces have to do a review into their cases of CSE? She cites Telford, which was victim-focused—that was why it was so important, because we must have those victims’ and survivors’ voices—but what Telford and Greater Manchester said they lacked was the ability to compel witnesses. A big strand of what we need to do is ensure that there have been no cover-ups, and we can only do that if requirements are on a statutory footing.

With respect, Telford cost £8 million and the Home Secretary said she was providing £5 million for the whole inquiry across the country. Why do we need another inquiry in Telford when we know this is happening nationally? Can she assure us that there will be transparency of the findings of all the inquiries, reviews and audits? Is it possible that the inquiry could be UK-wide, because I do not believe this is only happening in England and Wales? It needs to be across the whole of the UK.

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank my hon. Friend for her questions. To go through them in turn, we will set out before Easter the timetable for taking forward the work around all the recommendations from the main independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. She will know that some of the recommendations raise complex issues, and considerable work will need to be done on some of them. We recognise that and have discussed that with Professor Alexis Jay. There are other recommendations we can take forward swiftly, and those covered and led by the Home Office are being taken forward swiftly. The work is already under way, including on disclosure and barring and on the duty to report, which will be included as part of the legislation.

On the local inquiries, we are not redoing the Telford inquiry. My hon. Friend is right that in Telford the extensive inquiry that was conducted involved, crucially, victims and survivors throughout. They were involved from the very beginning, designing the inquiry in the first place. The inquiry has led to substantial change, and there continues to be further follow-up work on it. That is the effective model. We need local councils, police and crime commissioners, Mayors and the Government to work together on them, so we are providing the additional £5 million. Tom Crowther will work specifically with the first five local authorities that want to do such work, drawing up an effective model that can be used in other areas.

On the ability to gather evidence and ensure that there is proper accountability, there has to be clear accountability. This process cannot be a way in which areas or institutions can avoid scrutiny. Obviously, the work in Telford and the original work in Rotherham by Baroness Casey managed to uncover truths in different areas, but there also needs to be other new arrangements on accountability. We are working with the Cabinet Office, Mayors and councils to draw up new accountability arrangements. That will ensure either proper follow-up or, as part of those initial inquiries, that a proper accountability framework is in place. We will link that to the duty of candour part of the Hillsborough law. Unlike the previous Government, who frankly never took seriously issues of candour, responsibility and accountability in the 14 years that they were in power, and refused to bring in a Hillsborough law, we will bring in such a law because we are clear that there must be proper accountability for the failure to tackle this abuse.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Survivors are tough, as I know from my own experiences of abuse as a child, about which I have spoken in the Chamber. Survivors have been subject to intense impacts and blistering climates, but like a blade in the blacksmith’s forge, each strike has strengthened many survivors’ character, mettle and spirit, even though those are experiences that should never be undergone in the first place. Each shock has emboldened our resolve to be the very sword carried by Lady Justice herself, or at least to see it wielded with strength—to see action taken and justice done.

However, too many survivors’ stories have been characterised by being ignored, hidden or gaslit. Recently, too many survivors’ stories have been shamefully used as a political football in some corners of this House and beyond. Survivors’ experiences are littered with gut-wrenching instances of power-holders missing glaring opportunities to take action against child sexual abuse and exploitation. History must stop repeating itself. We cannot afford for Professor Jay’s findings, or those of the inquiries announced today, to gather dust atop power-holders’ bookshelves, to get lost at the bottom of in-trays, or to be banished to the depths of filing cabinets. In line with the courage that it has taken so many survivors to speak out on this issue, we Liberal Democrats—and many others, I know—implore those in positions of power at all levels to step up, too. That means that those weaponising this issue for party political gain must stop now; it means that Professor Jay’s 20 recommendations must be implemented from now; and it means that the work to get the local inquiries set up must start now.

Survivors need assurance that—beyond the areas that have been announced today—they will be able to get justice in their cases as well. Will the Home Secretary share the plan for the areas beyond those she has announced today? What legal powers will the inquiries have to ensure that they have teeth and justice can be delivered? We must all dignify survivors’ experiences with action. We must honour all survivors’ stories with reform. Lady Justice demands it, and so does the tempered sword that she wields.

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the hon. Member’s points on this extremely serious issue. He is right that many victims and survivors need a proper police investigation to go after the perpetrators, prosecute and hold them to account, and get justice and put them behind bars. That will help to protect other young people as well. One of the most important changes is that we are making it easier to get investigations reopened where they have been closed down for the wrong reasons and justice still needs to be done. We will give victims a stronger right to review. They will be able to go to an independent panel with their case and have it independently reviewed so that it can be reopened. We are also asking police forces across the country to review the closed cases and pursue new lines of inquiry, with the taskforce’s support to ensure that they can do so.

Tom Crowther, who did the Telford inquiry, will work with five areas on the kinds of inquiry that they may want to take forward, involving victims and survivors—it is crucial to involve victims and survivors in the design. One Telford survivor gave evidence to both the national inquiry and the local inquiry, and she found that the local inquiry was far more effective at getting changes in that area, and it was easier for her to give evidence to it. That is why we need areas to be able to learn from what Telford did effectively, but also to be backed up by a stronger arrangement for accountability—stronger mechanisms for holding local organisations to account if they are not complying. However, we also expect local organisations to comply and to be part of finding truth and justice for survivors.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the measures she has included in it, and I thank her for her promptness in doing that. I also thank her team, especially the Minister for Safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), for listening to and providing support to constituents who have gone through such horrific abuse. How will my right hon. Friend ensure not only that the individuals responsible for this awful abuse will be caught and convicted, but that those who failed to protect and support these vulnerable young people—it is not just young women who have been affected in Oldham, but also young men—will be held to account?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to raise those important points, and I know that she has worked on this issue for many years. One of the things we need to do is strengthen the law in this area. We need to have a much stronger legal framework to ensure that there is proper accountability; not just holding to account and properly punishing the perpetrators of appalling abuse, but holding to account institutions and individuals who fail to take the action needed to protect our children. That means the duty to report, making it an offence to cover up child abuse; a duty of candour, to comply and provide the information and transparency in these cases; and looking at the other local mechanisms that need to be in place in areas such as my hon. Friend’s and across the country, enabling us to ensure that there is proper accountability when things go really badly wrong.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, which my Committee will look at carefully. Professor Alexis Jay will be in front of us next Tuesday and I am sure that we will come back with further points, but I have two points today. The first is about the duty to report. In many cases, reports were made but the victims were simply not listened to and not believed, so what can the Home Secretary do to ensure that changes? Secondly, since I am not clear from her answers so far, will the local inquiries have statutory powers to compel witnesses—yes or no?

[Yvette Cooper]

On the right hon. Lady’s first point, she is right that reports were often not listened to and not followed up. In some areas, what that means is that although recommendations were made, there was never any follow-up—there was never the proper implementation of standards to be able to do so. For example, in policing we have never had a proper performance management framework to ensure that standards are being met and that there is proper follow-up. We need that stronger performance management framework in place.

Those who conducted the Telford inquiry were able to make progress and get to the truth using an existing local inquiry framework. That was able to be extremely effective. In other areas, we have needed to have other action—including, for example, action by inspectorates to follow up—so there are different approaches that we can take. We believe that the current system is not strong enough; that is why we have set out work that is under way, involving the Cabinet Office and local mayors and local councils, to make sure we can strengthen the accountability arrangements to be able both to follow up and support local inquiries where they are relevant, and to use existing powers that are in place.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

As a barrister and a former Crown prosecutor for 14 years who dealt with sexual abuse and rape cases, I can tell this House that sexual abuse and assault occur throughout the United Kingdom and are not specific to any gender, race or religion—we just have to look at the Pelicot case in France. However, there is one group of victims who are often not spoken about, which is young boys and young men. The level of sexual abuse that relates to them is completely under-reported. I think it is a cultural thing: the idea that boys must man up and must not show their feelings. Can I therefore ask the Home Secretary that, when she is looking at these things, she ensures that those undertaking such inquiries look into facts about the abuse of young boys?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this point. In fact, it was one of the issues raised as part of the independent inquiry’s two-year review of child exploitation. The review identified that teenage or young boys are being exploited and that there are often patterns of that starting with online exploitation. What started as online abuse and grooming then led to contact abuse and rape, and the most appalling violations. She is right to highlight this issue, and it is extremely important that this is taken into account and is part of the way in which local councils and police forces need to respond.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

The House will be well aware that I have been consistently campaigning for a rape gangs inquiry into child sexual expectation across Keighley and the wider Bradford district for far too long. So I welcome some of the points that the Home Secretary has made, particularly on the implementation of the 20 recommendations from the IICSA report. Unfortunately, I do not feel that she is going far enough, and I would like to make a few points.

In particular, I have serious concerns about the ability of inquiries at a local level to compel witnesses to give evidence and about the amount of funding that will be made available. Will the local inquiries that the Home Secretary is advocating be truly independent, not just local authorities marking their own homework, and will they lead to convictions? Local authority leaders in Bradford district have consistently refused to back my calls for a public inquiry, as has the Mayor of West Yorkshire and the deputy Mayor for policing, Alison Lowe. How on earth are we meant to get across this barrier of local leaders refusing to have an inquiry on this issue without the Government stepping in and giving the statutory authority that we on this side of the House are demanding?

[Yvette Cooper]

It is obviously really important to ensure that there is independent scrutiny. The hon. Member will be aware that the inquiry in Rotherham led by Baroness Louise Casey used inspectorate powers, but it was clearly independent and it managed to uncover serious problems that had gone wrong in Rotherham at that time, so there are different ways of doing this. The Telford inquiry was funded locally, but it managed to involve victims and survivors, and it also managed to shape the inquiry in the way that victims and survivors wanted, which is also important. For all areas right across the country, the most important thing is still to get police investigations going after the perpetrators, getting them before the courts and getting them behind bars. Whatever else happens, getting stronger police investigations in order to pursue perpetrators must remain at the heart of what happens.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

Child sexual expectation and abuse are the most sickening, appalling crimes perpetrated against some of the most vulnerable youngsters in our communities. So I strongly welcome this comprehensive new national plan of action to put victims first, and I welcome the appointment of Baroness Casey to conduct a rapid review of the scale and nature of these grooming gangs. Can I also urge a cross-party consensus on this issue, rather than the game playing and misinformation we have seen over the past week? The Home Secretary, the Safeguarding Minister and I have all been consistent in saying that we should put the victims at the heart of everything we do. My constituents in Rochdale know that this issue is too important for political point scoring, and we should put victims at the heart of everything we do. That is not just for the victims of the past, but for the victims of the present.

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I know this is an area on which he does a lot of work. He is right that the purpose of a national audit by Baroness Casey is to identify the scale and look properly at the characteristics of these appalling crimes right across the country, and then to make further recommendations about further work and further investigations that may be needed. Anyone who has worked with Baroness Casey will know how independent and determined she will always be. My hon. Friend is also right that this must still be about victims and survivors and, crucially, protecting them for the future, because we still do not have strong enough standards and strong enough protection in place. Unless those changes are made, we will continue to let children and young people down.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and for the steps the Government are taking to address this serious issue. I appreciate that the timetable for the implementation of the IICSA recommendations cannot be immediately shared, but waiting until Easter means there is a big period when we need to take some action. Will she explain what immediate steps the Government are taking to ensure that all alleged victims who come forward are treated, taken seriously and listened to, and that immediate action is taken to address their allegations, so as to serve justice and protect these children?

[Yvette Cooper]

I can assure the hon. Member that we are already taking forward some of the recommendations. Some will be in legislation and will take time to pass through Parliament, because legislation also needs to change. We are also taking immediate action to change the victims’ right to review so that if victims have been to the police or to a local authority—this includes parents who have been worried about their children—and they feel that nothing is being done, they will have a right to review. That will be an independent right to review—not just to go back to the same police force or the same Crown Prosecution Service, but to go to an independent panel on child sexual abuse to get that independent look, so that we can get more cases reopened and get urgent action taken, which is what we need to keep children safe.

[Natalie Fleet (Bolsover) (Lab)]

I welcome this action from a Government who see violence against women and girls as the national emergency that it is, with a Prime Minister, Home Secretary and a Safeguarding Minister with records of taking action to deliver for victims like me and many in my constituency. Giving birth as a result of grooming is a story that far too many of us share. There are so many reasons why children and the women that they grow into do not speak out. I want to share one particular story today. It is about the victim who told me that the perpetrator has threatened that if she speaks out, he will have access to her child, which is something he has not done so far. That means she has to work so hard to hide his crime in order to protect herself and her baby. Will the Home Secretary meet me and other victims to discuss changing the law in order to protect children born of rape?

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank my hon. Friend for that incredibly important point, and also for the shocking and disturbing story she has told of victims continuing to be silenced, having already been through the most traumatic experiences. They are then continuing to be silenced to protect the children, even though what actually needs to happen is for perpetrators to be held to account and to face the full force of the law. She is right that we need to ensure that family courts cannot be used by abusers and rapists to persecute victims. I will happily meet my hon. Friend, and I know that the Safeguarding Minister will too. This issue is also being taken forward by the Ministry of Justice.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

The House should be generous towards the Home Secretary, as she has travelled a long way since last week by recognising that there is a requirement for far more inquiries into the towns affected, and we should thank her for that. However, one crucial thing still lacking from her statement today is whether these new inquiries will have the power to summon witnesses and require the production of papers.

Only the Home Secretary—or a Secretary of State or Minister—can set up a statutory inquiry. In fact, the Minister specifying an inquiry could set the terms of reference, decide whether it should concentrate on certain towns, set the timeframe and set the budget. She could appoint as many people as she wants to the panel so that different parts of the inquiry could run in different parts of the country concurrently. Is she really ruling out that any of these inquiries should be statutory inquiries? Victims have the real freedom to speak out only in this Parliament, as we have just movingly heard, or in a statutory inquiry, where they are legally immune from consequences for anything they say. Why cannot she provide the victims with those protections?

[Yvette Cooper]

The strongest protection for victims continues to be through police investigations, and of course the police have full powers to pursue investigations wheresoever they may be found. A series of local inquiries have been held in different ways. The inspector investigation into Rotherham, where Baroness Casey was the lead inspector, did have powers to get to the truth, whereas the Telford inquiry did not have those powers but still managed to uncover serious problems and make serious recommendations.

There are different ways in which to do this. We have made it clear that we want to strengthen accountability powers and the ability to ensure that answers are given to local areas, and that is alongside the work we already have under way as part of the Hillsborough law on the duty of candour that we need to implement across the board.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for the really important steps that she has announced today. Nothing must come in the way of victims getting justice or being listened to, or of us learning all that we can about how we protect future victims. If lessons come out of the individual local inquiries repeated across the country that would enable us to better protect victims in the future, how will we co-ordinate that? Turning to the previous question, will she explain why she believes that the statutory footing is not the right way to go and that the localised way will ensure that we get to the truth?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that we need to ensure proper follow-up where there are recommendations. There have been over 500 different recommendations, predominantly around child sexual exploitation, with many more around child sexual abuse much more widely. There is currently not a proper process to be able to follow them up. That is one of the reasons why the independent inquiry talked about strengthening child protection arrangements through, for example, a child protection authority and having stronger arrangements in that way. It is also one of the reasons why we have said that we need a new performance framework for policing to be able to have proper follow-up.

Obviously, we have already had a statutory seven-year inquiry into child sexual abuse and a statutory two-year investigation into child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs. Those reports came out with really important recommendations, but one of the things that they identified was that there simply was not enough evidence or data on the gangs in particular to be able to do further work and further investigations. That is why the next step must be to have the rapid national audit that we have asked Baroness Casey to undertake to get a much more extensive assessment of the prevalence and nature of child sexual exploitation across the country.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady will know that I would not for one moment question her integrity, and certainly not her intent. However, I am perplexed by the methodology. Baroness Casey has one or two other things on her plate at the moment, but if she is able to deliver this audit in three months, that can only be a good thing. In her statement, she said that Tom Crowther has agreed to work with the Government to develop a new framework for victim-centred locally led inquiries where they are needed—five pilot schemes. That in itself will take time, and it is kicking the can down the road.

We all know that the Select Committees of this House can take evidence, generate a report and publish it in short order. It does not have to take seven years—it can take less than seven months. Having heard everything that the right hon. Lady has said, I cannot for the life of me understand why she is so resistant, first, to a broad-based national inquiry rather than a narrow five-town inquiry and, secondly, to statutory measures that will allow that inquiry to compel witnesses and evidence.

[Yvette Cooper]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the importance of any independent inquiry is the independence of the decisions made by the chair about how it should be pursued. The inquiry led by Baroness Jay into child sexual abuse took seven years—that was a decision made independently by Baroness Jay and the panel. They took evidence from 7,000 victims right across the country. They pursued detailed investigations in different areas, including into churches, religious organisations, residential homes and schools. The inquiry into child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs on our streets took two years.

First, we want a rapid audit that fills the gaps that were left by the independent inquiry, such as on the scale and characteristics of child sexual exploitation across the country. That work will rightly be done by Baroness Casey. Secondly, we want more police investigations under way, including the victims’ right to review. Thirdly, we want Tom Crowther to be able to work with other areas where there are local failings and problems, to pursue successful local inquiries such as Telford, to get to the heart of local failures and make sure that there is accountability.

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I remain shocked that only two MPs stepped up and attended and participated in the Alexis Jay five-year inquiry into child sex abuse—my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and Lord Mann, when he was the Bassetlaw MP. As its new MP, it is my duty and responsibility to carry on that fight for justice.

Where grooming gangs have been operating, whether they are white, Pakistani-origin or church gangs, or taking place behind the closed doors of private homes, the bright light of an inquiry will expose who they are, where the cover-ups are and who is responsible. Every single perpetrator should be hunted down and jailed. I have no time for the grandstanders or the people who turn a blind eye. This is the biggest challenge of our Parliament. I find it stunning that the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), is not in his place for this critical statement.

Inquiries in areas where the gangs operate will give sick and evil perpetrators no place to hide. National oversight for Government is essential, ensuring swift legal action and the mapping of gangs, their links and their co-ordination—when and where they are ferrying girls across county lines. Does the Home Secretary agree that we need to end this tyranny of child abuse and put words into action?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree. These terrible crimes have been ignored for too long. There are currently 127 major police operations under way on child sexual exploitation and gang grooming, across 29 different police forces. The independent inquiry identified that child sexual exploitation happens across all police force areas and all communities. All areas should ensure that they have the proper systems in place to follow up on what is happening to missing children, such as the vulnerable kids who stay out overnight, or those who go missing from residential care homes. Too often, that is still not happening and too often, we still get reports, even though those are basic things that all police forces and local authorities should be doing.

That is why we have strengthened the powers for victims to get a review, and that is why we are requiring police forces to look back at historical cases, because we know that cases are not being reported and not being investigated. That is where the fastest action needs to be, to go after the perpetrators who are still on our streets and still getting away with it. They will continue to do so unless police forces and local councils work together to put perpetrators behind bars.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

I refer the House to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and particularly to the fact that I am a director of WhistleblowersUK, a not-for-profit organisation. I am the last remaining MP of the seven Members of the House of Commons who originally called on Theresa May to hold an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. My experiences are also on the record. I therefore particularly welcome the acceptance of Professor Alexis Jay’s recommendations and Baroness Louise Casey’s rapid review into child sexual exploitation.

May I, however, draw the Home Secretary’s attention to my concern about police investigations? She has referred to the matter of the National Police Chiefs’ Council and to reopening cases, but I am concerned about people marking their own homework and we know that there is an institutional resistance to being found lacking and to deep scrutiny.

One of the primary whistleblowers with whom I was involved has waited years for the truth to out, and senior police officers have threatened to sue her. It would appear that complaints can only be made about junior officers who are called and investigated, and that there is no ability to complain about senior officers. I ask the Home Secretary to look at the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Independent Office for Police Conduct reports, whether they have been published or not—particularly where they have not been published—and where there have been threats, as I understand it, from the police to sue members of those organisations about their findings. It is incredibly serious that we have organisations such as the IPCC and the IOPC—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I call the Home Secretary.

[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.

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

I welcome today’s announcement; it is great to see some progress. I will not cover what has been said about the legal powers, but I am interested in the funding. When I led a commission in Plymouth, the money to pay for it came from the local authority’s in-year budget. I appreciate the £7 million in total that has been announced. However, the Home Secretary has talked a lot about the police. What additional funding will they receive to do this work on a local level? What additional funding will there be for the practicalities of holding these inquiries, outside the five initial local authorities? What funding will come forward for the interventions that might be recommended following the inquiries? We know that local authorities are incredibly cash-strapped, and this could potentially disincentivise them to follow through on these local inquiries. Finally, is that £7 million new money going into the violence against women and girls budget, or is it money that would have been spent elsewhere?

[Yvette Cooper]

On the funding to support the various measures we are taking forward, we have identified up to £10 million for additional investment to support further action. However, I cannot stress enough that this has to be part of the mainstream work that agencies, police forces and local councils do, because tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse cannot just be an add-on. It cannot be something that is done only if there is a particular announcement from the Government—it has to be done as part of the core responsibilities of police forces and local councils and included in their funding. That is why we want our mission to halve violence against women and girls to be the central mission right across agencies and right across the Government, as well.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I appreciate that this is a very sensitive subject, but if the questions are long and the answers are just as long, we will get very few people in. Chris Murray, show us how it is done.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. In her report, Alexis Jay notes that one in 20 boys and one in six girls in the United Kingdom is estimated to be a victim of sexual abuse. We have had scandal after scandal of grooming in care homes, councils, schools and churches for decades. I welcome the appointment of Baroness Casey on the rapid review into grooming, and welcome that it will be rapid, because these victims deserve justice.

It is unbelievable to my mind that grooming is not an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offenders. Will the Home Secretary restate her commitment to making it an aggravating factor, and commit to that being done quickly and by force, so that child sexual offenders are properly punished by the law?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. The inquiry identified that half a million children are victims of sexual abuse every year. The majority of cases are, sadly, within the family—a betrayal by those from whom children should be able to expect protection. However, as he said, there have also been huge betrayals in residential homes and other institutions, including faith institutions—the Church of England and the Catholic Church—as well as wider grooming online and on the streets as part of these terrible crimes. So yes, we will change the law, strengthen sentencing and make grooming an aggravating factor, because the punishment should fit this terrible crime.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

There is much to welcome in the Home Secretary’s statement, but she has resisted six invitations from hon. Members to confirm that the Government-supported local inquiries will have statutory powers. Instead, she is relying on the duty of candour, responsibility and accountability, so let me try it a different way. Is the Home Secretary 100% certain that the duty of candour, responsibility and accountability is equivalent to statutory powers?

[Yvette Cooper]

What we need to do is to ensure that the crimes are investigated and that there is proper follow-up in those areas where things have gone badly wrong—and we know that there are some areas where things have gone badly wrong. The first stage has to be for the police to have full powers to pursue these crimes and to follow wherever the evidence takes them in order to put perpetrators behind bars. Frankly, that is where they should be to protect children and keep them safe.

We also need to ensure that where things have gone wrong, there are sufficient powers to be able to get to the truth and sufficient ability for local organisations to do that, so that no one can hide from accountability, run away or obfuscate, or use bureaucracy to get away with providing the answers, the justice and the accountability that victims need. That is why we have set up a new programme of work to look at how we can strengthen the powers available and the accountability available. Part of that has to be the duty of candour. It also has to include the duty to report, because there have to be stronger responsibilities on people to report child abuse in the first place and we have to make it a criminal offence to cover it up. If the law is not strong enough, we will not get the accountability or the action.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I encourage Opposition Members to heed the appeal from the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) to stop scoring party political points on such an important and sensitive subject. I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement, in particular the Government’s commitment to take action to protect victims and secure justice by accelerating investigations and prosecutions. Can the Home Secretary confirm that the support is there so that police forces such as West Yorkshire have the resources they need to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of these horrible crimes?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have increased the resources for police forces across the country by up to £1 billion next year. It is really important that all police forces see these kinds of crimes, against some of the most vulnerable people in society, as part of the core work that they must do on public protection and keeping people safe.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for his persistent campaign to get an inquiry into Keighley and Bradford.

Scotland is not immune from grooming gangs. Indeed, a survivor expert fears that grooming gangs are operating in every town and city in Scotland. What discussions has the Home Secretary had with the Scottish Government to ensure there is a unified and co-ordinated approach across the United Kingdom? Lastly, just to add my voice to those of others in the Chamber, why on earth can the inquiry not be backed by statute? The Inquiries Act 2005 gives all the accountability and assurances that victims and communities need to ensure process is followed properly.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the child sexual exploitation and abuse that takes place in every corner of the United Kingdom. Obviously, on the issues that involve police forces, the Home Office has responsibility for the police forces in England and Wales. Therefore, some of the changes we are making around the review panel, and around performance management and proper data in these areas, will apply to England and Wales police forces. However, we are also working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which as he will know works very closely with Police Scotland to ensure there is a national approach. I would also say that we had the nationwide inquiry into both child sexual abuse more widely and child sexual exploitation. It is really important that we fill the gaps in the evidence and that we take forward those recommendations, alongside supporting those areas where there have been particular problems to get to the truth.

[Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I welcome today’s news that Baroness Casey will conduct a rapid review of the scale and nature of grooming gang offences. Having served as deputy police and crime commissioner on the frontline in Lancashire, I know that much exploitation and abuse goes unreported and unidentified in towns such as Blackpool, and that the figures are a significant underestimate. What will the Government do to ensure that systems are in place that enable these crimes to be reported and command the confidence of victims and survivors?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that it should be easier to report crimes, but I also think there should be a proactive duty on police forces, local authorities and child protection authorities to pursue the evidence of where these crimes are taking place even when they are not being reported. If kids are going missing from home, and particularly from residential care homes, they may not be reporting crimes partly because they are being groomed and exploited. As well as making it easier for victims to come forward and disclose the terrible things that have happened to them, we should ensure that those authorities have a responsibility to pursue crimes wherever they are found.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

I am usually measured when I come here, but it worries me that the Labour Government seem to be playing us for fools today. The Home Secretary has picked five out of 50 towns and provided no statutory powers. She has announced a review by the incredibly able Baroness Casey, but Baroness Casey is already conducting a review of social care, and this review is not a review; it is an audit. Is not the truth that the good Members on the other side of the House went back to their constituencies—and there are many across the country—and recognised the strength of feeling among the public about the need for a national inquiry? Members on this side of the Chamber get it, and most of the Back Benchers on the Home Secretary’s side get it. Why does she not swallow her pride and launch a national inquiry?

[Yvette Cooper]

Let me just say that I was one of those who called for the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse very many years ago, and that I also supported the two-year investigation by that independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation, as well as some of its other investigations. However, we also have a responsibility to act. When more than 500 recommendations from inquiries are just sitting there with dust gathering on them, we have to ensure that we get action, including the audit that we need from Baroness Casey, who will be proceeding with that for three months before the commission on social care gets going. It is also important for us to have stronger police investigations—because if the police investigations do not happen, no one will get the protection they need—and for Tom Crowther to work with the first local areas that want to take forward local inquiries in order to develop a model and a programme that can be used in other areas, wherever it is needed.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Child sexual exploitation is without a shadow of a doubt the most disgusting, degrading crime imaginable, and we must at all times have the victims at the forefront of our minds. When Conservative Members table amendments to important legislation that they know will not result in an inquiry but will block child protection measures, and then spend the subsequent days spreading misinformation, they are letting victims down.

I welcome the national audit of grooming gangs, and I welcome the reopening of the police investigations to ensure that criminals are brought to justice, but may I check one point with the Home Secretary? She said a number of times that the five local areas she had identified were initial, pilot areas. Is it the ambition that wherever these crimes are taking place, local inquiries can take place?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Wherever there are serious problems or failings and it is believed that local inquiries are needed, we want those areas to be able to conduct the kind of effective local inquiry that Telford was able to conduct, rather than having to start from scratch. Tom Crowther will work with five areas so that he can draw up conclusions about how we can most effectively learn the lessons of what happened in Telford, where victims and survivors felt supported and also felt that they delivered change—that things had actually happened as a result—rather than having inquiries whose recommendations just sit on a shelf, letting everyone down.

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Reform)]

As well as withheld court transcripts, I have been pushing the Ministry of Justice for data on the following: how many Pakistani or other foreign rapists have been deported, are still in prison, did not serve a custodial sentence, are back in the same community as their victims, had previous convictions or have reoffended, with a full nationality breakdown of those involved in the gangs. The response was that the requested information

“is not centrally identified in the data systems relevant to these questions.”

If this were a state inquiry into the private sector, it would be accused of negligence. My view is that we need a full national inquiry. This is a rotting stain on our country, and it needs to be exorcised in full. It cannot continue to be kicked into the long grass. The British public want transparency, and they want to know why this has taken so long to be dealt with.

[Yvette Cooper]

We do believe that better, more comprehensive data needs to be collected. That is why I have said that the overall data on child sexual abuse needs to be overhauled, with immediate changes to the gathering of data on ethnicity of both perpetrators and victims, because the system we inherited from the previous Government simply is not strong enough. We will need further changes as well.

On the issue of foreign national offenders, where foreign citizens have committed sexual offences in this country, they have no right to stay in this country, and we have to increase returns. That is why, rightly, this Government have increased returns of foreign national offenders by over 20% since the election.

[Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)]

I welcome the announcements the Home Secretary has made today. Disclosing abuse is a very difficult thing to do. Many victims speak out, but too often their words are not heard, they are not taken seriously or they fall between multiple agencies. Will the Secretary of State investigate how we can assist victims to disclose in the first place and ensure that agencies act on those disclosures?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to make that important point. By establishing a victims and survivors panel to work with the safeguarding Minister and other Ministers on taking forward recommendations around sexual abuse, we want to make sure we are recognising those experiences and exactly how difficult it can be to come forward. People need to have the confidence that if they do come forward to do something incredibly difficult, they will be listened to, they will be taken seriously and investigations will follow.

[Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her in-depth explanation of what the Government are and will be doing to ensure the safety of our children in the face of the most heinous crimes. Since the vote on the amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill last week and the subsequent attention that it attracted in the media, many of my constituents have written to me upset, angry and in fear over the grooming scandal. All the correspondence I have received demands a public inquiry into this scandal, to determine the failures—both historical and present—of the institutions involved that allowed these heinous crimes against vulnerable children to go on for so long and so widely, without being stopped and without the victims being safeguarded and protected sufficiently.

In northern towns such as Blackburn in my constituency, crimes of this nature and grooming gangs continue to haunt our streets and vulnerable children. Can the Home Secretary confirm that further public inquiries and reports are needed to find out why this has gone on for such a long time? We need to provide my constituents and everybody across the country with solace.

[Yvette Cooper]

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse and the two-year inquiry into child sexual exploitation concluded that child sexual exploitation is happening right across the country and that action is needed across the country. The taskforce reports that there are currently 127 major police operations under way on child sexual exploitation and gang grooming across 29 police forces. That is why it is so important that recommendations from those inquiries are implemented and that we get action to protect children and young people who too often are let down when inquiry recommendations are ignored.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, which was full of action. I am pleased that last week I supported the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill so that we can start implementing much-needed safeguarding measures—unlike some Conservative Members, who attempted to wreck the Bill and spread misinformation, which led to online abuse towards many Members. Does the Home Secretary share my concern about the most rapidly evolving forms of child sexual abuse taking place online, including through artificial intelligence-facilitated child sexual abuse material? Can she outline what plans the Government have to strengthen the law in this area?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. In addition to the measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, including on the proper identification of children to strengthen child protection, which is crucial, we need much stronger measures to tackle online abuse and exploitation. I am really worried about the pace at which this problem is escalating, about the fact that it involves online grooming, abuse and indecent images, and about the impact of drawing young people into contact abuse. We will bring forward new laws in this area.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the new victims and survivors panel will have representation from regions across the country to ensure that victims’ voices are heard loud and clear? Does she agree that we need to dial down the political opportunism that we have sadly seen from some Members on the Opposition Benches?

[Yvette Cooper]

Yes, the victims and survivors panel will include people from right across the country. The inquiry into child sexual abuse had cross-party support, and I really hope that there will be cross-party support for implementing the action that we need, which I have set out today.

[Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) pointed out, the victims and survivors panel really needs countrywide representation. Given that I am a Welsh MP, can the Secretary of State confirm that Welsh voices will be heard loud and clear?

[Yvette Cooper]

We will ensure that Welsh voices are heard loud and clear.

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

Many of my constituents have contacted me to share their concerns about child abuse and child exploitation. They will be relieved that, unlike the previous Government, this Government are no longer allowing this matter to be kicked into the long grass and are taking action, not least through Baroness Casey’s rapid review. I think my constituents will be concerned that the official figures woefully underestimate the scale and nature of grooming activities. How can the Home Secretary reassure the House, me and my constituents that in future the reporting systems will be such that they can guarantee the confidence of victims and survivors?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. Some of this is about giving victims and survivors the confidence to come forward and report abuse, some of it is about getting agencies and organisations to take seriously the risk factors so that they identify potential crimes and pursue them, and some of it is about making sure that we have much stronger data requirements on police forces and local authorities so that we collect information and data. That was the first recommendation of the independent inquiry, and we are taking it forward. It has not been taken forward for far too long.

[Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for her statement. There are victims and survivors in many communities, including in my constituency, and I welcome the steps that she has announced. I commend the contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) and the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde).

Does the Home Secretary agree that the voices that matter when we discuss how we tackle these issues are not those of billionaires, politicians or talk show hosts seeking to weaponise the pain and suffering of victims and survivors? Above all, we should be listening to victims and survivors themselves.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We need to make sure that victims and survivors are at the heart of this issue. Seven thousand victims and survivors gave evidence to the independent inquiry, which is a really hard thing to do. We owe it to them to make sure there is action as a result of their testimony, rather than just leaving the inquiry to sit on a shelf.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

A number of constituents have contacted me on this serious issue, and I have made it clear that I would welcome any further inquiry that is able to command the support of experts and victims and to build on the recommendations of the Jay report, rather than choosing to ignore them or delay action. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that that is exactly what she set before the House this afternoon? Does she believe, as I do, that on this basis these measures should command support from across the House?

[Yvette Cooper]

I hope these measures command cross-party support because, ultimately, we need stronger action from the police and local authorities, from across Government and from across communities to do the things that, for more than 10 years, we have been told need to change, and yet for too long simply have not changed. That is why we urgently need this action to keep children safe.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement on the action she will take to implement Professor Alexis Jay’s recommendations. Professor Jay made another set of recommendations on which my constituent has been campaigning—those on safeguarding in the Church of England. Professor Jay called for an independent process for the oversight and operation of safeguarding in the Church. The Synod is discussing this next month, but does the Home Secretary agree that measures must be brought forward to be approved by the House without delay?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that there were many further inquiries as part of the overarching national inquiry into child abuse, including on Church and faith organisations. Some of the recommendations were for those organisations to take forward. They need to ensure that they do, that they are responding and that they have strong enough child protection arrangements in place. We will be monitoring and looking at the recommendations of all those reports.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her answers, which have clarified a number of the questions I would have wanted to raise with her. I am also grateful for her victim-centred approach. One of the challenges is that, when a child is being groomed for sexual exploitation, they do not always know that they are a victim until they are an adult, living haunted by the past. What more can be done to help children recognise what is happening in their lives?

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s important point. Part of our wider work on tackling violence against women and girls is to ensure that children and young people have the confidence to be able to recognise abuse and exploitation. I know the Education Secretary takes this immensely seriously and is looking at how to take it forward.

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

Child sexual exploitation is a vile crime that violates the trust, safety and dignity of children. Perpetrators of such despicable crimes—individuals or groups, no matter their race, religion or creed—must face the full force of the law. I commend the Home Secretary for her statement and the steps it sets out, especially on victims’ right to review. So many victims feel that the authorities have neglected their position. Can the Home Secretary please give a timetable, even an estimate, for the duty of candour? I am sure she knows that justice delayed is justice denied.

[Yvette Cooper]

Work is under way on drawing up the Hillsborough law, which was part of the King’s Speech to be taken forward as a priority in this Session. That work is being done across the Cabinet Office, with Ministry of Justice support, and it is part of the wider work on making sure there can be proper accountability where things fail and where people are let down, alongside both the duty of candour and the duty to report.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Well done to everyone who kept their question short. We got everybody in. I thank the Home Secretary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

17. What recent progress her Department has made on improving neighbourhood policing.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

Before I respond, I am sure that the whole House will want to remember PC Rosie Prior, who was tragically killed on Saturday while helping at the scene of an accident, and Ryan Welford, who was also killed. PC Prior’s death is a tragic reminder of the dedication and bravery that police officers show every single day to keep us safe. All our thoughts are with her family, friends and colleagues at this difficult time.

As the Prime Minister announced last month in the “Plan for Change”, we are determined to restore neighbourhood policing and to put 13,000 additional police, police community support officers and special constables back on the beat.

[Shockat Adam]

I refer the House to my registered interests, and I echo the sentiments expressed by the Home Secretary.

Last year, the Leicestershire police panel raised serious concerns about being underfunded, having received a real-terms cut of 20% over the past 13 years. Due to this funding crisis, the police simply do not have enough manpower for night-time patrols. In the Clarendon Park area there has been a wave of burglaries in local businesses—the Christopher James Deli, Loros and Spice Bazzar are three of eight that have been smashed and grabbed over the past two months. At the local crime summit that I arranged to discuss the situation, one owner, Jaskaran Dutta, said:

“We do everything we can to survive in this incredibly difficult economic time. All we ask is that the government supports us by improving policing and security”.

What is the Secretary of State doing to address these concerns?

[Yvette Cooper]

Under the previous Conservative Government, neighbourhood policing was decimated. The proportion of people who said that they never saw the police on the beat doubled. They took police off the beat and did not put them back, which is why we are setting out a neighbourhood policing guarantee. We have increased funding for police forces by £1 billion next year, including £100 million specifically to kickstart recruitment for neighbourhood policing.

[Bobby Dean]

A Carshalton resident had her car stolen from her driveway. There is video footage of it, but the police just gave her a crime reference number and closed the case. Local businesses on Wallington high street tell me that organised shoplifters are acting with impunity. The Home Secretary touched on recruitment being part of the solution, but what else can the Government do now to help my constituents feel safe?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right to talk about the deep frustration felt in communities, including local businesses and town centres, about not just the absence of neighbourhood policing, which we need to turn around, but the weakening of powers over the past 14 years on things such as shoplifting. That is why we are introducing new respect orders and strengthening powers on shoplifting and assaults on shop workers.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

We all know that well-resourced neighbourhood policing, with bobbies on the beat working in the community, is central not just to solving crime but to preventing it. We saw some great results in Tooting just last year, with a special operation resulting in a 70% cut in crime. Fourteen years of Tory government have decimated our local police teams, despite our brilliant London Mayor pulling out all the stops to bolster the numbers. Will the Secretary of State pledge that our local communities will have properly resourced policing teams under the new Labour Government?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right about the importance of having neighbourhood policing teams working in communities with local residents and businesses, knowing the kinds of crimes and challenges that that area faces. That is why we are determined not just to get neighbourhood police back on the beat, with funding in place to do so, but to ensure that, as part of a neighbourhood policing guarantee, the officers are not abstracted to deal with other things.

[Perran Moon]

In 2022 the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall Police was suspended for misconduct, and last November the interim chief constable was also suspended. Now the deputy police and crime commissioner has also resigned. Does the Home Secretary share my concerns about the leadership of Devon and Cornwall Police and the impact on neighbourhood policing morale, as well as the fact that the taxpayer is paying for three chief constables, two of whom have been suspended?

[Yvette Cooper]

I am aware of the points that my hon. Friend raises, and I do have concerns. It is really important that all police forces can strengthen their neighbourhood policing and have strong leadership right through the police force. We will set out a new police reform White Paper to ensure that measures are in place to strengthen leadership and standards across policing.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee makes an important point. We have said that the neighbourhood policing teams, which we are determined to support, should include police officers and police community support officers, as well as special constables, who too often are underused and underappreciated, in order to recognise the mix of disciplines that we need for the strongest and most effective policing.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Excellent partnership work between Gwent Police, Newport city council and our business improvement district saw crime down by 25% in our city centre at the end of last year, although there is still much to do to improve confidence after neighbourhood policing was slashed under the previous Government. Does the Home Secretary agree that visibility is key, and will she update us on police numbers in Wales?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, because this is about visibility, partnership and powers, and she rightly talks about the impact that this kind of work can have. We want to strengthen the work of police officers across England and Wales by strengthening the powers they have to tackle shoplifting and street theft—snatch theft—which have both increased in recent years.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

The previous Government left office with record police numbers, but police and crime commissioners are deeply concerned that the funding formula and settlement, combined with the Government’s national insurance tax raid, will force cuts to frontline police numbers. My Labour police and crime commissioner faces a £3 million shortfall, and there are projections of 3,500 officers being lost nationwide. Will the Home Secretary take responsibility if police numbers fall in the coming years?

[Yvette Cooper]

I should point out to the hon. Gentleman that his Government took neighbourhood police officers off the streets, meaning thousands fewer on the streets—the number of PCSOs halved and the number of special constables dropped by two thirds. That is the Conservatives’ shameful record, which people know because they can see it—they do not see police on the streets, as a result of his Government’s actions. He raises the issue of funding. This Government have had to add an additional £170 million to police forces this year because the settlement that his party left them with was not enough to cover this year’s pay rise. They let policing down.

[Matt Vickers]

The Home Secretary proudly quotes the funding settlement while failing to mention that £230 million of it will be snatched straight back as a result of her Government’s national insurance tax raid on our police forces. What can be invested in frontline policing is largely determined by how she manages the Home Office budget. Does she agree that it was wrong to spend £10,000 on a swanky dinner for civil servants, and how will she ensure that never happens again?

[Yvette Cooper]

I am afraid I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that his party not only let policing and communities down by taking neighbourhood police off the streets, but let police down on the funding. This Government are providing an increase in police funding of up to £1 billion next year, on top of the additional funding we had to provide for policing this financial year because his party left a huge black hole in not just Home Office or police officer funding, but overall funding for public services across the board—a shameful legacy that we have had to turn around.

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

3. What discussions her Department has had with the Fire Brigades Union on improving protections for firefighters against occupational diseases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yuan Yang (Earley and Woodley) (Lab)]

22. What steps her Department is taking to help tackle knife crime.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

We remember those who have lost their lives to knife crime, including 17-year-old Thomas Taylor, killed in Bedford, and 14-year-old Kelyan Bokassa, killed in Woolwich just last week. Kelyan’s mother said:

“I tried to prevent it. I’ve tried so many, so many times.”

No mother should live with that grief or feel that level of fear for her teenage son. That is why this Government have set up the coalition to tackle knife crime, which involves families, alongside taking new action on serious violence.

[Joani Reid]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, and of course my sympathies also go out to that mother this weekend. Recently published data showed a sharp rise in serious violent crime in Scotland, particularly in our cities and towns. Too many of my constituents feel unsafe in East Kilbride town centre and the Village, particularly at night. Meanwhile, the SNP Government’s chronic underfunding of Police Scotland has resulted in officer numbers being at their lowest level since 2008. Does the Secretary of State agree that the SNP now has the funding in place to increase police numbers, and that protecting our community and citizens should be its priority?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that the Scottish Government have a significant increase in funding, so they can take action to improve public services. This Government have made it a mission to halve knife crime over the next decade, including taking action to get dangerous weapons, such as zombie knives and ninja swords, off our streets by preventing the unlawful sale of these lethal blades, particularly to children.

[Yuan Yang]

My constituents in Whitley had their Christmas disrupted by an alarming threat of knife crime. We have seen too many tragedies of this kind in Reading over the last few years, so I wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s mission to halve knife crime. I have applied for my Earley and Woodley constituency to be a trial location for the new respect orders. Will the Home Secretary meet me and my constituents to discuss how we can tackle the root problems that cause people, particularly young people, to carry knives?

[Yvette Cooper]

The Policing Minister and I will happily talk further to my hon. Friend. She is right that we need to prevent young people from obtaining and carrying knives in the first place, as well as making sure there is swift intervention. We are also taking action, working with police forces across the country, to tackle knife-enabled robbery, which is one of the areas that has seen the biggest increases in recent years.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her response. Over the past five years, there have been 900 convictions for knife-related crimes in Northern Ireland. There is an epidemic in Northern Ireland, with almost 200 convictions in the last year alone. What discussions has the Home Secretary had with the relevant authorities, including the Police Service of Northern Ireland, to help us address this issue?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member will know that the PSNI takes this issue extremely seriously. The issues of knife crime are devastating to families, and he is right to be deeply concerned about the increases we have seen. Frankly, it is still far too easy for young people to get hold of knives. That is why we asked Commander Stephen Clayman to conduct a detailed review of the online sale and delivery of knives, and we expect his report back shortly.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

A nurse was stabbed in an emergency department in Oldham over the weekend. Will the Home Secretary join me in condemning any attack on our health and social care workers, and especially the one at the weekend?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member makes an extremely important point. Our public servants, particularly our nursing and medical staff, work to save lives, support people and help patients. They do so trusting that the people who come to see them are asking for their help. He is right to talk about the devastating attack at the Oldham hospital, and we are all thinking about the nurse and all those working in the hospital, as well as about the police investigation that I know is under way.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Ind)]

10. What steps her Department is taking to help tackle antisocial behaviour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

T1.   If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

Immigration asylum rules need to be respected and enforced, and for too long that has not happened. Since the general election, we have ramped up removals for those who have no right to be in the United Kingdom, with 16,400 individuals successfully returned in the first six months of this Government—the highest level of returns over a six-month period since 2018. Wider work to strengthen border security is under way, including the new sanctions regime announced by the Foreign Secretary to target smuggling gangs and new co-operation agreements, including with France, Germany, Italy, Iraq and beyond. Because vile criminal smuggler gangs operate across borders, law enforcement needs to co-operate across borders, too, to bring them down.

[Gill Furniss]

Knife crime continues to have a devastating impact on all too many lives in Sheffield. I recently chaired a roundtable in my constituency, which brought together local leaders, police, schools and voluntary organisations that are all on the frontline. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is vital to work together with key stakeholders so that we can build a collaborative approach to ending knife crime once and for all?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my hon. Friend. That is why we have set up the coalition to tackle knife crime. It is also why we have a knife-enabled robbery taskforce working with chief constables. At local level, we have discussed setting out prevention partnerships—part of the Young Futures programme—so that all organisations can come together and be part of a mission to halve knife crime over the next 10 years.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Philp, this is topicals. You could have got this in earlier with a lengthier question. The first part of your question was absolutely accurate, but you cannot just roll on at topicals or nobody else will get in.

[Yvette Cooper]

These are horrendous crimes involving rape, sadistic violence and cruelty, exploitation, intimidation and coercion, so we need action, truth and accountability for those terrible crimes. That is why we support further investigations, inquiries and action into child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs, including new action to get police reporting evidence on the scale of grooming gangs, including on ethnicity, which has still not been done. The most important thing is to get more police investigations to get these criminals behind bars.

[Chris Philp]

Does the Home Secretary agree that it is untenable for the Government’s own anti-corruption Minister to be under investigation for benefiting from the proceeds of corruption? Should she stand down while the investigation continues?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Member will know that the Minister has referred herself to the ministerial standards adviser, and that is the appropriate way for this to be addressed. More broadly, we take seriously the full range of crimes that our country faces and will continue to work closely with the police always to take action against crime.

[Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)]

T3. With a rise in disinformation and intimidation at home and interference from abroad, it has never been more important to stand up for our British democracy. Will the Minister therefore give us an update on the defending democracy taskforce?

--- Later in debate ---

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

T7. In my Oxfordshire constituency, residents are concerned about increased antisocial behaviour, particularly pickpocketing and shoplifting in our towns. Given that the last Conservative Government cut the number of police community support officers in the Thames valley area by more than half since 2015, what steps will the Minister be taking to ensure that the police are able to improve community policing in Oxfordshire towns such as Wallingford, Wantage and Didcot?

[Yvette Cooper]

We want to see an increase in neighbourhood policing right across the country. That is why we set out £100 million as part of the police settlement for next year to kick-start and increase recruitment of neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs, alongside stronger powers to tackle neighbourhood crime.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

T10. I welcome the Government’s plans to tackle youth violence, but also to prioritise early intervention. In Battersea, brilliant organisations such as Carney’s Community are delivering targeted services to young people—from mentoring and life skills, to boxing and fitness. Does the Minister agree that organisations such as Carney’s need our support? Will she agree to visit it so that she can hear at first hand about its approach to tackling youth violence?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

My deepest condolences go to the family and friends of 17-year-old Thomas Taylor, who was fatally stabbed in Bedford last week. Bedfordshire has some of the highest knife crime rates in the country. While I welcome the increased funding for the force and the progress made on tackling knife crime in the region, will the Secretary of State ensure that the special grants awarded to Bedfordshire police in recognition of the high level of serious and violent crimes in the region are maintained? Will she outline what further steps are being taken to deter young people from carrying lethal weapons?

[Yvette Cooper]

I think the thoughts of all of us will be with the family and friends of Thomas Taylor, who was a constituent of my hon. Friend. He is right to say that we need comprehensive work to prevent knife crime and to prevent young people from carrying knives in the first place, but also to make sure that there is swift action where crimes take place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Is the Home Secretary aware of the growing link, as highlighted by a recent Durham University report, between rural crime and serious organised crime? If not, could she ask her officials to bring it to her attention? Given the transnational element to this serious organised crime, could the National Crime Agency start to take a closer look at rural crime?

[Yvette Cooper]

I am aware of this, and I think there is a very serious issue about how serious and organised crime has increasingly been targeting rural areas and things such as the GPS equipment used by farmers. The point about those involved in serious and organised crime is that they will always target areas where they think they can get away with it. That is why the issue is partly about the work of the National Crime Agency, but also about the work of police forces across the country and the work we need to do to take forward a rural crime strategy with the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

Child sexual abuse and exploitation are the most vile and horrific of crimes, involving rape, violence, coercive control, intimidation, manipulation and deep long-term harm. The information from the crime survey should be chilling to all of us. It estimates that half a million children every year experience some form of child sexual abuse: violence and sexual violation in the home; repeated rapes or exploitation by grooming or paedophile gangs; threats and intimidation involving intimate images online; or abuse within institutions that should have protected and cared for young people—cruel and sadistic crimes against those who are most vulnerable.

All of us have a responsibility to protect our children. Perpetrators must be punished and pursued, and victims and survivors must be protected and supported. But these crimes have not been taken seriously for too long, and far too many children have been failed. That is why this Government are determined to act, strengthening the law, taking forward recommendations from independent inquiries, and supporting stronger police action and protection for victims.

There is no excuse for anyone not to take these crimes seriously. Brave survivors speaking out have shone a light on terrible crimes and the failure of institutions to act, be it in care homes in Rochdale, Asian grooming gangs in Rotherham or Telford, the abuse covered up within faith institutions, including the Church of England and the Catholic Church, or within family homes.

That report, alongside the coming to light of other appalling crimes, is why our party when in opposition called for a national independent inquiry into child sexual abuse and supported that work when it was launched by the previous Government. Over seven years, that inquiry, expertly led by Professor Alexis Jay, engaged with more than 7,000 victims and survivors, processed 2 million pages of evidence, and published 61 reports and publications. The findings should be truly disturbing for everyone—they described the pain and suffering caused to victims and survivors, and the deviousness and cruelty and perpetrators. Nor is there any excuse for anyone not to recognise and act on the deep harm and damage of organised gang exploitation, abuse sexual assaults and rape.

Ten years ago, two reports by Alexis Jay and Louise Casey in Rotherham found that 1,400 children had been sexually exploited, raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked across other towns, abducted, beaten and threatened with guns. Children had even been doused in petrol. Girls as young as 11 had been raped. Those reports a decade ago identified a failure to confront Pakistani heritage gangs and a “widespread perception” that they should “‘downplay’ the ethnic dimensions” for fear of being seen to be racist.

When those reports came out, those failings in Rotherham were condemned across the board by both Government and Opposition in this House. As I said at the time:

“It is never an excuse to use race and ethnicity or community relations as an excuse not to investigate and punish sex offenders.”—[Official Report, 2 September 2014; Vol. 585, c. 169.]

The then Home Secretary made it clear that

“cultural concerns…the fear of being seen as racist…must never stand in the way of child protection.”—[Official Report, 2 September 2014; Vol. 585, c. 168.]

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse also ran a specific investigation strand into child sexual exploitation by organised networks, which ran for two years and produced a separate report in February 2022. It concluded that police forces and local councils were still failing to tackle this serious crime and set out further recommendations for change. But despite those different inquiries drawing up multiple recommendations, far too little has actually been done. None of the 20 recommendations from the independent inquiry into child abuse has been implemented. As the Act on IICSA campaign group from the Survivors Trust said this week, victims of child sexual abuse

“cannot afford further delays in meaningful action… It is imperative to keep the focus on radical reform”.

Two different Conservative Home Secretaries said after the report was published that it was a watershed and should be the beginning of a new chapter for change, but that has not happened. We now need new impetus and action.

Since coming into office, the Safeguarding Minister has met with Professor Alexis Jay and survivors, and has convened the first dedicated cross-Government group to drive forward change. To ensure that victims’ voices remain at the very heart of this process, we will set up a new victims and survivors panel to work on an ongoing basis with the inter-ministerial group, to guide them on the design, delivery and implementation of new proposals and plans not just on IICSA but on wider work around child sexual exploitation and abuse. We will set out more details and timescales based on that work.

Before that, I can announce action on three key recommendations. First, I can confirm that we will make it mandatory to report abuse, and we will put measures in the crime and policing Bill—to be put before Parliament this spring—to make it an offence, with professional and criminal sanctions, to fail to report or to cover up child sexual abuse. The protection of institutions must never be put before the protection of children. I first called for this measure in response to the reports and failings in Rotherham 10 years ago. The Prime Minister first called for it 12 years ago, based on his experience as Director of Public Prosecutions. The case was clear then, but we have lost a decade and we need to get on with it now.

Secondly, we will legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, because the punishment must fit the terrible crime.

Thirdly, we will overhaul the information and evidence that are gathered on child sexual abuse and exploitation and embed them in a clear new performance framework for policing, so that these crimes are taken far more seriously. One of the first recommendations of the independent inquiry was a single core data set on child abuse and protection, but that has never been done. We will introduce a single child identifier in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and a much stronger police performance framework, including new standards on public protection, child abuse and exploitation.

We are accelerating the work of the child sexual exploitation police taskforce, set up—rightly—under the previous Government. There was a 25% increase in arrests between July and September last year. That sits alongside the tackling organised exploitation programme, which uses advanced data and analytics to uncover complex networks. Data on ethnicity is now being published, but we will work further with them to improve the accuracy and robustness of the data and analysis.

We will continue to support further investigations that are needed, including police investigations and local independent inquiries and reviews, which can expose failings and wrongdoing in local areas and institutions, as we have seen in Telford, Rotherham and Greater Manchester. We support the ongoing work commissioned by Mayor Andy Burnham into historic abuse in Oldham, which has led to new police investigations, arrests and convictions. To build on those findings, the leader of Oldham council has confirmed this week that work to set up a further local independent inquiry is already underway, including liaison with Oldham survivors. We welcome and support this work, which will put victims’ voices at its heart.

The Telford inquiry was particularly effective because victims were involved in shaping it at every stage. Tom Crowther, who led that inquiry, has now agreed to work with the Government and other local councils where stronger engagement with victims and survivors is needed, or where more formal inquiries are required to tackle persistent problems. We should also be clear that wherever there have been failings or perpetrators of terrible crimes have not been brought to justice, the most important inquiries and investigations should be police investigations to track those perpetrators down, to bring them before the courts and to get victims the protection that they deserve.

Finally, we have to face the serious challenge that the fastest growing area of grooming and child abuse is online. We will also take much stronger action to crack down on rapidly evolving forms of child sexual exploitation and abuse and grooming online, including tackling the exponential rise in artificial intelligence-facilitated child sexual abuse material. We will set out a significant package of measures to strengthen the law in this area in the coming weeks.

For many years there has been broad cross-party consensus not only on the importance of this work, but that the interests of victims and survivors must come first. There will be different views about the details of the policies that are needed, but every one of us across this House has supported action to protect our children. It is the responsibility of us all to keep them safe for the future. I hope that Members across the House will work with Ministers and the victims and survivors panel that we are setting up to change protection for the better and to make sure that it is perpetrators who pay the price. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

Smearing people who raise those issues is exactly how this got covered up in the first place. I repeat what I said yesterday: intimidation and threats towards elected Members of Parliament and Ministers, including the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), are completely wrong.

As the Home Secretary said, action is important. The last Government took extensive action, starting with the original Jay report commissioned in 2014 by the then Home Secretary, now Baroness May. A year later, she commissioned the independent investigation into child sexual abuse, and Sajid Javid commissioned data collection in 2018.

On the response to the IICSA report published in 2022, it is not true that the last Government took no action. The last Government established the grooming gangs taskforce, whose work led to 550 arrests of perpetrators in the first year and safeguarded 4,500 victims. My first question to the Home Secretary is therefore this: will she confirm for the House—I am sure she can—that the grooming gangs taskforce’s work will continue and, I hope, be stepped up? Secondly, as part of the work of the grooming gangs taskforce—and, again, implementing one of the recommendations of the IICSA report—in April 2023 the last Government mandated data collection on ethnicity, as the Home Secretary referred to. It has been going for over a year and a half, so will she confirm that the data on the ethnicity of perpetrators will be published?

As the Home Secretary has acknowledged, one of IICSA’s main recommendations was mandatory reporting to the police by people in positions of responsibility. The last Government were in the process of implementing that recommendation, via a measure in the Criminal Justice Bill, which fell because of the early election. I am glad that she has announced that she will continue with the last Government’s proposals in her forthcoming Bill. She can be assured that the Opposition will support the Government in the continuation of that measure.

Finally, the Home Secretary did not address the need for a full national public inquiry into this scandal. While the previous Government did initiate IICSA, under Professor Jay, that was mainly directed at other child sexual abuse and exploitation issues, and it covered only six of the towns involved in the gang rape scandal—it did not cover everything. We need to get to the truth. We have new evidence that is of interest to the public, including what Simon Danczuk, the former Labour MP for Rochdale, said about the way that he was pressured into staying silent. We also have evidence of local authorities covering this up, and the third report, from last year, on Operation Span, commissioned by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, which exposes extremely serious failings by the Crown Prosecution Service. All that needs to be looked into.

Will the Home Secretary therefore commission a national statutory public inquiry, which can compel witnesses to attend, requisition evidence and take evidence under oath? If the Government will not order that inquiry, the Opposition will table an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill later this week to put the matter to a vote. I hope that Members across the House will vote for that full statutory public inquiry, so that we can get to the truth.

[Yvette Cooper]

This is an issue on which I worked with Government Ministers when I was shadow Home Secretary and when I was Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and there has been cross-party consensus on the need to tackle these serious and vile crimes. These are the most appalling crimes against children: repeated multiple brutal rapes of children—particularly young girls, but also young boys—in the most appalling circumstances, and the abuse of children’s trust, often by people who should have protected and looked after them; institutions failed to keep them safe. That is why the independent inquiry was so important, why I and many others across this House called for it, and why we supported it, when the previous Government set it up. However, there has just not been enough action to tackle these vile crimes. There has not been enough change to policies, and to the way that services operate at a local level. It is a deep failing that those changes have not taken place.

The shadow Home Secretary used the example of the duty to report, which is incredibly important. It is about preventing any chance of people, including professionals, turning a blind eye to abuse, and covering up child abuse and exploitation in the most appalling way. It is about making that a criminal offence. We called for that 10 years ago. His party had a decade to introduce that —a decade that we have lost; a decade without those powers and measures in place.

The hon. Gentleman talks, rightly, about the taskforce, which I mentioned. We have supported not just continuing with that taskforce, but accelerating its work. The number of arrests in the most recent quarter increased significantly on the previous quarter. What I want to see most of all is perpetrators behind bars. I want to see perpetrators pay the price for these vile crimes against children. In order to achieve that, we have to improve policing performance and the co-ordinated work between police and local councils across the country, so we will accelerate the work of the taskforce.

The hon. Gentleman refers to the ethnicity data, which was published in November. The latest report was published in November as a result of the taskforce’s work. However, I do not think the data that has been gathered is adequate. It does not go far enough. There is a real problem with the way that police forces collect data, which is very haphazard. There is not a proper system for collecting data, or a proper performance framework for policing. To be honest, I think that his Government withdrew too far from policing, and from having the kind of standards that we need to have in place. I hope that we can work together on a stronger performance framework, and a clearer framework for data, including for dealing with issues around ethnicity. Back in 2015, we had consensus on the need to ensure that race and ethnicity were never used as an excuse not to tackle crime, and that where vulnerable girls supposedly consented, when they in fact did not, that would not be used as an excuse not to tackle crime. We can never accept those excuses. I hope that we will agree on how we do that.

On inquiries, the shadow Home Secretary’s party launched the child abuse inquiry; it set the terms of reference and provided the substantial funding for it. He could have raised concerns about the inquiry’s terms of reference and scope, and the extent of its reports, at any point, including after it reported, but he did not do so until last week.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support the work that Oldham is determined to take forward, hopefully replicating the important Telford inquiry. I hope, too, that he is prepared to work with the victims and survivors panel, which will help us to take forward the further investigations, reviews and inquiries that should take place, both locally and across the country, in order to protect child victims.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Child sexual exploitation and abuse is a heinous crime. It happens everywhere—in all communities and in all settings—and we must all be vigilant and do what we can to address it. My right hon. Friend mentioned the importance of ensuring that victims of CSE are at the heart of all that we do, and I support her wholeheartedly on that. If it is the will of the victims of the abuse in Oldham to have an additional review of the circumstances that led to their abuse, I will also wholeheartedly support that. Will my right hon. Friend expand on how we can transparently track progress in implementing the recommendations? It cannot be allowed that three years after we receive detailed recommendations from a national independent inquiry, we are still waiting for their implementation.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend has worked immensely hard to champion the victims and survivors of terrible crimes. She raises important points about the prevalence of these appalling crimes, the need to be vigilant, wherever this abuse is to be found—in any kind of institution, across communities and across the country—and the importance of tracking progress. The Telford inquiry was set up in such a way that Tom Crowther, who led the inquiry, goes back each year to do a follow-up report and to track progress, which has been really important. We have encouraged those looking at this matter in Oldham to be in touch with those involved in Telford, and I am glad that Tom Crowther has agreed to work with the Government on how we can make this work more widely.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. No child should ever have to face sexual exploitation or abuse. There should simply be no place for this horrific, abhorrent behaviour in our society. We must keep every child and young person impacted by these terrible, sickening crimes in our thoughts today. We owe it to the survivors to ensure that justice is delivered, which means requiring perpetrators to face the full force of the law, but also ensuring that the right steps are taken to stop children facing this vile abuse in the future. The expansive independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, which published its report in 2022, set out how to do just that.

However, under the previous Conservative Government, progress on implementing IICSA’s recommendations stalled. Professor Alexis Jay, the chair of the inquiry, said that she was “frustrated” by the then Government’s lack of action. Will the Home Secretary say when we can expect a clear timeline for the full implementation of IICSA’s recommendations, which Professor Jay has urged? Of course, that work cannot be siloed in the Home Office, so I would welcome more details about how cross-Government work to implement the recommendations will be co-ordinated.

Victims and survivors deserve more than warm words—they deserve action. It is my sincere hope that we can work together across this House to make that a reality, and can resist turning far too many children’s suffering into a political football.

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the points that the hon. Member makes. Historically, there has been a lot of consensus across the House about the importance of this work, but often there has been very slow progress; we have to change that. She rightly says that this is not just a matter for the Home Office, or even police forces, local councils and social services; this must be about work across government and across communities. That is why the Safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), is leading a cross-departmental programme of work responding not just to the IICSA recommendations, but to broader work. Some of the work around online abuse is moving extremely fast, and we need action there as well. It is important that we set up the victims and survivors panel to work with this group. The victims and survivors need to be at the heart of implementation, so that they do not feel that after they gave evidence to the inquiry, that was it—nobody ever listened again.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Education Committee Chair, Helen Hayes.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Several years ago, I supported, over a number of months, a constituent of mine who suffered horrific sexual abuse as a child in the care of Lambeth council, as she prepared to give evidence to the independent inquiry on child sexual abuse, chaired by Professor Jay. It was unimaginably hard for victims and survivors to give evidence to that inquiry, reliving the abuse that they suffered and being retraumatised. The fact that they did so was exceptionally important, and I pay tribute to their courage. My constituent and thousands of other victims and survivors gave their evidence so that their experiences could be at the heart of Professor Jay’s recommendations. Does the Home Secretary agree that if we are really to put victims and survivors first, the priority must be to act on what they have already told us, and to implement the IICSA recommendations at pace, and in full?

[Yvette Cooper]

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to her constituent, and to the more than 7,000 victims and survivors who gave evidence to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse and exploitation. The inquiry took seven years—many years of people bravely speaking out about some of the most difficult and traumatic things imaginable, which none of us would ever want anybody to have to go through. She is also right that they must not feel that their evidence was just empty words that got lost in the air, even though an inquiry took place. We have to make sure that there is action. Some of that action may be difficult, and some may require very hard work, but we have to make sure that we take it forward and make progress to protect children for the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Select Committee member Robbie Moore.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

Rape gangs and the grooming of children has haunted Keighley and the wider Bradford district for decades, yet local leaders have consistently refused to launch an inquiry. The national IICSA report, which the Home Secretary is treating as a silver bullet, was not an inquiry into rape gangs. Nor does it reference Keighley or Bradford once, despite many, including me, fearing that the scale of this issue across the Bradford district will dwarf the scale of the issue in Rotherham. If the Home Secretary believes that the IICSA report gives us all the information that we need to tackle this vile and disgusting crime, can she tell me how many children across the Bradford district have been abused through child sexual exploitation? Who are the perpetrators, and when can my constituents expect to see them behind bars or deported?

[Yvette Cooper]

Appalling crimes have taken place against children in Bradford, Keighley and across the country—truly appalling crimes. All of us have to face up to the fact that child sexual abuse and exploitation continues. This is not just about historical crimes, but continuing crimes and abuse of hundreds of thousands of children across the country. That is why it is so important, first of all, that we take forward the proposed reforms, and that we ensure a way to keep victims and survivors at their very heart. Some of that must be about how we change the way that police and councils work together to implement reforms, including on the duty to report.

The hon. Gentleman raises local concerns. We will work with Tom Crowther and the victims and survivors panel on how areas can best involve survivors and victims in what has happened in their area and ensure that they are properly listened to, so as to get to the truth and make fundamental changes.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the last few days, my hometown’s name, Rochdale, has been exploited by some people who treat child rape as a political game rather than as an appalling crime that should be dealt with. The horrific abuse of children by grooming gangs, many of them predominantly Pakistani-heritage grooming gangs, was compounded by failures by my local council and the local police. All Rochdalians, whatever their background, want to see sex offenders prosecuted swiftly and punished harshly. I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and ask her to leave no stone unturned in implementing all the recommendations of the Jay report—something the Opposition signally failed to do.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to recognise the seriousness of these crimes. The experiences in Rochdale include not just the issues around the Pakistani-heritage gang networks that he talks about, but issues in care homes and others that have been investigated over the years, and the terrible experiences of victims and survivors and their families as a result. My hon. Friend is also right to say that we need change. That has to be about how we work with victims and survivors in taking forward new reforms and changes, and how we will have to go further in a series of areas. The thing about child abuse and exploitation is that perpetrators change all the time and look for new ways to abuse children. That is what we have to keep tackling.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

One of the most shocking details in respect of the rape gangs is the evidence of collusion and corruption among police officers, social workers and local councillors. Will the Home Secretary commit today to establishing a unit in the National Crime Agency dedicated to investigating not only untried perpetrators but the police officers, social workers and local councillors who were complicit in these disgusting crimes?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member makes an important point. Alongside pursuing perpetrators—which must always be the greatest priority because it is about protecting victims and ensuring that those who commit vile crimes face justice—there must be a responsibility on people for their public roles, whether in policing, local councils or other institutions. We have seen issues around the Church of England, the Catholic Church and other institutions that were investigated as part of the inquiry. One reason why we are so keen to change the law—indeed, it is something I raised back when the hon. Member was working in the Home Office—is the importance of the duty to report. That then makes it an offence for public officials to cover up or fail to report. It is so important that we do that so that we can have proper accountability as well.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

I sincerely commend the Home Secretary’s statement. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse was extremely comprehensive. Over the course of seven years, it examined 2 million pages of evidence and heard from over 7,000 survivors, every single one of whom we should pay tribute to today. They relived the most horrific trauma, only for the previous Government to drag their heels in implementing the report’s recommendations. Calls for a fresh inquiry from the Conservatives and Reform are a shameful attempt to stoke division at the expense of victims, survivors and children. I thank the Home Secretary for refusing to give in to that deeply harmful and offensive political point scoring. Will she set out a timeline for when she expects to have fully implemented the IICSA recommendations?

[Yvette Cooper]

The clear point is, as my hon. Friend says, that victims and survivors need to be at the heart of the work to take forward the implementation of reforms and changes, and we want to work with the new victims and survivors panel to draw up timelines. I recognise that some of the issues around reform are difficult and that we need extensive work with victims and survivors on how they can be dealt with, but there are other areas in which we can move really swiftly, such as changing the law on the duty to report, overhauling the way in which we collect information and data, and putting in place proper monitoring systems in local areas in respect of child sexual exploitation and abuse. I hope we can build a sense of consensus on our objective, which is to protect children. That is what this should all be about, and I hope that everyone will sign up to it.

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Considerable evidence tells us that children exposed to domestic violence are at increased risk of abuse themselves. Growing up, I was one of those children, and as a survivor I am appalled to have seen the shadow Home Secretary weaponise this issue in the way we saw earlier, I am appalled to see the likes of Reform play this issue like a political football, and I am appalled that zero of the 20 recommendations in Professor Jay’s report have been implemented so far.

In the light of the link between domestic abuse and child abuse, I have tabled a Bill to create a dedicated set of domestic abuse offences in the law for the first time. Will the Home Secretary meet me to discuss the Bill’s provisions and how we can better respect and protect survivors across the country?

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank the hon. Member for speaking out about his personal experiences. I realise that is never an easy thing to do, and I respect him for doing it. As he says, there are all kinds of links, and domestic abuse in the household has an incredibly damaging impact on the family and on children growing up. We have to see the work on the protection of children as part of the wider work on public protection, and as being strongly linked to our mission to halve the incidence of violence against women and girls over the next 10 years. The Safeguarding Minister will be keen to discuss with the hon. Member his proposals relating to domestic abuse and how we can work together on these issues.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

The focus of this debate should not be on the politics, on what is in the newspapers or on what is on social media; it should be on the children themselves. For four years before coming to the House, I worked on preventing trafficking, especially the trafficking of child victims around the country for sex. The stories that I heard would chill your bones, especially the stories of those who sought protection from the authorities but ended up back in the hands of their traffickers.

There is so much more that we could do for those children. I know that not just from my own experience but because it is there in black and white, in the findings of the inquiries. We have 2 million pages of evidence and 700 witnesses, and zero recommendations have been implemented. Will the Home Secretary commit to putting safeguarding first rather than putting politics first, as people are so transparently trying to do, and implement the findings as quickly as possible?

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the work my hon. Friend has done in this policy area. He is right to talk about young people and children being trafficked around the country. There is some concerning evidence that, for example, although work has been done to identify people being trafficked through county lines—often boys and young men—it has not sufficiently identified the young women and teenage girls who are being trafficked around for sexual exploitation. We need to ensure that improvements are made in that regard.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

The Labour lot over there are banging on about playing politics with this important issue, but the last time I attended a debate on child rape gangs only one Labour Back Bencher turned up. They should hang their heads in shame. Does the Home Secretary agree that we need a specific inquiry into why young British white girls are being systematically raped by men of Pakistani heritage?

[Yvette Cooper]

We need to make sure that young people and children are being protected. These are vile crimes against children. Across the country we have seen young girls, teenagers and young boys who have been exploited by perpetrators in the most cruel and horrendous way. We have seen abuse by Pakistani-heritage gangs, we have seen paedophile gangs operating online, we have seen abuse in communities and institutions and family homes, and all those crimes are truly horrendous.

After the Rotherham inquiry in 2014, when we saw appalling abuse by, in that case, a Pakistani-heritage gang, I called for a duty to report. I called for the law to be changed to place a responsibility on public servants to report child abuse, and to make it an offence to cover it up. The Government of whom the hon. Gentleman was a part for many years failed to bring in that duty to report, and we have lost a decade. We have to change the law. We have to make sure that we go after abuse without fear or favour, wherever it is found, in order to secure justice and protection for victims, and that dangerous perpetrators end up behind bars.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I associate myself with the Home Secretary’s remarks condemning those who perpetrate these horrific crimes. I stand with all victims of child sexual exploitation and sexual violence. As the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) knows, there was an independent review of child sexual exploitation in Bradford, which reported in 2021. A cross-party committee there has overseen the local changes, and I commend the actions of West Yorkshire police in locking up more than 20 perpetrators since 2021. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the failure of the previous Government to take action on the Jay report is a disgrace? What further actions by police and local authorities are needed to tackle these pernicious crimes?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend has rightly referred to the work done by West Yorkshire police not only to look at public protection currently but to pursue historic investigations, which continue to be important because people often feel unable to come forward and tell their story about the abuse that has taken place until many years later. When survivors are brave enough to come forward, it is incredibly important for their stories to be investigated fully, and for operations like those run by West Yorkshire police into historic abuse to continue. We owe it to victims and survivors to make sure that change happens in practice, and that includes changing the law as part of the policing and crime Bill.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. It is important to remember that these terrible crimes could happen to anyone and could be perpetrated by anyone, irrespective of colour, class, heritage or geography. I think the Home Secretary is right that the public want to see action now. Frankly, I remain unconvinced that a new public inquiry will throw any new light or information on this issue. The best place for victims to have their stories told is in court, when the perpetrators are brought to justice.

May I ask the Home Secretary to make it clear to the world of local government and policing that the implementation of rules and regulations is colour and class blind? Too many of these victims were simply dismissed as—to use that media phrase—white trash. They were poor, in many instances not particularly well educated, often in trouble with the authorities, and too easily dismissed. That is where the failure really took place: they were dismissed for who they were. That can never happen again.

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the hon. Member’s really important point about the response having to be colour-blind and class-blind. It has to see these things for what they are: really terrible crimes, often against the most vulnerable young people, as he says. Young people were dismissed because they were vulnerable due to the difficult experiences that they might have had. Young girls were often not taken seriously, and myths operated in the way that services responded. A lot of work has been done to challenge those myths, but the reality is that unless we have a proper, strong performance management framework in place, and strong requirements on local organisations and agencies to respond and to take this issue seriously enough, the risk is that it just becomes lost in a corner, as opposed to being treated as the very serious crime that it is. That is why we want to embed this as part of a proper performance framework for policing, and to work with local councils too.

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Professor Jay heard from my constituent Terry Lodge, who was fostered and lived a life of slavery, with no education and no childhood. He has suffered the consequences throughout his life. Nottinghamshire county council accepted all liability for its failings. To its shame, the council is still to make an offer of compensation. Does the Home Secretary agree that although Jay’s recommendations must be implemented in full, Nottinghamshire county council must also step up and do the right thing?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point about the responsibility of local councils to recognise the things that have gone wrong in the past, to recognise the responsibilities that they owe to local victims and survivors, and to provide the support that those victims and survivors need. I know that my hon. Friend the Safeguarding Minister will keep in touch with her about progress, but it is really important that all councils make sure that they recognise their responsibilities.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

Perpetrators of sexual crimes must face the full force of the law, regardless of their race, their religion or their nationality, but an overseas bad-faith actor is using truly horrific cases of group-based child rape to demonise a community and slander a Minister of the Crown—someone who has genuine experience of helping victims of abuse. This narrative is false, and it is dangerous. Many reports from 2015 to 2024 have concluded that the common denominator for sexual violence is not immigration, race or culture. The real point here is that if victims are being falsely told that perpetrators look a certain way or are part of a certain community, they will have a false sense of security when they are with people who do not fit that stereotype. The real issue here is that we need the discussion to be focused on victims, not political rhetoric, and we need evidence-based policies.

[Yvette Cooper]

One of the points that the independent inquiry made was about the broad nature of this abuse and the way in which it can be found anywhere. When we have half a million children being subjected to child sexual abuse or exploitation every year, there is an impact right across the country. It means that we have serious problems and failings within all kinds of different institutions, as the inquiry found. It looked into issues within local councils, care homes, faith organisations including the Church of England, and different grooming and exploitation groups. Wherever such abuse is found, we have to treat it as a terrible crime against children—no excuses. No excuses can be made for perpetrators, and no excuses can be made for inaction. There has to be strong action to go after the perpetrators, whoever and wherever they are, and protection for the victims, whoever and wherever they are.

[Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Under this Government, no matter an abuser’s race and where they are, they will have nowhere to hide. The job in hand is action, implementation and change. I am glad to hear that she will set up a new victims panel, because the victims of sexual abuse—women and children—are usually forgotten in the wild whirlwind of Twitter. I have to say that it is usually men using this issue to grind a political axe. Does she agree that it is not a bandwagon to jump on for anybody’s political TV talk show? This is a serious issue. Victims deserve to lead the process, and I am sure she will enable that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

These are really serious crimes. For someone like Alexis Jay, who worked in this area over very many years before she led the independent inquiry, and for others who have been working in this area over very many years, it has to be about the victims and survivors, but it also has to be about getting serious about delivering change and making sure that change happens in practice. Therefore, it has to be about how we make sure that there are proper monitoring processes to follow up change, rather than just thinking, “Well, an announcement has been made,” but nothing changes and nothing is actually done. Far more important than the debates taking place on social media is the practical plan for delivering change.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

The Government have been very keen to set up 60 reviews since coming into office, including one on social care, but they have refused a formal request from Oldham council for a national statutory inquiry into child sexual abuse, grooming and gang rape. Why not let sunlight, transparency and justice into the process?

[Yvette Cooper]

I say to the right hon. Lady that, as I made clear in my statement, we support the independent review that Oldham council is planning to set up. We have also suggested that it work with those who were involved in the Telford inquiry, which was extremely effective; Tom Crowther, who led that inquiry, has agreed to that. Interestingly, one of those who gave evidence to both the Telford inquiry and the national inquiry has described how she found it much easier to give evidence to the Telford inquiry and thought it was more effective at getting to the nitty-gritty of what had gone wrong in Telford. I suspect that that is why the previous Government, of which the right hon. Lady was a part, said repeatedly to Oldham council that it should pursue the local inquiry. We want to make sure that there are proper investigations, inquiries and reviews wherever there is evidence that needs to be pursued. Most importantly of all, there have to be police investigations to get justice.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

In 2014-15, the then Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee did a report on CSE in Rotherham. That report drew heavily on the evidence from Alexis Jay’s first report, which was on the problems in Rotherham, the failings of the police, the failings of the council and the failings of Ofsted. What that surely shows is that a local authority-commissioned inquiry, which is what Alexis Jay’s first inquiry was, can get to the bottom of these problems, expose the failings and lead to improvements at local level. Surely Oldham council can do exactly the same.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right, because that is the work that Oldham council is now taking forward. We want to work with Oldham council and to be able to support it, and we want it to be able to see the work that was done in Telford, which was effective at delivering change. Tom Crowther goes back to see the work in Telford to make sure that progress is being made. That is crucial, because it is no good just having inquiries that do not actually lead to any change or anything different happening. There has to be detailed work, be it at local level or at national level, but there also has to be follow-through.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Labour Welsh Government are responsible for child safeguarding in Wales, and the Home Secretary said that none of the independent inquiry’s 20 recommendations was implemented by the previous Tory Government. Six recommendations applied to Wales, but no new actions were taken there either. Given that her statement rightly puts victims and survivors first, will she tell me how victims and survivors in Wales will now be able to demand a culture of real change?

[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.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I also thank the Secretary of State for her statement. I think the House is overwhelmingly behind her in dealing with these difficult subjects and implementing the findings of the Jay report. However, I am listening carefully to these exchanges, and the arguments against a further public inquiry—in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), for example—seem rather thin: “Oh, we have already got too much to do,” “Oh, it probably won’t find out anything new,” “Oh, let the council do it on its own.” I just wonder whether this is in fact a matter of public confidence. If the Home Secretary cannot restore public confidence without a further public inquiry, please will she not rule it out?

[Yvette Cooper]

We obviously supported the independent inquiry into child abuse, including the two-year investigation that it did into organised networks of child sexual exploitation. That was immensely important as well. We also continue to support the local inquiries, reviews and investigations, including in Oldham. I have particularly highlighted the work that was done in Telford, and there is a reason for that.

The Telford inquiry was set up as a local independent inquiry, but it has proved more effective than many of the other pieces of work that have been undertaken in this area, through having victims and survivors at the heart of that local inquiry from the very beginning. They were involved not just in giving evidence but in drawing up and shaping the way that the whole inquiry went forward. It also has in place a proper framework for following up and making sure that, a year later, progress is being made and action is being taken. We want to learn from what worked effectively in Telford.

Interestingly, that is different from what has happened in some other areas, so the way in which it has worked is significant. That is why we believe that the right next steps will be for Tom Crowther, who led that inquiry, and the victims and survivors who were involved in Telford, to share that experience with other areas, including Oldham, so that we can make sure we have a proper framework for local areas and institutions to get to the truth about what has happened in their area and to ensure that changes take place.

At the same time, we must recognise that we had the two-year inquiry into child exploitation nationally as part of the overarching review, and that a series of recommendations from the overarching review have still not been acted on. So let us work with the victims and survivors panel that we are determined to set up on what is the best form for future investigations and work.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I just say, on behalf of every decent-minded MP across the House, how powerful and important it is to see the Safeguarding Minister here on the Front Bench with the Home Secretary? It is a testament to their commitment to getting this matter right and not being deflected, however hard other people try, from what really matters, which is the victims of these horrific crimes. I am proud to sit behind them and to support the work they are doing, and I welcome what they have said about bringing in a victims panel.

In the spirit of the cross-party working that we will need to do on this, may I also welcome the words of the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare)? He is right that the common story we hear time and again from victims of abuse—whether from grooming gangs, in care homes or in their own homes—is that they were not believed; nobody listened to them. How can we have the national conversation that we need to have about the culture of belief, putting victims first and finally ending the silence that has meant so many have been the victims of these perpetrators for so long?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right; we have to ensure that victims’ voices are heard and that they can have the confidence to come forward, because often they feel that they will not be believed and will not get the support they need if they do speak out. That can make it extremely difficult. I also support her words about the Safeguarding Minister, who not only does a phenomenal job in the Home Office now but has been a tireless champion for victims of abuse and exploitation for very many years. Without her, there is no doubt that the Home Office would not be making the progress we are now making on tackling these serious crimes.

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

Many victims of the grooming gangs still do not feel that justice has been done. It is very concerning that the two men leading the Greater Manchester inquiry resigned because they felt that they were being blocked from accessing the information they needed. The IICSA was an important start, but it was not—and was never meant to be—a detailed report into the grooming gangs. It looked at six places where the grooming gangs operated, but they operated in more than 40 places. The right hon. Lady says that the answer is locally led inquiries, but we have had years for that to happen and it has not happened, or it has not happened properly. Indeed, in many cases the local authorities were part of the problem and we were asking them to mark their own homework. I totally agree with her about the importance of the Jay recommendations, but will she please rethink so that we can actually listen to the voices of those who, to this day, have never been listened to?

[Yvette Cooper]

The whole point of us setting up a victims and survivors panel is to ensure that the voices of victims and survivors continue to be heard as part of the implementation, as part of the action and as part of the further investigations that need to take place. This cannot be a case of simply having a one-off inquiry and then everybody turns their back, moves on and talks about something different; we have to ensure that there is serious change. There was obviously a two-year inquiry that looked at organised grooming gangs and child exploitation, but we have also had the issues around Telford —Telford was not included in detail as part of that inquiry —and there will be other areas where detailed questions are still unresolved. That is why we want Tom Crowther to be able to work with the Government and with other areas on how best to ensure that victims and survivors feel that their voices will be heard, in the way that the hon. Gentleman describes. He is right that too often they do not feel that, and that is often because, frankly, we still need further police investigations into those terrible crimes and the perpetrators who have still not been brought to justice.

[Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Anyone who has worked with survivors, as I have, knows how extraordinarily painful but important it was to have the IICSA inquiry and for survivors to be heard, to be believed and, crucially, to finally see action taken. I pay tribute to the thousands of survivors who participated in the inquiry. Survivors should not have to repeatedly relive their trauma in order to see action finally being taken, and they have told us that now is the time for action. I refer to the recent quotes from Alexis Jay, who described the inaction of the previous Government as “weak” and “apparently disingenuous” with regard to what they did. Does the Home Secretary agree that the way to protect vulnerable children is to take action and implement the recommendations as quickly as possible?

[Yvette Cooper]

We need to take forward the work on the inquiry, with victims and survivors, on a continuing basis. I would also highlight that there are some areas that will need to go well beyond the independent inquiry, such as the way in which online abuse and online grooming are accelerating. Gangs and organised networks are operating online and then drawing young people offline for physical abuse, as well as for sharing terrible images. That is a massive and growing crime, and I am really worried about it. We are going to need much stronger action. Whether it is through social media companies taking more responsibility or having stronger measures online, we will need more action.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

Alexis Jay’s independent inquiry into child sexual abuse has not been fully implemented. The inquiry recommended legislating to force tech firms to take stronger action on online abuse material. Since then, this House has passed the Online Safety Act 2023, and Ofcom set out its implementation plans last October, but how can the Government ensure that tech companies take stronger action on online abuse?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is right to refer to the Online Safety Act, which took longer to come into force than I would have wished, but it is now being implemented. That means new measures will come into place in the spring, with further measures and requirements in the summer. We will also come forward with further measures on online exploitation and abuse, and we will set them out in due course.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, and I look forward to the timeline she will present for implementing the recommendations. In her statement, she mentioned support and belief for victims and survivors. One of the biggest supportive actions she could take is to consider preventing CSE rapists from seeing their children born from these crimes, once they are convicted, as they use access to their children to continue their abuse and to re-victimise the girls whose lives they have already ruined once.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. This can be the most appalling way of continuing this abuse, as that is what it is, with abusers using the courts and other institutions effectively to continue their abuse and exploitation. We will be taking action in this area, and we will be putting forward more measures. Both the Safeguarding Minister and the Victims Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), can have further discussions with her about that.

[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

In Telford we saw the systematic abuse of so many children who were raped, and we saw a cover-up by the police and council officials, yet not a single member of the police force or a single council official in Telford, or anywhere else in the country, has gone to jail. Will the Secretary of State use her power to set up a specialist unit within the National Crime Agency, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) said, to look at this and ensure that some of those who covered up these crimes are held to account?

[Yvette Cooper]

I do think there needs to be stronger action on accountability, so I think the right hon. Gentleman makes a serious point about these issues across public services, but one of the most effective ways to do that is by strengthening the legal framework, including the legal requirements on those who are responsible, through having a duty to report and making it clear that blocking and covering up is an offence. Where there are existing powers, we must ensure that they are properly used and strengthened.

I gently remind the right hon. Gentleman that he was a Minister, including an Education Minister, over many years when people were calling for a strengthening of the law. I hope he will now support that strengthening of the law, even though he did not at the time.

[Blair McDougall (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the measures that the Home Secretary has set out to pursue perpetrators and to challenge the culture of cover-up, and I also welcome her strong statement that nobody should resist the urge to report child rape for fear of being labelled a racist. Does she share my contempt for those who weaponise the suffering of victims, particularly through online disinformation, to pursue their own hateful agendas? The attacks by Elon Musk on the Safeguarding Minister in the last few days crossed a line for me, so I deactivated my X account earlier. At what point does the continued presence of Government Departments on that platform legitimise a space that is now not only poisonous but dangerous?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that this has to be about showing respect for victims and survivors; it cannot be about perpetuating misinformation online for the sake of clicks and audiences. We have a responsibility to make practical changes, and I hope we can stick to this House’s core tradition of sitting opposite each other, across the Dispatch Boxes and across the Chamber, to talk about what really matters to our constituents, rather than simply chasing headlines online.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome the measures that the Home Secretary has announced today on mandatory reporting, on grooming being an aggravating factor, and on the better use of data, but the fact remains that there is still widespread suspicion that there has been a cover-up because of the nature of these crimes and those who perpetrated them. Does she agree that there is a need for a national inquiry because it has been seen that the problem is wider than was originally envisaged, because there has been a disgraceful cover-up by public bodies, and because there are allegations that the CPS had a role in ensuring that people were not prosecuted? Rather than hiding behind the rhetoric that this is a far-right demand, does she not accept that this would be a reasonable response from a Government who say they want to deal with the problem and restore public confidence?

[Yvette Cooper]

The very reason why I and many of us called for an independent inquiry many years ago was because of the deep concern about the scale of the hidden abuse and about the total failure of institutions to respond. There were concerns about information being hidden, and about authorities not taking the action that was needed. That is why we called for an inquiry in the first place, and it is why the previous Government invested over £150 million in that inquiry over seven years.

The inquiry rightly included a two-year investigation into the grooming gangs and organised child exploitation, but further work needs to be done in local areas—I have mentioned Telford, and Oldham is now taking forward that work as well. Ultimately, this all goes back to the need for police investigations. The police are the ones who have the powers to get to the truth about the perpetrators who are committing crime, to gather the evidence, to get them before a court and to get them behind bars.

[Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)]

Over half a million children are sexually abused each year, and there are about as many perpetrators, yet some Opposition Members want to focus only on a few, rather than the big cases we have heard about involving TV presenters, the Catholic Church and others. This is something we have to take seriously, rather than exploiting it to chase headlines or look for future funders for political parties. We are taking action, led by two formidable women who will not let any abuser get away with exploiting women, men or children anywhere, particularly online. The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee will tomorrow begin an inquiry into algorithms. Can the Home Secretary reassure the House that action is the priority for this Government, not further years of talking? Action is what survivors need.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that we need action, and we need to see progress and change. Further areas will need investigations and inquiries. For example, I welcome the Select Committee inquiry she mentioned, particularly the investigation into online abuse and exploitation. As well as the expansion of online abuse, I am deeply concerned about the growing number of young people who are being drawn into abuse, and especially abuse between teenagers. That type of exploitation and harm of young people is extremely serious, and it is escalating.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Dr Caroline Johnson to ask the final question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Lady rightly raises an important point that was first raised as part of the Jay inquiry, more than 10 years ago, and then by the Casey inquiry, and she is right that we need to see action. Despite those issues having been raised over a decade ago, in many areas—not just grooming gangs and exploitation, but other areas of child sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse—there has still not been any action taken to change things, which is why we have to make sure that action is taken. We have to look at the recommendations made, including in the two-year strand that was part of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and we have to work with the victims and survivors panel to identify further areas for investigation. We have to improve ethnicity data, which is not adequate. We published what we have in November, but it is not strong enough. That kind of data can inform the kinds of investigations that need to take place. We need to ensure that we look into child abuse wherever it is to be found across the country, in whatever institution or community. Crime is crime, and children need protecting, wherever they are.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Apologies to hon. Members who did not get in, but we have two further items of business.

Preventing Radicalisation

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

Today I can update the House on the initial steps arising from the counter-extremism sprint initiated by the Government in July, designed to ensure that the UK’s strategies and systems to prevent radicalisation are functioning effectively, and addressing the full range of threats that we currently face as a country.

National security is one of the Government’s foundations and fundamental to our plan for change. We must therefore first and foremost recognise and applaud the continued excellent work carried out by counter-terrorism police, security and intelligence agencies, and other experts working on prevention across the country. Since March 2017, MI5 and the police have together disrupted 43 late-stage attack plots.

The UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, was established after the terrible attacks on 11 September 2001 and 7 July 2005. Made public in 2006, CONTEST has continued under successive Governments and evolved over years in line with the threat.

The four pillars of that strategy—prevent, pursue, protect and prepare—are of long standing and set the standard globally for a comprehensive counter-terror response, but the threats that the strategy is designed to tackle have also become more complex:

Islamist terrorism remains the primary threat, followed by extreme right-wing terrorism, and there is an increasing number of cases where the ideological driver is mixed or unclear;

The internet continues to act as a central enabler of radicalisation, facilitating increasingly easy access to extremist material and like-minded individuals;

While the majority of previous terrorist incidents have been perpetrated by adults, increasing numbers of young people are being drawn towards violent ideologies; and

Terrorist groups based overseas continue to present a significant threat to the UK, but the most common manifestation of terrorist risk in the UK in recent years has been cases involving individuals or small groups acting without direct support or instruction from a wider terrorist network. Additionally, the threat landscape is more interconnected and complex than at any time, with terrorist threats interacting with a state threat of unprecedented scale and severity and the challenge of organised crime.

This requires a response from Government agencies, law enforcement and the public that is informed, agile and integrated. As our first response to the Home Office’s counter-extremism sprint, I am today setting out action and next steps that will be taken in five key areas.

National security funding

First, in the light of these increasingly complex and rapidly changing threats, law enforcement partners and agencies need appropriate levels of resource. As announced in the provisional police funding settlement 2025-26, counter-terrorism police funding will increase next year by £140 million (14%) to £1,160 million, ensuring that counter-terrorism policing has the resources it needs to deal with the threats we face. Separately, the Chancellor confirmed in the autumn Budget on 13 October an additional £499 million funding for the single intelligence account, which includes MI5, SIS and GCHQ, showing our commitment to ensuring that our agencies are equipped to do the job.

Youth diversion orders

Secondly, we need new measures to address the growing proportion of young people who are featuring in counter-terrorism casework, as highlighted in the latest official statistics:

13% of all those being investigated by MI5 for involvement in UK terrorism are under 18, which is a threefold increase in the last three years;

Arrests of under-18s for terror offences have increased from just three in the year ending September 2010, to 32 in the year ending September 2024; and

11 to 15-year-olds now make up 40% of all referrals into Prevent, and half of all cases adopted by Channel where the age is known (up from a third in 2017).

These concerning trends have been flagged by Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, who said they are

“seeing far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism”,

and by Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, who has said that

“the profile of alleged terrorist offenders is getting younger, and includes children who may accurately be described as vulnerable”.

Most recently, on 5 December, UK counter-terrorism policing, working with Five Eyes counterparts, issued a joint call to action on youth radicalisation, stressing that they are

“increasingly concerned about the radicalisation of minors, and minors who support, plan or undertake terrorist activities”.

It is clear that while the UK has a robust counter-terrorism toolkit, including measures to prevent the escalation of terrorist risks, those tools are not currently well designed for intervention with young people.

The Government therefore intend to introduce youth diversion orders—a new counter-terrorism risk management tool specifically designed for young people, building on recommendations from Jonathan Hall KC.

Police will be able to apply to the courts for a youth diversion order, permitting them—in partnership with other agencies—to intervene earlier and to impose conditions such as engagement with Prevent interventions or restrictions on online activity. The courts must deem these conditions to be necessary and proportionate to mitigate terrorist risk.

Strengthening Prevent

Thirdly, we need reforms to strengthen the Prevent programme.

Prevent has been an integral part of our counter-terrorism machinery for the last 20 years, supporting nearly 5,000 people away from radicalisation since the introduction of the statutory Prevent duty in 2015. Over that period, dedicated counter-terrorism police and multi-agency partners have worked tirelessly and effectively day in, day out to divert individuals away from terrorism.

However, Prevent must continually adapt and improve to deal with challenges and keep pace with the changing nature of the threats that the programme is meant to tackle.

In particular, as backed up by recent reviews and statistics, it is not always clear to practitioners what kinds of cases should be dealt with under Prevent, which should be referred to other services, and what the responsibility of those services should be.

The reforms of recent years, including better training for frontline staff, updated guidance and a new Prevent assessment framework to strengthen decision making by police and Channel panels, have all sought to address this confusion, but more needs to be done.

Concerns over low numbers of referrals for Islamist extremism have still not been addressed, and at the same time a lack of clarity remains over whether Prevent should be confined to cases of clear ideology or should also be picking up cases where the ideology is less clear, or where there is a fixation with violence.

Therefore, the Home Office is taking forward work in a number of areas, including:

Conducting an end-to-end review of Prevent thresholds, updating policy and guidance, including on repeat referrals, to ensure that they reflect the full range of threats we see today;

Broadening the interventions available to people supported by the Channel early intervention programme. In addition to ideological mentoring, we will seek to reflect the diverse drivers of radicalisation, by exploring options to support at-risk individuals with cyber-skills, family interventions or practical mentoring, working to reduce the threat of radicalisation in the increasingly complex cases we see;

Undertaking a strategic policy review to identify and drive improvements in how individuals referred into Prevent who are neurodivergent or suffer from mental ill health are supported and managed; and

Strengthening our approach to the monitoring and oversight of referrals that do not meet Prevent thresholds, by launching a pilot in January to test new approaches to cases that are transferred to other services to ensure there is proper monitoring and requirements in place.

Creation of a Prevent commissioner role

Fourthly, we need to ensure that there is a means of regularly and robustly checking the effectiveness and quality of the programme in different parts of the country, in line with our wider programme of reform to drive up performance and standards in other areas.

I am therefore announcing today that we have begun a recruitment exercise to appoint an independent commissioner of Prevent, with a specific remit to review the programme’s effectiveness and identify gaps, so any problems can be fixed early. This will include ensuring that we have robustly implemented recommendations from previous reviews and overseeing delivery and evaluation on the steps I have set out above.

An interim appointment to this role will be announced shortly to enable swift work to begin, and an open and fair recruitment campaign will run in parallel to select a permanent Prevent commissioner.

Social media and radicalisation online

Finally, we need stronger action to tackle online radicalisation, in the face of growing evidence that the increasingly violent and extreme ideological material that young people in particular are accessing online is transforming the way in which they are radicalised.

In response, we are strengthening action to tackle this online radicalisation and protect our young people from harm. Yesterday, Ofcom published new codes of practice to drive implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023.

Next steps

In the new year, we will provide further updates on these measures and on action to counter terrorism and extremist radicalisation arising from the counter-extremism sprint and other work under way. We recognise the need for a whole-of-society approach to confront the threat from terrorism, and that everyone in our society should have the confidence and peace of mind to go about their lives freely and without fear. That requires greater vigilance than ever and stronger action than ever to identify, prevent and relentlessly pursue terrorism and violent extremism wherever it is found.

[HCWS327]

Border Security: Collaboration

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the new border security agreements we have reached with Germany and with the Calais group of Interior Ministers from the UK, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, which met in London yesterday with Europol, Frontex and the European Commission to discuss strengthening action against small boat crossings and organised immigration crime.

In the light of fast-moving events in the middle east, we also discussed the situation in Syria at the Calais group yesterday, and I will briefly address that issue first. As the Foreign Secretary told the House, we welcome the fall of the Assad regime, but continue to closely monitor this fast-moving situation, where there is significant risk of instability. Considering that, I have taken the decision to temporarily pause decisions on Syrian asylum claims. All five Calais group countries have taken the same decision. We will, of course, continue to keep all guidance relating to these asylum claims under constant review, and we will keep the House updated in the normal way.

Last week, I updated the House on the new agreement the Government have reached with the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan regional authorities to tackle organised immigration crime. This week, we have reached new strengthened agreements closer to home. Smuggler and trafficking gangs have been allowed to get away with their vile trade in people for far too long. Britain needs strong borders and a properly controlled and managed asylum and immigration system, but, for the past five years, we have had the opposite. That is why we are prepared to do the hard graft to get the system back under control and tackle the gangs long before they reach our shores.

Immediately after the election, we began to strengthen our international collaboration to go after those criminal gangs, including by increasing the number of National Crime Agency officers in Europol, setting up the new Border Security Command and making the new agreement with the G7. Already, that strengthened collaboration is delivering results. In the last few weeks alone, we have seen the arrest of a major suspect in the supply of boats and engines to the channel, which involved co-operation between Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. A major operation last week against a Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish gang operating through Germany and France was led by French police, but was supported by intelligence from the NCA and involved 500 German police officers. It delivered not just a series of arrests of suspected gang members, but the seizure of multiple boats and engines destined for the channel—boats that could have led to thousands of people making dangerous journeys.

Criminals need to know that there will be no hiding place. The gangs who undermine our border security by facilitating small boats crossing the channel are also facilitating dangerous and illegal journeys into other European countries and committing wider crimes, including serious violence, exploitation, money laundering and drug trafficking. These gangs operate across borders. Therefore, we need law enforcement co-operation across borders to bring them down, and new systems to work across different prosecutorial and legal systems. We need to rebuild basic intelligence sharing and co-operation that was damaged under the last Government’s post-Brexit arrangements, and new expertise is needed to deal with evolving threats.

This week, I signed a landmark agreement with my German counterpart, Minister Nancy Faeser, to tackle irregular migration. The new joint action plan is the first of its kind between the UK and Germany. It includes much stronger operational co-operation, such as information and intelligence sharing, including very practical basic measures such as increasing the use of the SIENA—Secure Information Exchange Network Application—Europol system by the NCA to share information with German police to swiftly pursue investigations; stronger partnerships to deliver prosecutions; new work to take down social media content that is being used as advertising by organised smuggler gangs; joint working and co-ordination with transit and source countries; supporting each other on returns; and establishing the first German international liaison officer in the Border Security Command.

Importantly, the joint action plan means strengthening the law in Germany to tackle people smugglers. We know that gangs are routing many supply chains through Germany, including using warehouses to store boats and engines that are destined for the channel. Clarification of the law in Germany will mean that activities facilitating migrant smuggling to the UK in Germany will be a criminal offence. This is a major change which will make it easier for German prosecutors to dismantle supply chains and prosecute the smugglers involved. It means that in Germany and across Europe, we are sending a clear message to the smugglers: “Activity to smuggle people into the UK is a criminal offence and you will be prosecuted and brought to justice.” Germany and the UK will also work together through Europol to investigate the end-to-end criminal activity of Kurdish gang networks that are operating in both our countries, in co-operation with the Iraqi Government and Kurdish authorities following the agreements I reached in Iraq.

The joint action plan embodies our shared determination to pursue organised immigration crime, but it also reflects the same determination and commitment shared across other near neighbours, embodied in our meeting with the Calais group in London yesterday. I strongly welcome the new announcements from the French Interior Minister on increasing the police presence and enforcement along the French coast through the winter, alongside the appointment of a new coastal préfet. The increased violence we have seen on the beaches towards French police is a total disgrace.

The Calais group also agreed a new plan to strengthen action across our five countries, including a range of actions backed by an end-to-end approach to tackling migrant smuggling networks, from the French coast through to source and transit countries, including Vietnam and central Africa. This includes stronger enforcement capability through Europol, targeting the illicit finance model of migrant smuggling networks, taking down social media advertising, and co-ordinated preventive communications to deter people from paying gangs to arrange dangerous, irregular journeys. We also discussed at the Calais group the major escalation of enforcement activity we are undertaking here in the UK. Immigration and asylum rules need to be respected and enforced, and for too long they have not been.

Over the summer we moved 1,000 more staff into returns and enforcement activity, which has already led to nearly 10,000 returns since the election, with enforced returns up by 19% and voluntary returns by 14%. Also during the summer, enforcement officers completed more than 3,000 visits to employers and more than 2,000 arrests, a substantial increase on the figures in the previous year. We discussed the need to scale up all these operations drastically over the next 12 months, to ensure that words turn into decisive action against the gangs. Yesterday, as part of these efforts, we published a mission statement for the Border Security Command, setting out the approach that we are adopting to increase enforcement capacity in the UK and Europe, drawing on the best intelligence and enforcement practice in the police, the National Crime Agency, Border Force and our intelligence agencies.

In the years before this Government came to office, criminal gangs were allowed to take hold all along our borders, establishing a criminal industry profiting from misery and exploitation and putting lives at risk. The terrible consequences of this phenomenon have been clear for too many years: fatalities in the channel as people risk their lives making dangerous journeys, border security undermined and public trust in the immigration system eroded, while criminal gangs make millions in profits. They cannot be allowed to get away with it. In place of the failures of the past, this Government have a serious and sensible plan to strengthen our border security and fix our broken asylum system—a plan that is based on grip, not gimmicks, and on serious international partnership. I commend this statement to the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for the timely sight of her statement, and I thank her for her comments on Syria. We certainly support the efforts of this Government and others around the world to secure a transition to a stable Government in Syria that can ensure the return of peace. We also support the suspension of asylum processing; I am glad that the Government made that decision a few hours after I called for it yesterday.

Does the Home Secretary agree that, given that most if not all the asylum claims are predicated on the threat posed to the individual by former President Assad, now that that threat has gone and the basis for the asylum claims has therefore gone, it would be reasonable to ask Syrians who are claiming or have recently been granted asylum on that basis to return once they are safe? Earlier today, the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister if he would ensure that no former UK residents who are in Syria and who supported the murderous Daesh regime that killed and raped innocent women and children, persecuted minorities and severely persecuted its opponents return to the UK. In government, the Conservatives ensured that those people did not return—the Shamima Begum case was an example—so will the Home Secretary take similarly robust action to ensure that people who supported Daesh do not return to the United Kingdom? I think the House would appreciate such an assurance.

Let me now turn to the question of small boats and border security. The Home Secretary asserted, I must say rather boldly, that her approach was “delivering results” , but I am afraid the facts do not bear that out. Let us have a look at the results that are actually being delivered. In the 150 days since the election, more than 20,000 people dangerously and illegally crossed the English channel, 18% more than did so in the same 150 days in the previous year. I do not call an 18% year-on-year increase “delivering results”; that is a failure. Why are these figures up year on year? The National Crime Agency told us that we needed a deterrent but that law enforcement alone would not be enough, yet the Government cancelled the Rwanda deterrent before it had even started. The first flight was due to take off on 24 July, and they cancelled it before it even took off. Of course we welcome the law enforcement that continues the work done by the last Government, but according to the NCA that alone will not be enough, so we need a deterrent. When will the Home Secretary introduce one?

In the spirit of examining the right hon. Lady’s claim that she is delivering results, let us look at the Government’s record on asylum hotels. In their manifesto, they promised to close down and end the use of asylum hotels. According to figures that we obtained recently, in the three months following the election, far from reducing asylum hotel use they increased it, by 6,066 people. In places such as Peterborough and Altrincham, which are now represented by Labour MPs, asylum hotels were opened up in express contradiction of their own manifesto commitment.

Let me say a word about removals. It is welcome that overall removals have gone up, continuing the trend under the previous Government, although I observe that almost all those removals were to European and North American countries. The Home Secretary did not break out the numbers on small boat returns, and I wonder why that was. I have looked into the figures, and it turns out that in the three months after the election, less than 5% of people crossing by small boat were returned. More than that, the number of people returned, having crossed by small boat, in the three months after the election was, in fact, lower than the number returned in the three months prior to it. So the number of people returned after crossing by small boat has gone down under this Government.

The Home Secretary mentioned criminal gangs, and I am glad that the work started under the last Government, including by my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Cleverly), is being continued. That includes the international co-operation that he pursued both as Foreign Secretary and as Home Secretary. But I ask the Home Secretary this: why, in opposition, did she vote against life sentences for people smugglers?

We heard a bit about the Calais group’s discussion yesterday. Of course, co-operation is important—we, too, co-operated when in government—but I wonder whether the Home Secretary had the chance to ask her French opposite number one or two questions. First, will the French accept returns of people crossing the channel? That would provide a very powerful deterrent. As she will know, the post-EU exit documentation—the political declaration—expressly allows individual member states to engage in bilateral arrangements on borders. Did she raise that with her French counterpart, and what did they say?

Secondly, was the Home Secretary able to ask her French counterpart whether France will intercept small boats close to the French shore, as the Belgians safely do? In Belgium, it has resulted in a 93% reduction in crossings. If the French would do the same and intercept near the shore, it would have a dramatic effect.

The Home Secretary said that she is delivering results, but these are the results: crossings are up by 18%, asylum hotel places are up by 6,066 and small boat returns are down under the new Government. She is delivering results—I am afraid they are worse.

[Yvette Cooper]

I gently point out to the shadow Home Secretary that his party left us with the highest ever level of small boat crossings in the first half of a year—the highest level on record. If we had carried on with small boat crossings at the same level as in the first half of the year, when he was in the Home Office, we would have had to deal with thousands more arrivals over the last few months. When he was the Immigration Minister, small boat crossings increased about tenfold because he let criminal gangs take hold along the channel. They built an entire criminal industry on his watch that he did nothing to stop, which is why we now have to deal with those criminal gangs.

On returns, I gently point out to the shadow Home Secretary that by the time the Conservatives left office, returns were down by more than a quarter compared with under the last Labour Government because of the Conservatives’ continued failure to even get the system working. That is why we have put substantial additional resources into returns and into making sure that the rules are enforced, which they simply have not been for far too long.

On the asylum backlog, perhaps the shadow Home Secretary will take responsibility for the total crashing of the asylum system in the last few months before the general election, when the Conservative party and the Home Office of which he was a part ended up cutting asylum decisions by more than 70% compared with the beginning of the year. That shocking dereliction of duty means that we have had to deal with the increased backlog that his party left behind over the summer, and we are getting it back under control.

There are some important issues on asylum decisions involving Syrians. Let us be clear: many claims for asylum relate to the Assad regime, which is clearly not in place now. It would therefore not be appropriate to grant asylum decisions on those cases in the current circumstances. We need to monitor the evolving situation so that we can get new country guidance in place and take those decisions, but we will do that in a sensible and serious way, which is about getting the asylum and immigration systems back under control. By contrast, the shadow Home Secretary and the Conservative party seem simply to want to go back to the Rwanda scheme. Once again, I point out to them that it cost the taxpayer £700 million and sent just four volunteers to Kigali—the most shocking waste of public money, over two years, on a failing scheme. All they delivered were gimmicks, instead of ever getting a grip, and all the shadow Home Secretary wants to do is turn the clock back to failure again.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is so refreshing to have a Home Secretary who is actually targeting those who exploit refugees. I understand what she says about the evolving situation in Syria, and I welcome what she has just said about new country guidance. May I press her a little bit more, though? She will understand and recognise that the Syrian community in this country, which many of us have been proud to welcome and support, is unsettled. There are 6,500 claims in process. When does she expect to have a refreshed assessment? We know that the situation in Syria is very uncertain at the moment. Can she please give our Syrian community some comfort about the direction of travel?

[Yvette Cooper]

We are obviously reviewing the situation as swiftly as possible. We have withdrawn the previous Syria country guidance, because it would not have been appropriate to take decisions on that basis, and we are monitoring the situation closely to look at how and when new country guidance can be drawn up. My hon. Friend will understand that there is considerable uncertainty about what is happening in Syria. We have welcomed the removal of the Assad regime. However, much is still unknown about what will happen in Syria next, which is why we have to be serious about this matter and monitor the situation closely. Other countries are doing the same.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, and for advance sight of it. On Syria, this is a fast-moving situation, and it is absolutely right that the temporary pause on decisions on Syrian asylum claims is kept under constant review. The UK should be doing all it can to help secure an orderly transition of power in Syria in accordance with international law, and the Government should move to offer asylum seekers and others certainty about their claims as soon as possible.

We welcome the Government’s attempts to tackle people smuggling gangs, who send vulnerable people on perilous journeys across the channel. We also appreciate their working closely with our European neighbours on this issue, instead of blaming them, as the previous Conservative Government did all too often. Does the Home Secretary agree that in addition to bilateral agreements with states and the Calais group, such as the one she signed yesterday, we need to work even more closely with inter-state agencies such as Europol, which she mentioned, and Eurojust to restore the UK police’s real-time access to the EU-wide data sharing systems that lead to the identifying and arrest of criminals? Shamefully, that co-operation and access was lost under the Conservatives.

We should not forget how we ended up in this mess. The asylum backlog ballooned thanks to the last Conservative Government, and thousands of people are currently waiting for their claims to be processed. Can the Home Secretary update the House on what progress she and colleagues are making in tackling the backlog? Will she commit to establishing a dedicated unit to improve the speed and quality of asylum decision making, and introduce a service standard of three months for all but the most complex asylum claims to be processed? Many of the people we are talking about are incredibly vulnerable; they are fleeing war, persecution and famine. Does the Home Secretary agree that we have to tackle this problem at source, and what conversations has she had with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office about boosting international development spending and co-operation to tackle the root causes of the numerous refugee crises?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member raised asylum claims from Syria. This is something we discussed in the Calais group, and all five countries are taking the same approach of recognising that we cannot currently take decisions. We clearly want to be able to do so as swiftly as possible, but we need to monitor the situation in Syria in the meantime.

The hon. Member raised the importance of other partnership working, including with Europol and Eurojust, and I agree with her on the importance of that. One of the things we agreed, first with Germany and then as part of the Calais group discussions at which Europol was also present, is that we were keen either to establish a new Europol taskforce or to expand one of the existing taskforces to look at the end-to-end smuggler route and its supply chains, and particularly to work with the Kurdish authorities and the Iraqi Government on the end-to-end route involving the Iraqi Kurdish criminal smuggler gangs. All those involved, including the Iraqi Government, are keen to work with us on that, but we need that Europol taskforce in place in order to be able to do that.

On asylum decision making, we are increasing the caseworkers in post and we have substantially increased the pace of decisions. Decision making had plummeted by about 70% just before the election, but we now have the extra caseworkers in place and we have got decisions back up to where they were. That allows us to clear the backlog on initial decisions. Finally, I agree with the hon. Member that we need to continue to work on the source issues, and we are working closely with the Foreign Office on that.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

I spent 15 years working on migration before I came into this House, including three years as the home affairs attaché in Paris, where I saw at first hand how the kind of instruments and data sharing the Home Secretary is describing can make a concrete difference in the fight against immigration crime. I also saw that, as the previous Government pulled the UK out of these instruments, it made our job as officials harder. I could not welcome the Home Secretary’s statement more. Immigration is an international phenomenon and, by definition, tackling immigration crime requires international co-operation. Can she tell us a bit more about the steps she has taken to build the relationships with these key European allies? Will she also commit to keeping her foot to the floor on this issue? In my experience, these relationships can so easily be cut, and but to bear fruit they take time and political will.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend has considerable experience in these issues, and I thank him for all his work on this. He is right to say that, with something as basic as the right kind of information and intelligence sharing, if the systems are removed and no new systems are put in place, basic operational actions simply do not happen, whether they involve going after the criminal gangs or preventing dangerous boat crossings and criminal activities. This is as basic as making sure that we now have much stronger systems, including using the Europol secure information exchange network application—SIENA—system, so that when the German police get information from the National Crime Agency, it is in a form that they can swiftly use to pursue investigations and prosecutions. My hon. Friend is right. We have to make sure that the detail works, which has often not been taken seriously for far too long.

[Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s commitment to maintaining the relationships with the Calais group interior Ministers that I was developing when I was in her role, and to building on the UK Frontex agreement that I signed with Commissioner Johansson in February of this year. However, I want her to explain this to the House: if the role of the Border Security Command is so clear, if the division of labour between it and the small boats operational command is so clear, and if this issue is so pressing, why has it taken five months to give them a mission?

[Yvette Cooper]

I recognise the points that the former Home Secretary has made. To be fair to him, he had to do a lot of work to try to repair the relationship with the Calais group and with some of the European partners, after some of his predecessors had been rather more careless, shall we say, and rather more destructive in that relationship. But we now have these further agreements in place, and they are crucial, practical arrangements about strengthening law enforcement co-operation to go after the criminal gangs.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the Border Security Command, I know this has been a bugbear of his, in that he wants to see it as the same as the small boats operational command, but they are very different. The small boats operational command is rightly focused on the operations in the channel and it does some excellent work to ensure that we can have order around the system in the channel. The Border Security Command is a much broader programme of work. For example, Martin Hewitt travelled with me to Iraq and Kurdistan in order to build those operational relationships so that we can work upstream. He was also part of the Calais group meetings yesterday in order to build those co-operation arrangements as well. We have provided continual updates on the work of the Border Security Command and we will continue to do so, but we are already getting on with work that I am afraid his party, and he as Home Secretary, never did.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the frankly grown-up approach she is taking to tackling this problem. Does she recognise the fury that is felt by constituents in Hartlepool and elsewhere that, as this system collapsed over the past five years, with all the costs associated with that, simultaneously our public services were eviscerated? Does she understand that that is why people in Hartlepool want the system fixed, and fixed quickly?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. What we saw was the loss of control of our border security, the loss of control along the channel where the criminal gangs were allowed to take hold, and the chaos that was allowed to develop in the asylum system. At the same time, we saw the loss of control of legal migration, where the new policies that were brought in meant that the figures quadrupled in the space of just four years. Most people across the country want us to have strong border security and properly controlled and managed migration and asylum systems, so that the system is properly fair and works for this country. We have not had that for too long, and of course that has left people deeply frustrated and wanting change.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I welcome this joint action plan. It is in our national security interest that it works, and I hope it does so. I am also grateful for the Home Secretary’s points on Syrian asylum seekers, and we look forward to hearing more details as that story unfolds. She mentioned working upstream. May I encourage her to meet the interior Ministers of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia and also interior Ministers in the Sahel, because she will know that a lot of the migration through the Mediterranean is coming out of north Africa, and particularly Libya?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a really important point about the work upstream. We did include interior Ministers from north Africa as part of the G7 discussions in Italy in October. That was important and it reflects a lot of the work with north African countries which Italy, for example, has been leading. I also agree with him about the importance of the Sahel. Some of the issues that we discussed in the Calais group yesterday included looking at areas of instability and areas from which people have been making dangerous journeys. We need to engage with those countries. We talked about the Sahel and about central Africa, and we talked about Iraq and some of the middle east areas. We also talked about Vietnam, from where we saw a significant increase in the number of people arriving in small boats at the beginning of the year.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement today and congratulate her team on the work that they are undertaking in this very difficult area. Back in 2021, the previous Government committed to £62 million as part of an agreement with France that included strengthening law enforcement deployments, more wide-area surveillance technology and vehicles, and enhanced physical measures at transport interchanges. Then in 2023, they committed to a further £500 million and to continuing these agreements. My constituents see these agreements, and the financial commitments being made with our neighbours, and yet, over the past few years, they have just seen increasing problems with small boat crossings and backlogs. What reassurance can my right hon. Friend give my constituents that these agreements will make a difference, and—because this goes to the heart of fairness—that these funding agreements will bring about the change that people want to see?

[Yvette Cooper]

People clearly want to see practical changes on the ground, which is why the partnership working we have been taking forward—not just with France but with Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and other countries—is so important. This has been about the prevention work along the French coast, and the work with the French authorities. However, the reality is that we have to be taking action long before the boats, the engines, the people and the gangs reach the French coast in the first place. That is the fundamental difference between the approach we are now taking and the previous Government’s work. It is about how we work with other European countries to tackle the gangs before they reach the French coast. That is where we need much stronger partnerships, and that is where many of our efforts have been focused.

[Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)]

The applications of the 6,500 Syrian asylum seekers have already been mentioned, but when the Department looks at these claims, will the Home Secretary keep in mind that Syria’s new leader is a committed jihadist who has voiced support for the 9/11 attacks? There are, therefore, very serious questions, particularly for women and minorities, and all paused asylum claims should be processed with that firmly in mind.

In a similar vein, although I fully support the increased efforts to shut down illegal and dangerous trafficking routes, it is important that we have safe asylum routes for those who are still at significant risk.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the continuing instability. There is a lot that we simply do not know about how events will play out in Syria. Those who have taken over, and who were involved in the initial overthrow of the Assad regime, initially said they would pursue an approach supporting minorities within Syria, but the developments we have seen in recent days raise questions about that. We have also seen huge instability, with various organisations and groups operating across the country. That is why we need to monitor this closely. I think everybody wants to see greater stability. We have also seen the initial signs of people wanting to return from Turkey to Syria, for example, in the first few days, but the situation is very unstable, which is why we need to approach this with care and with detailed monitoring of what is happening.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

The Conservatives should be absolutely ashamed of their asylum and immigration policy, of their inactivity and of the complete mess in which they left Britain and our borders. [Interruption.] The anger and frustration they are showing is shared by my constituents in Portsmouth North on the small boat arrivals—their frustration continues to fill my inboxes.

When the Home Secretary came to power, she promised a relentless focus on these boats. We have already heard today about co-operation with other countries on raids, arrests, seizures and stronger enforcement. Will she assure my constituents in Portsmouth North that this is not a gimmick and that the focus will continue through the winter?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that the only way to deal with this issue is not through gimmicks—we have seen those fail time and again—or through the kind of posturing that the Conservative party continues with. It will be dealt with only through partnership, hard work and graft.

We have set up the Border Security Command, put in place new agreements with countries not only in Europe but beyond, such as Iraq, and strengthened our law enforcement capabilities—£150 million is going into the Border Security Command over the next two years. We are also getting on with returns and enforcement, which substantially increased this summer as a result of the actions we have taken to get them back on track after the system’s previous failings.

People are fed up with gimmicks, and we need to take a serious approach to get a grip on this issue.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

The Home Secretary has not answered very many questions today, so can she answer this very clear question: which metric should we use, and by which date, to allow us to judge whether the Government have succeeded in smashing the gangs?

[Yvette Cooper]

I think everyone will be clear that no one should be making these dangerous boat crossings that undermine our border security and put lives at risk. We need to pursue the criminal gang networks that spread across Europe and beyond, which is why we welcome last week’s arrests in Germany as a result of the French-led operation supported by the National Crime Agency. We will continue to support and accelerate this work so that we can take stronger action against the criminal gangs.

[Gregor Poynton (Livingston) (Lab)]

This week has seen the result of the Home Secretary’s work, which has led to the agreement with Germany. It is hard work and grip that gets results. It is incredible that, under German law, the stockpiling of the boats and engines used to cross the channel was not prohibited. Can the Home Secretary assure us now that this agreement will lead to a path to closing this loophole and disrupting the work of the small boat gangs?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that this is a practical issue. To disrupt the criminal gangs operating along the French coast, we need to disrupt their supply chains and to be able to go after them wherever they operate. One of the most basic issues, on which the previous Government took no action at all, is the fact these flimsy and incredibly dangerous boats were being shipped across Europe, often being stored in German warehouses. However, the legal framework in Germany made it very hard for the German police and prosecutors to take action against those smuggling gangs.

The basic thing we have done is to reach agreement with Germany that it will strengthen its law to make it clear that storing these boats facilitates dangerous and illegal boat crossings out of the EU and into the UK, which is a crime. Strengthening the law in that way helps us to take action against the criminal gangs, but the previous Government just never chose to do it. It required diplomacy, hard work and shared commitment, and that is what we have shown.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

We all welcome the fall of Assad and look forward to him, and his accomplices, being dragged before the criminal courts to face justice for crimes against humanity. However, the Home Secretary will know that the current situation in Syria is very complex, with a number of proscribed organisations involved. We understand that the Government are considering de-listing some of these organisations. At the same time, we are hearing that money being sent to Syria, to help and assist the Syrians, could fall into the hands of these proscribed organisations. What action will the Home Secretary take to make sure that does not happen? As this is a moving situation, will she undertake to update the House on any moves to de-proscribe these organisations?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. As he will know, we do not routinely comment on either proscription or de-proscription, or on any of those processes, but I make it clear that proscription decisions are taken with care, based on evidence over time. They are not rushed or based on inadequate evidence. These are always important issues, but the most important thing is the safety and national security of the UK, and any decisions we take will always be taken in that light.

[Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and all the action her Department is taking to tackle migrant smuggling gangs and to reduce the asylum backlog. Frankly, I am quite surprised by the reaction I have heard from Conservative Members because, either through inaction or through incompetence, the last Government left us with an inheritance of 400 asylum hotels, at a cost to the taxpayer of £9 million a day. They did not seem very bothered about targets then.

Constituents in Bournemouth West and across the country are rightly furious about this. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if Conservative Members were really serious about tackling illegal migration, they would take responsibility for their legacy and welcome our measures, rather than complaining about them?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We inherited a situation where the Conservatives let the entire system get way out of control. They let criminal gangs take hold along the channel and left us with total chaos in the asylum system and extortionate costs, as she rightly pointed out, with nearly £9 million a day being spent this time last year on asylum hotels. The result of our action since the election to get asylum decision making, which they had frozen, going and to get the system working again is already saving hundreds of millions of pounds for the taxpayer, which Conservative Members were happy to spend rather than getting a grip of the system.

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Reform)]

I am pleased to hear from the Home Secretary that she is making progress with our neighbouring countries in Europe in stopping what I now call a national emergency. As she probably knows, however, that is only a third of the issue. Another is that boat crossings have increased. Will she consider securely detaining the people who arrive here? If we are to solve the problem, we have to remove the incentive to come to Britain. The questions I am asking are uncovering quite how much the cost of those illegal migrants is to the country, and this is now, as I say, a matter of national emergency.

The third part of the equation is the illegal migrants who are here. I had a case in my constituency of Great Yarmouth only this week, where one Alius Ambulta was convicted of drug dealing—a 17th offence that received a very light sentence. Will the Home Secretary commit to deporting those illegal migrants here who are damaging the interests of the British electorate?

[Yvette Cooper]

We need to clear the backlog and the chaos in the asylum system that we have inherited. There is already a detention system as part of both the immigration and asylum systems. However, the core issue over a long period of time has been around the lack of proper enforcement and a proper system to ensure that the rules in both the asylum and the immigration systems are properly respected and enforced. We have seen returns, for example, drop substantially compared with under the last Labour Government. We have put additional staff into the returns and enforcement system, but also making sure those returns increase. That is why we have seen nearly 10,000 returns since the general election and a significant increase in returns of both foreign national offenders and failed asylum cases to make sure the system is properly respected.

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

When I was elected to Parliament, I promised my constituents in Bassetlaw that this Government would have a relentless focus on stopping the boats. However, I want to clarify this important point: when this Government came to office, the number of small boat arrivals for 2024 was running at around 700 higher than the previous record year of 2022. Will the Home Secretary confirm that the number of arrivals since the Government came to office is 11,000 lower than in that equivalent period in 2022, when the Conservative party was in charge and when the Rwanda deal was in place?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that the previous record year was 2022 and that in the first half of this year, when the previous Government were still in office, the arrivals were higher for that season—we all know that arrivals are affected by the season—than they were in 2022. Since the election, those arrivals have been significantly lower than they were in 2022, and had they continued at the record-high levels that the previous Government left us with, we would have had thousands more arrivals over the course of this year than we have, in fact, seen.

That is no comfort when lives are still being lost and when criminal gangs still take hold. However, it is important to recognise that we have not continued with the record-high levels we inherited from the previous Government. We should have a comprehensive programme across the Government and across the whole country to make sure we can tackle those dangerous gangs.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Until small boats are either stopped on French shores or intercepted in French waters, some will clearly continue to get through. If, in the next few weeks, identified individuals from Syria, whether they be Assad’s torturers or released Islamist fanatics, manage to come to Britain, what will be done to them? Will they be detained or will they be allowed to walk free?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Member will know that the Home Office has the power to deny entry to those who are not conducive to the public good. Those are important powers that we continue to support. He will know that we also have other security powers and measures that we can use where there are individuals who pose a threat to the safety of the UK and we will continue to take those extremely seriously.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

While the Conservative party wasted £700 million of taxpayer money on an unworkable gimmick, this Government are rolling up our sleeves and putting in place the agreements that we need to tackle the gangs. That is the change that the British public voted for in July and that is the change we are delivering. What message does my right hon. Friend believe the new agreement sends to the vile people smugglers putting lives at risk in the channel? What message does that send to those criminals?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend asks an important question. The criminal gangs operate across borders and, frankly, they have been able to get away with it because of lack of co-ordination between law enforcement across borders and between Governments across borders. That is what we have been working to change since the election and why we have in place not just the Calais group agreements and the agreement on the joint action plan with Germany, but the progress we made at the G7 and the discussions, just after the election, at the European Political Community meetings. We need that collaboration because the message has to be extremely clear to the criminal gangs: there will be no place to hide. They cannot just hide across borders, because Governments and law enforcement will work together to go after them.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

This is a multiheaded hydra of a problem; there is no doubt about that. One of the ways in which we could begin to tackle it is by using the proper language. Can we please stop talking about irregular arrivals and irregular journeys? That sounds like a coach tour that has taken a wrong turn. It is illegal immigration that we are dealing with here.

We have heard much about international co-operation and that, obviously, is critical. Will the Home Secretary undertake to strike a series of agreements with a range of countries to ensure that people can be returned to those countries should they be deemed safe?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have been clear that we need to reduce both legal and illegal migration because we have seen significant increases in both over the past five years. That is why we are setting out the policies that we have been introducing since the election. The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the multiple different aspects and why we need to take action comprehensively, across the board. That also means that the response has to be across the board and has to include not just the prevention work and going after the criminal gangs, but increasing returns. It is possible to do that through new agreements; it is also possible to do that, frankly, by just making the existing system work considerably better. That is what we have been doing throughout the summer and we have already seen a significant increase in returns, with nearly 10,000 people who did not have the right to be in the UK returned.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

For the final question, I call Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement today. We all agree in this House and across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that the issue of immigration needs to be realistically prevented. To give the right hon. Lady credit, she has shown that determination and commitment through the statement today and we look forward to seeing the action on the ground.

Let me gently take the Secretary of State on another journey, across to Northern Ireland. What discussions have taken place with the Republic of Ireland to secure the border with Northern Ireland? The Irish Government have implemented checks for their security. I believe that the time has come for the Government here to do likewise, and to prevent immigration through the back door.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member will be aware that we have long had a common travel area across the UK and Ireland, which of course has meant close security co-operation and information-sharing in recognition of that unique situation. That common travel area will continue, and we will also continue to work with the Irish Government to ensure that the system works effectively. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland also takes these matters seriously.

Irregular Migration: UK-Germany Joint Action Plan

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

Organised immigration crime is an international problem that requires international solutions. That is why we are substantially scaling up collaboration with international partners to disrupt the people smuggling trade and the criminal gangs that profit from it.

Yesterday, I signed a landmark agreement with the German Federal Minister of the Interior and Community, Nancy Faeser. The UK-Germany joint action plan to tackle irregular migration will deliver strengthened investigative and prosecutorial responses to organised immigration crime, alongside enhanced intelligence sharing between our respective law enforcement agencies, and greater co-ordination of our efforts in source and transit countries to tackle irregular migration at source.

Many of the same criminal smuggler gangs that organise small boats in the channel are also operating in Germany and across Europe, with an impact on the security of all our countries, and therefore stronger law enforcement across borders is essential to tackle the dangerous gangs, illicit finance and supply chains involved.

There is recognition on both sides that activities on German soil that facilitate migrant smuggling towards the UK require a clarified legislative approach. Once enacted, this legal change will make it easier to disrupt and prosecute organised crime, including making it easier to significantly increase the number of arrests and prosecutions made in relation to the supply of small boats equipment—ensuring that those driving this trade are brought to justice.

Germany is a key international partner in our efforts to tackle people smuggling and the organised criminal groups that profit from this trade. The joint action builds on our existing co-operation with Germany and will deliver a new framework for enhancing our joint efforts to tackle organised immigration crime.

Minister Faeser’s visit to London yesterday included a visit to the National Crime Agency’s headquarters for a briefing on the scale of the small boats supply chain, existing operational co-operation between our respective law enforcement agencies, and the further co-operation that UK and German law enforcement agencies can undertake together through the joint action plan.

A copy of the UK-Germany joint action plan will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and will also be published on www.gov.uk.

[HCWS291]

Calais Group

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

Today I, jointly with German Interior Minister Faeser, convened Calais Group partners Belgium, France and the Netherlands in London, in the presence of the European Commission and its agencies, Frontex and Europol, to deliver real and tangible results on the fight against the dangerous people smuggling networks that threaten our collective border security.

At this important forum, all Calais Group partners agreed to jointly deliver the Calais Group priority plan in 2025. This plan is testament to our shared commitment to dismantling the people smuggling networks. It builds on our excellent joint working through existing structures and refocuses shared priorities to bring to justice those who undermine our border security.

The priority plan contains actions which will deliver enhanced co-operation in 2025, taking a whole-of-route approach to tackle the end-to-end criminality of migrant smuggling networks, who continue to deploy more dangerous tactics, putting lives at risk.

The key areas of collaboration include:

Co-ordinating preventative communications to deter irregular migrants from paying organised crime groups to facilitate dangerous journeys.

Strengthening our ability to work together, via Europol, to enhance targeting and disruption of prominent OCGs and their criminal supply chains. We will do so through deepening intelligence and information sharing, and ensuring there are effective and robust legislative frameworks criminalising the small boat supply chain, with a focus on evolving tactics and targeting the end-to-end criminality of the Kurdish-Iraqi OCGs involved in smuggling migrants into and across Europe.

Tackling the use of social media by OCGs to recruit and advertise dangerous journeys across Europe and the channel to migrants.

Targeting the illicit finance models of migrant smuggling networks to better target preventative, investigation and disruption efforts in order to take action on criminal finances and ensure that migrant smuggling is not a viable or profitable business.

Enabling reciprocal exchange of the most pertinent information relating to migration flows and border security issues to better understand and respond to emerging trends and migrant flows.

That demonstrates the commitment of near-neighbour partners to breaking the business model of migrant smuggling networks, and reaffirms our resolve to use every tool available to ensure that these criminals are brought to justice.

Alongside this crucial meeting, the Government are also today publishing a statement on delivering border security, setting out our approach to establishing the border security command, tackling organised immigration crime and improving the UK’s border security. The new border security command will lead and drive forward the required step-change in the UK’s approach to border security, including our international response.

Organised immigration crime is a global threat, with no respect for national boundaries. Tackling it requires working closely with international partners. The border security command is scaling up efforts with key near-neighbour partners and the EU, through the Calais Group, to disrupt the people smuggling trade and the criminal gangs that profit from it.

Copies of the Calais Group priority plan and the delivering border security statement will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and will also be published on www.gov.uk later this afternoon.

[HCWS293]

Migration and Border Security

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on net migration, asylum and border security, and on the collapse in controls that took place over the last five years, the damage done as a result, and the action we are now taking to turn that around.

Last Thursday’s official statistics show how over the last five years controls in the immigration and asylum systems crumbled, legal and illegal migration both substantially increased, the backlog in the asylum system soared, and enforcement of basic rules fell apart. Net migration more than quadrupled in just four years to a record high of nearly 1 million people, and it is still more than three times higher than in 2019. Dangerous small boat crossings rose from 300 people in 2018 to an average of over 36,000 a year in the last three years—a hundred-and-twentyfold increase. In just a few short years, an entire criminal smuggler industry built around boat crossings has been allowed to take hold along the UK border.

The cost of the asylum system also quadrupled to £4 billion last year. In 2019, there were no asylum hotels; five years on, there are more than 200. Returns of those with no right to be here are 30% lower than in 2010, and asylum-related returns are down by 20% compared with 14 years ago. That is the legacy we inherited from the previous Government, one that former Ministers have themselves admitted was shameful.

We should be clear that this country has always supported people coming here from abroad to work, to study or to be protected from persecution. That has made us the country we are—from the Windrush generation to the Kindertransport; from international medics working in our NHS to the families we have supported from Ukraine. But that is exactly why the immigration and asylum systems have to be properly controlled and managed, so that they support our economy and promote community cohesion, with rules properly respected and enforced, and so that our borders are kept strong and secure. None of those things have been happening for the last five years. The scale of the failure and the loss of control have badly undermined trust in the entire system, and it will take time to turn things around.

Let me turn to the changes that are needed in three areas. First, on legal migration, recent years have seen what the Office for National Statistics calls

“large increases in both work-related and study-related immigration following the end of travel restrictions and the introduction of the new immigration system after the UK left the EU.”

Conservative Government reforms in 2021 made it much easier to recruit from abroad, including a 20% wage discount for overseas workers. At the same time, training here in the UK was cut, with 55,000 fewer apprenticeship starts than five years ago, and the number of UK residents not working or studying hit a record high of over 8 million. This was an experiment gone badly wrong, built on a careless free market approach that literally incentivised employers to recruit from abroad rather than to train or to tackle workforce problems here at home.

This Government are clear that net migration must come down. We are continuing with the visa controls belatedly introduced by the previous Government, including the higher salary threshold, the 20% discount and the restrictions on dependant visas for students and care workers, but we must go further to restore order and credibility to the system.

Since the election, we have set out new plans to ban rogue employers who breach employment laws from sponsoring overseas workers; we have reversed the previous Conservative Government’s decision to remove visa requirements for a number of countries from which large numbers of people arriving as visitors were entering the UK asylum system instead; and we are reviewing visas further to prevent misuse.

However, we also need to overhaul the dysfunctional UK labour market that we inherited, including by bringing together the work of the Migration Advisory Committee, Skills England, the Department for Work and Pensions and the new Industrial Strategy Council to identify areas where the economy has become over-reliant on overseas recruitment, and where new action will be needed to boost training and support. That work will be at the heart of our new White Paper, showing how net migration must and will come down, as we set out new ways to link the points-based system with new requirements for training here in Britain.

Let me turn to the asylum system. Last week’s figures showed how the previous Government crashed the asylum system in the run-up to the election. In their last six months in office, asylum decisions dropped by 75% and asylum interviews dropped by over 80%, so only a few hundred decisions were being taken every week instead of thousands. Caseworkers were deployed elsewhere and the backlog shot up. We have had to spend the summer repairing that damage, getting caseworkers back in place, restoring interviews and decisions, and substantially boosting returns. It will take time to deal with the added backlog and pressure on asylum accommodation that that collapse in decision making caused, but the swift action we took over the summer has prevented thousands more people from being placed in asylum hotels, saving hundreds of millions of pounds.

Today I am also publishing the full spending breakdown of the previous Government’s failed Rwanda partnership. In the two years that the partnership was in place, just four volunteers were sent to Rwanda, at a cost of £700 million. That included £290 million paid to the Government in Kigali, and almost £300 million for staff, IT and legal costs. The result of that massive commitment of time and money was that 84,000 people crossed the channel from the day the deal was signed to the day it was scrapped. That so-called deterrent did not result in a single deportation or stop a single boat from crossing the channel. For the British taxpayer, it was a grotesque waste of money.

Since the election, we have swiftly redeployed many of the people who were working on fantasy planning for the Rwanda scheme to working instead on actual flights to return those who have no right to stay in the UK. That has helped to deliver nearly 10,000 returns since the election. Enforced returns are up by 19%, voluntary returns are up by 14%, illegal working visits are up by approximately 34%, and arrests from those visits are up by approximately 25%. I can tell the House that this new programme to tackle exploitation and ensure that the rules are enforced will continue and accelerate next year.

Let me turn to border security. Six years ago, fewer than 300 people arrived on dangerous small boats. Since then, an entire criminal industry has taken hold and grown, with routes stretching through France, Germany and beyond, from the Kurdistan region of Iraq to the money markets of Kabul. The criminals profit from undermining border security and putting lives at risk, and it is a disgrace that they have got away with it for so long.

Since the election, we have established the new Border Security Command, announced £150 million over the next 18 months for new technology, intelligence, and hundreds of specialist investigators working; struck new anti-smuggling action plan agreements with the G7, and bilateral agreements with Italy, Germany, Serbia and Balkan states; and increased UK operations with Europol and the Calais group. In recent weeks, international collaboration has led to high-profile arrests and shown the smuggling gangs that we will not sanction any hiding place from law enforcement.

I can tell the House today that we have gone further, with a major new international collaboration. The Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government share our concerns about the people traffickers operating through their country who have helped to transport thousands of people across Europe and across the channel, but joint action to tackle those problems has previously been far too weak. That is why last week I visited Baghdad and Erbil to sign new co-operation agreements on border security, migration and organised crime. As part of those agreements, we will invest half a million pounds in helping the Kurdistan region to enhance its capabilities on biometrics and security, and in training Iraqi border staff to tackle organised immigration crime. We have also made new commitments on joint operations, information sharing, pursuing prosecutions and disruptions, and with further work on returns. Those landmark agreements are the first in the world for an Iraqi Government focused on playing their part in the world.

Most people in Britain want to see strong border security and a properly controlled and managed migration and asylum system where the rules are respected and enforced; one where we do our bit alongside other countries to help those who have fled persecution, but where those with no right to be here are swiftly returned; and where it is Governments, not gangs, who decide who can enter our country. For five years, none of those things has happened, and people have understandably lost faith in the entire system. We now have the chance to turn that around: to fix the chaos, bring net migration down, tackle the criminal gangs and prevent dangerous boat crossings; to restore order, control, and fair rules that are properly enforced—not through gimmicks, but through hard graft and serious international partnerships. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank Mr Speaker and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for ensuring that we had the proper time to consider the statement.

The Home Secretary seems to have a great deal to say about the last Government and rather less to say about her own record since the election, but fortuitously there was a large release of data last week that gives us an insight into her first five months in office. Having looked at that data, I can see why she is so silent on her own record. Let me start with small boats. Yesterday marked 150 days since 4 July, and in that time a staggering 20,110 people have made the dangerous, illegal and unnecessary crossing—over 20,000 since this Government were elected. That is an 18% increase on the same 150 days last year, and a staggering 64% increase on the 150 days immediately prior to the election.

Why have those numbers gone up so much? Let us turn to what the National Crime Agency said last year. It said that no amount of funding or action against people smugglers would end crossings on its own, and went on to say—and I quote—that “you need an effective removals deterrence.” After the Labour Government were elected, they cancelled that deterrent—the Rwanda deterrent—before it had even started. The first flight was due to take off on 24 July this year, but they cancelled it. Had that flight taken off as planned, we would not have seen the 64% increase in crossings that we have seen since the election, exactly as the National Crime Agency foresaw. It is not just me and the National Crime Agency; even Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, has called for European member states to implement an offshore processing scheme, a proposal that 18 member states are said to support. As such, my first question is whether the Home Secretary will agree with the National Crime Agency and do what Ursula von der Leyen has urged, and re-establish that scheme.

As a consequence of the Home Secretary’s failure to reduce small boat numbers, the use of asylum hotels—which Labour promised to end—has gone up by 6,066 in the three months following the election. The asylum backlog, which the Home Secretary had a great deal to say about, has gone up by 11,000 in the three months following the general election, something that she did not find time to mention. She did talk a bit about her deal in Iraq, which spends £500,000 with the Iraqi Government. That is not a great deal of money—it is what would probably be spent on a road surfacing scheme in any of our constituencies. I am afraid that the idea that spending £500,000 is going to stop people smuggling from Iraq is naive and fanciful. What might have helped smash the gangs is life sentences for people smuggling, so perhaps the Home Secretary could explain why in the last Parliament she voted against a Bill that contained life sentences for the people-smuggling gangs she says she wants to smash.

On the question of legal migration, I agree with the Home Secretary that the numbers have been far too high for many decades under successive Governments. It is welcome that the numbers for the most recent year have come down by 20%, but that is not far enough—we need to go further. I welcome the fact that the Government are going to maintain most of the measures introduced by the last Government that led to that 20% reduction. We have also seen the number of visas go down, which of course are a leading indicator of net migration. Work visas are down by 28% year on year, student dependant visas are down by 84%, student visas are down by 19% and care visas are down by 84%, all thanks to measures introduced by the last Government.

However, I would like to know why this Government have decided to suspend the planned increase in the dependant visa salary threshold up to £38,700 which was due to take effect next April. If they are serious about reducing net migration, as the Home Secretary says, why have they suspended the measure announced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Cleverly) last December? If they are really serious about reducing net migration, as we are, what we really need is a hard cap on the numbers, as proposed by the Leader of the Opposition and me last week. Will the Government follow our suggestion and introduce that hard cap?

Behind all the bluster and all the chat about previous Governments, we see the Home Secretary’s record and her Government’s record: a 64% increase in small boat crossings since the same period before the election, 6,000 extra people in hotels and the asylum backlog up by 11,000—all since 4 July. We see the Rwanda deterrent, which the National Crime Agency and even Ursula von der Leyen say is necessary, cancelled by this Government before it even started. I call on the Home Secretary to think again on those issues, to introduce in April the measures that the previous Government announced and to introduce a hard cap. If she is serious about combating illegal migration and getting the net legal migration figures down, she will adopt those measures.

[Yvette Cooper]

If anyone had believed that flights were going to go off to Rwanda this summer, the Conservatives would not have called the general election when they did. They would have hung on hoping that it might happen. However, we saw just the same thing time and again: they kept promising and kept saying it was going to happen, and everybody can now see that it was a total failure. The policy ran for over two years, and they kept promising that the flights were going to go off, but they never did. They just spent £700 million instead. So much do they know that this was a total failure that their newly elected leader will not even promise to reinstate it, because she knows the whole thing was a con.

Let me remind the shadow Home Secretary that in the first half of this year—the last six months of his Government—crossings hit a record high for that season. If that trend of a record high had carried on and the increase for the first half of the year had carried on through the summer, we would have been dealing with thousands more crossings. Instead, because we had an increase in the number of people arriving from Vietnam, this Government introduced a major charter flight—a return flight—to Vietnam, and we have been working with the Vietnamese Government to make sure that the number from Vietnam comes down. We also had to deal with the total collapse in asylum decision making that the Conservatives left us with, which meant that we have had to get caseworkers who they had deployed elsewhere back in place. The Conservatives also let the backlog soar.

The shadow Home Secretary wriggles a little around the net migration figures, which have gone up to a record high of 900,000 because of the rules that the Conservatives —his Government—introduced in 2021. Who was the Immigration Minister who brought in those rules? It was the shadow Home Secretary.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)]

At a time of hugely stretched resources across the Government, thanks to the mess left in the public finances by the Conservative party, I welcome the additional money announced for investment in the Border Security Command, and in strengthening our wider intelligence and enforcement capabilities against the smuggling gangs. Does the Home Secretary agree that that is a far better use of taxpayers’ money than paying people to go to Rwanda?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. If we go back just six years, there were barely any boat crossings. This criminal infrastructure was not in place along our borders, but we have seen it take hold, and be allowed to take hold, for several years and to build and grow. Those gangs are getting away with undermining our border security and putting lives at risk, and we should not be allowing them to get away with it. That is why the co-operation in place, led by the Border Security Command, going after the gangs and pursuing prosecutions and disruption, is so vital to saving lives and strengthening our borders.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

The Conservatives trashed our immigration system, and now it is time to pick up the pieces—[Interruption.] A period of quiet reflection on some Benches might be appropriate for the next couple of minutes. Their chaotic approach of making and breaking targets shattered public trust and left the system in a right shambles. The words “Rwanda,” “small boats,” and “asylum hotels” took on new shameful meanings under the previous Conservative Government. Net migration figures hit record highs on their watch, skyrocketing, particularly after they took the UK out of the EU. Yet still the Conservatives’ arbitrary rules make it nearly impossible for some sectors, such as hospitality, to recruit the workers they need.

Change is desperately needed. We need to rebuild an immigration system that works for our country and our economy—a fair, effective system that welcomes the workers we need. I am thinking about the senior surgeon who undertook the kidney transplant that my dad had and that kept him alive. That surgeon came here as an immigrant. We also need a system that clearly and properly enforces the rules, and that sees our university sector as a jewel in the crown, welcoming students from overseas, and as a way of using the UK’s soft power for good. It is right that the Government are taking steps to make it easier to recruit British workers to fill vacancies, and a thorough workforce strategy is sorely needed. Will the Government consider implementing Liberal Democrat calls for a carer’s minimum wage to help address the well documented needs of the social care sector?

I am pleased that the Home Secretary talked about how we will have to work closely with our international partners to stop the dangerous channel crossings—something the previous Conservative Government made it harder for us to do time and again. International co-operation is crucial, but our response to the criminal gangs, who are profiting from some of the most vulnerable people, must go further. We must crack down on modern slavery here in the UK, as that is how those gangs make a big chunk of their money. I hope the Government will cut off the power of the gangs at its source, by providing safe and legal routes for genuine refugees. The Government have a mammoth task ahead, rebuilding not only an immigration system that works, but importantly rebuilding the public’s trust in the process.

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome many of the points that the hon. Member has made. She is right to point to the lack of trust and confidence in the system as a result of the chaos of the last few years, as well as to the loss of controls and practical measures in place. She raised migration for work, which quadrupled in the space of four or five years, at the same time as we had drops in the number of adults in training and apprenticeship starts. That is a system that is broken. I agree that we should support fair pay agreements in social care and a proper workforce strategy around that, to ensure that we can better recruit and support care workers who are UK resident. I have also asked the Migration Advisory Committee to look particularly at the engineering and IT sectors. We have had persistently high levels of recruitment from abroad in those sectors, and frankly we should have had far better and longer standing training here in the UK.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that the public are right to be angry about the state of public services, and that the blame lies squarely with 14 years of cuts and mismanagement by Conservative Governments, not with migrants who contribute to their new home? Will she stand up to attempts by Conservative Members to distract from their own failures and divide the country by scapegoating people who just want a better life for themselves and their families, as we all do?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that in 14 years the previous Government did deep damage not just to our public services but to our economy, and they have to take responsibility for that. We have a history going back through generations of people who have come to the UK to work, study, and get protection from persecution, but it is because those systems are an important part of who we are that they also need to be controlled and managed. That is why alongside the damage that the previous Government did to our economy and public services, we have also seen damage to the relationship between the migration system and the labour market, which has ended up with a loss of control.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

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[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

The estimated spend on the agreement with Iraq is around £800,000, which compares with, I think, the £476 million being spent on our agreement with France. Has the Home Secretary made an estimate of how much she expects that money will contribute to reducing the numbers crossing the channel?

[Yvette Cooper]

What we have found in our discussions with both the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan regional authority is that they want to tackle organised immigration crime in their country. They are concerned about not just people trafficking and people smuggling, but drug trafficking, to which the same gangs are sometimes linked, and money laundering. We found a strong willingness to work with us; the most important thing will be to get the co-ordination, co-operation, information sharing, standards and intelligence in place. That will be the start. This is the beginning of a partnership, and the funding that we have set out will be for the first step in that partnership, to get better biometrics, better training capabilities and better border security in place. We see it as an important partnership that needs to grow.

[Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)]

As an international liaison prosecutor, my job was to facilitate international co-operation, working with the NCA and overseas authorities. Does the Home Secretary agree that that is the key to smashing the criminal people smuggling gangs, not gimmicks such as the Rwanda scheme?

[Yvette Cooper]

I completely agree. Spending £700 million just to send back four volunteers was the most astonishing, shocking waste of money. My hon. Friend is right. The criminal gangs operate across borders, but law enforcement across borders is far too weak. It has been far too much a case of each country looking inwards rather than getting co-operation in place, so the gangs are able to run rings around law enforcement in far too many places across the world. We have to strengthen the co-operation across borders in order to tackle the gangs.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I agree with the Home Secretary that the failure of the last Government to control immigration was unconscionable, and our new leader has rightly apologised for our failure. Some of us on the Back Benches warned the Government at the time, but there we are—that is the past. Looking to the future, I agree that we all want to return illegal migrants to where they came from, but will the Home Secretary list the countries that human rights lawyers say are so unsafe that people cannot be returned to them? What is the deterrent for people from those countries if we do not have an offshoring policy?

[Yvette Cooper]

Obviously, each individual case needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis. It has been agreed through the courts that, for example, some people could be safely returned to Iraq, but the process, or the bureaucracy, is extremely slow. Many people are currently in the immigration enforcement system. The previous system was just not following up and taking action, which is why we have been able to increase the returns substantially in a short period. Of course, each case has to be looked at on its merits, but we can do substantially more to ensure that the rules are properly respected and enforced.

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement, and I ask my question in the context of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I also thank her for talking about the UK’s strong history of welcoming people who are trying to escape persecution. We should not forget that at the heart of the organised people smuggling into this country are people being exploited and dying. The last Government were reduced in their final days to sloganising about people coming on boats, and about the Rwanda scheme, which brought shame on our country. I was appalled to hear the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) try to defend the scheme, and shocked to hear him describe the drop in the number of students coming to the UK as something to be celebrated.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call the Home Secretary.

[Yvette Cooper]

Clearly the Rwanda scheme failed, and the Leader of the Opposition knows that it failed. That is why she does not want to reinstate it, contrary to the views of the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who seems to want to spend another £700 million over another two years to send another four volunteers to Rwanda. The criminals who organise the boats are incredibly dangerous. We have seen children crushed to death and people drown as a result of these flimsy and dangerous boats, and the gangs are making profits of hundreds of millions of pounds. We should not be letting them get away with it. That is why we need to work across borders to go after them.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Migration plays a significant part in our economy. In the Lake district, 66% of hospitality and tourism businesses report that they are failing to meet demand because of a lack of workforce capacity. Migration is part of the answer. Will the Home Secretary listen to leaders of the Cumbria hospitality and tourism economy and meet them to discuss options such as a youth mobility visa scheme? It would enable us to shore up our workforce, which is brilliant, but far too small.

[Yvette Cooper]

All I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that there are some deep and fundamental problems in the UK labour market that we have inherited. He is talking about workforce shortages when net migration has quadrupled and when overseas recruitment for work has quadrupled. I think that shows that there is a much bigger challenge in the workforce, where we have a huge drop in training and where we do not have proper strategic approaches to the workforce. That is what we should be putting in place instead. We have to look at the issues around training, pay and conditions and at the key sectors to make sure they get support, rather than continually looking to increase migration instead.

[Gregor Poynton (Livingston) (Lab)]

The former Conservative Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), has said that the country is “right to be furious” about his party’s record on immigration, and that the Conservatives need to own their failures and change. What is there, in the Conservatives’ obsession with their failed and costly Rwanda programme, to show that they have heeded his warning and changed their approach?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. The former Immigration Minister and now shadow Justice Secretary also said that the net migration figures were

“a day of shame for the Conservative Party.”

They might need a little bit more shame on the Opposition Front Benches.

[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

Can the Home Secretary set out how many hotels have been moved into housing asylum seekers since 4 July? Will she commit to updating the House regularly as to which hotels have been repurposed for that use?

[Yvette Cooper]

I know that the Immigration Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), has already answered some of the questions that the right hon. Gentleman has raised. He is right to express concern about asylum hotels. There are now 220 asylum hotels in use. He will know that his Government opened 400 asylum hotels. We have had to deal with the collapse in asylum decision making. In the last few months before the general election, the Conservatives went down to just a few hundred decisions being taken a week, rather than thousands of decisions each week. That was deeply damaging, and we have had to deal with it, so that we can turn things around by clearing the asylum backlog and ending hotel use.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

It is clear that my right hon. Friend inherited a chaotic immigration situation from the last Government, and I commend her on the work she is doing. She rightly focused on international co-operation, but principally on removals. Does she accept that, in a world as interconnected as ours, migration can no longer adequately be managed by treaties that are now more than 70 years out of date? We need to co-operate with our international partners, to create a new structure and a new settlement for managing global migration.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes important points, because countries do need to work together and to look far more at some of the causes of migration. That is why we set out at the European Political Community summit an additional £80 million fund to look at earlier prevention work and how we address some of the causes of migration in the first place, as well as the law enforcement response that we need to go after the criminal gangs.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

The absurd and chaotic Brexit—fully supported by those on the Government Front Bench—was supposed to finally satisfy this obsession, but ending free movement has only increased the numbers of people coming here. What is the point of their Brexit, and why has it so spectacularly failed to manage to get a hold on immigration to the UK?

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

The previous Conservative Government made a decision in 2021 to launch what was in effect a free market approach to immigration. They made it much easier to recruit from abroad and they incentivised employers to recruit from abroad by introducing a 20% wage discount at the same time that they were cutting training and support. The consequence is that, since 2021, we have indeed seen a massive increase in overseas recruitment. As the same time, we have seen a drop in people getting training and support to work in the UK.

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the frankness that the Government have brought to their assessment of the situation and the setting out of clear measures. As we have heard, criminal gangs are causing untold misery to people all around the world. Will the Home Secretary expand on the measures that we are taking with European neighbours in particular to crack down on these criminal gangs once and for all?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have been working with other European countries. We have a new agreement in place with Italy to go after the illicit finance that underpins many of the criminal gangs. The work that Prime Minister Meloni has done already has helped to significantly reduce Mediterranean crossings. We are working with Italy, and we think that work is important.

We are also working with Germany on supply chains and with Bulgaria on supply chains, including on how boats and engines are being moved across Europe. We are of course working with France on tackling the organised gangs, including some of the Iraqi-Kurdish gangs operating in northern France, so that we can pursue those gang networks to prevent dangerous crossings.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

The asylum hotel in Cheshunt in my constituency is already putting pressure on strained public services, including local GP surgeries. The Government’s manifesto committed to closing asylum hotels. Can I ask the Secretary of State when she will honour that promise, or will the list of broken promises to the British people get longer?

[Yvette Cooper]

We are determined to clear the backlog so that we can end asylum hotels. In 2019, there were no asylum hotels, so it was the previous Government who increased and opened about 400 of them. There are still around 220 asylum hotels in place.

We have had to deal with the shocking crashing of the asylum system. Just before the election, the previous Government effectively stopped a whole load of caseworkers from making decisions on asylum cases and pushed the backlog up—we also had to clear that over the summer. That means that we can make progress on bringing the backlog down, so that we can start to clear hotels and ensure that we save money for the taxpayer. We have already saved the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds this year.

[Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Was the Home Secretary as surprised as me to hear that, as part of the £700 million spent by the previous Government on the failed Rwanda scheme, the package of support that the four volunteers who went to Kigali received included five years of free housing, free food, free private healthcare, free university education and free vocational training, all at a cost of £150,000 per person? Does she agree that Rwanda was in no way a deterrent but a colossal waste of money?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. It was a total, shocking waste of money to send just four volunteers—and the Government had 1,000 people working on the Rwanda scheme. That was 1,000 people who could have been working on enforcement, returns or clearing the backlog, or taking action to pursue the criminal gangs. Instead, they were working on a scheme that ran for two years and sent just four volunteers.

[Nigel Farage (Clacton) (Reform)]

I agree with the Home Secretary, who was right to highlight that 2023 was a year of shame for a Government who had repeatedly promised net migration of tens of thousands a year, not nearly a million; perhaps they will never be forgiven for it. But I also see that in 2023 asylum claims were made by 84,000 people. Everyone talks about the small boats and yet 69% of those 84,000 did not come across the English channel in boats. Will she tell me, please: where did they come from? Were they overstayers? Were they on student visas? Who were the 69%?

[Yvette Cooper]

We are clear that net migration needs to come down after the huge increase. We also need to restore order to the asylum system. Part of that is going after the criminal gangs who are undermining border security and putting lives at risk, and tackling the small boat crossings. There is also an issue about the increase of in-country asylum applications. We have instigated a review into that, to get to the bottom of what is happening and why. We found that the previous Government’s decision to remove visa requirements for visitors led to a significant increase in asylum applications from people coming as visitors. We have reversed those changes made by the previous Conservative Government and reintroduced visitor visa requirements for those countries.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq, I welcome my right hon. Friend’s recent visit and the agreements that flowed from that. Does she agree that support from the UK and allies for the Kurdistan region in Iraq across all spheres, plus the efforts of our own Government and allies to strengthen relationships between Baghdad and Erbil, fosters greater prosperity and stability, helps to reduce corruption and thereby helps to alleviate some of the push factors that cause migration to this country in the first place?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I thank the Kurdish Regional Government for their hospitality and welcome, and the Iraqi Government for their welcome and support for my visit last week. We had important and serious discussions with both the regional authorities and the Iraqi Government on a range of issues such as tackling organised immigration crime, but also the positive work that both the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish Regional Government want to do to support economic prosperity. They repeatedly made the point that security is the foundation of economic growth. That is why they are so keen to tackle organised immigration crime and other forms of organised crime that can end up undermining their security and economic opportunities.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Given the promises made at the general election, the opening of more asylum hotels is deeply regrettable. As the Home Secretary seeks alternative accommodation to be able to close down those hotels, will she assure the House that she will not overdo her requests of other Government Departments, in particular the Ministry of Defence, which historically has been very helpful in finding surplus accommodation to house migrants? I hope that she agrees that enough is enough, and that she will not disadvantage service families in their accommodation needs.

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree about the importance of supporting our armed forces, including housing for armed forces families. That will always be important. The number of asylum decisions had dropped by 70% in the space of just six months—a massive drop. That crashing of asylum decisions increased the backlog over the summer. We have now managed to get asylum decisions back up to where they were, and the asylum caseworkers back in place and taking those decisions rapidly. That puts us in a position to be able to get the backlog down so that we can take action on asylum hotels, and we are already saving hundreds of millions of pounds this year compared with the previous Government.

[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

In the run-up to the summer general election, my constituents were hugely concerned about the number of small boats crossing the channel; and little wonder, because the Conservative party left office in the middle of the worst year ever for small boat arrivals—18% higher than in 2023, 5% higher than in 2022 and more than double the level in 2021. The Labour Government came into office just under five months ago, and the number of arrivals is now lower than in 2021, more than a third lower than in 2022, and only 15% higher than 2023, rather than the 19% that we inherited. Does the Home Secretary agree that that all sounds like pretty decent progress?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. The first six months of the year saw a record high for that season; of course, we know that crossings are seasonal, but it was a record high for the first half of the year. If we had carried on at that record high level—higher than 2023, 2022 and 2021—we would have thousands more people in the asylum system right now, and we would have had to deal with thousands more dangerous boat crossings. When we took office in the middle of the year, some independent projections said that there could have been as many as 50,000 crossings this year, and that has not happened. That is no real consolation, though, because so many lives are still being lost, and so many gangs are still making huge profits, which is why we have to take action on the gangs. We have to strengthen border security and prevent so many lives being put at risk.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Effective technology is at the centre of an excellent asylum and immigration system. I was at the Minister’s drop-in on e-visas, which I am sure many of us welcome, where there were assurances that those who are transitioning from a paper visa but have not yet had their e-visa would not be disadvantaged. However, we have seen reports today suggesting otherwise, which is of particular concern to the Afghan community, and particularly to those who have come to the UK since the rise of the Taliban. Can the Secretary of State give the assurance that people will not be disadvantaged if their e-visas are not processed by the end of January?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Lady will know that the Minister with responsibility for e-visas is working immensely hard to ensure that any concerns are dealt with. We are clear that no one should be disadvantaged by the transfer to the new electronic system, which will strengthen security and the information that people rightly have. We need to ensure that the transfer happens as smoothly as possible. I urge the hon. Lady to continue to keep in touch with the Minister so that we can ensure that every issue within the system and with the transfer to e-visas is properly addressed.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

When the truly shocking net migration figures were published last week, the shadow Justice Secretary and former Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), said on Twitter—now known as X—that it was a

“day of shame for the Conservative Party”

because it had

“let the country down badly”

and caused immense, lasting harm with immigration policies that have left Britain poorer. Does the Home Secretary agree that it is better to train our own people in this country than to repeat the failed Tory policies that left us all poorer?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We need a complete overhaul of the way that training and support for work takes place to get UK residents back into work and give them the training they need, and to ensure that we do not have this chaos in the net migration system. I think the former Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), also said that the Conservatives will only rebuild trust once they own up to their failures—perhaps a little more owning up is what we need to hear today.

[Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

In the previous Parliament, Labour consistently voted down stricter border laws and signed bleeding-heart letters trying to prevent the deportation of criminals from this country. In government, they have cancelled restrictions on family routes and removed the offshore processing options. I therefore confess that I am deeply sceptical that Labour will be successful in controlling immigration. The Iraq deal sounds promising as a headline but, truly, what difference will £500,000 to the Iraqi Government make to the volume of channel crossings?

[Yvette Cooper]

I say to the hon. Lady that we are establishing new co-operation and networks not just across Europe, but beyond. We know that significant Iraqi-Kurdish gang networks operate in northern France, which the Kurdistan regional authorities and Iraqi Government are particularly concerned about. They are concerned about the routes back into northern Iraq, and about both the impact such activity is having on their country and the impact that we are concerned about—that it is happening in the channel. That is why getting law enforcement working in partnership together is at the heart of this agreement, and that is what we can now build on. This agreement is the first that Iraq has made with any country to tackle organised immigration, crime and border security. I welcome Iraq’s support for this agreement, and its determination and commitment to it. We need to work in partnership with Iraq on it.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Residents in Portsmouth North are concerned about the rising cost of housing asylum seekers. Although it is not what we would have wanted as a Government, it is good that we have been open and apologetic about having to house, on a temporary basis, these people because of the inactivity of the previous Government. Does the Home Secretary agree that this is in stark contrast to the previous Government, who never explained and never apologised, even when there were more than 400 hotels, costing £9 million a day? Can she say when we expect the cost of housing asylum seekers to reduce?

[Yvette Cooper]

We are already saving hundreds of millions of pounds this year from the asylum accommodation budget as a result of the decisions we have taken to restart asylum decision making and get the system working again so that we can start clearing the backlog. Had we not done so, and had we carried on with the previous Government’s policies, those costs would have soared further. That is unfair on the British taxpayer, as well as being the sign of a broken asylum system. We will continue to do that work. We expect to make hundreds of millions of pounds more in savings next year. In total, the assessment is that over the next few years, we will save £4 billion from the previous Government’s failed schemes.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What deterrent will the Home Secretary implement for those asylum claimants who have destroyed their papers and purport to come from regimes to which they cannot possibly be returned?

[Yvette Cooper]

One of the reasons we are talking to the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan regional authorities about biometrics and supporting biometric roll-outs is that they make it easier to prevent people delaying either asylum claims being resolved or returns being agreed by not having papers. Where there are biometrics in place, it makes things much faster. That is why we should be working to extend them and why we are working to establish stronger returns arrangements with other countries. That is what we have been doing throughout the summer and why we have seen such a substantial increase in returns this summer, as a result of our putting in the additional resources that were failing to achieve anything when they were put into the Rwanda scheme. We are now putting them into doing practical things as part of returns and enforcement.

[Mr Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)]

In his response, the shadow Home Secretary said that £500,000 was not a lot of money. That is probably because he thought that for £100,000 more you could give free education, housing, university education and vocational training to just four volunteers going to Rwanda. What an absolute waste of money! Does the Home Secretary agree that it is a far better deterrent to actually process people and send them abroad, or should we continue with the fallacy that as a nation we should be bribing people to send them over to Rwanda?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is certainly right that the £700 million for four people is absolutely not good value for money at all. We will always make sure that we are looking for good value for money, as well as getting results.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The previous Administration cannot, Pontius Pilate-like, wash their hands of this immigration mess that has placed intolerable burdens on mostly disadvantaged working-class communities, but the Government now have responsibility for this matter. They cannot pass it back again: they have responsibility. What I would like to hear from the Home Secretary today—despite what has happened since July, with 20,000 more immigrants coming into the United Kingdom, hotel places up and foreign criminals still waltzing through the courts claiming human rights to stop themselves being removed—is what she intends to do to remove the pull factor that encourages people to see Britain as an easy touch.

[Yvette Cooper]

One of the things we are doing is cracking down on illegal working and the exploitation by employers of people coming to the UK who are often not here lawfully and as a result are being exploited by employers. That has been too easy for employers to do for far too long. That is why we saw an increase of more than 30% in illegal working visits over the summer, a significant increase in the number of arrests as a result of those visits, and a consequent significant increase in penalties for employers. We will continue to take much stronger action, such as removing the ability to sponsor workers from any employer who is breaching important employment laws. We need to ensure that every bit of the system is being tackled and addressed, so that we can have a system that is fair and has public support.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

The Home Secretary ended her statement by saying that she wanted “serious international partnerships”, but when pressed on that by the shadow Home Secretary, she seemed reluctant to say whether she would explore removal or processing agreements with third countries, as advocated by the President of the European Commission. Who is actually serious on this question: this Government or Ursula von der Leyen?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have been very clear about the importance of working with other countries, both on tackling gangs and on addressing some of the wider issues that we face. We have always said that we will look at anything that works, and we will look at practical measures. We have recognised that different approaches are being taken by different countries. The Italy-Albania agreement, for example, provides for a fast-track returns arrangement, enabling those from predominantly safe countries to be moved to Albania. We think it is possible to introduce similar fast-track arrangements that have not been properly in place in this country for a long time, and we should be considering those as well.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

More than 210,000 Ukrainians have been hosted in the UK since Russia’s full-scale invasion, which is a testament to the generosity of British hosts, but the millions of Ukrainians who have left Ukraine for Europe are just a fraction of the number who might flee across Europe if Russia were successful in breaking through and occupying all of Ukraine. Does the Secretary of State consider it to be in the UK’s own national interest that we confiscate all Russia’s frozen assets, offer the proceeds to the defence of Ukraine and prevent further displacement?

[Yvette Cooper]

As the hon. Member will know, we strongly support Ukraine, given what it has had to endure and go through. We continue to condemn the Putin Government for the things that they have done and the impact that they are having on Ukraine, and we will continue to support Ukraine in every way possible.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

A constituent wrote to me recently asking if I could get a hurry-up on his application under the EU settlement scheme. It turns out that he is subject to a deportation order, and that we actually did deport him in 2018, but he managed to get back into the country somehow and to make his application under the EUSS. The Home Office told me last week that it could not deport him until his EUSS application had been played out, including all the appeals. He made the application in 2020, and it is now nearly the end of 2024. In a spirit of bipartisanship, may I suggest that the Home Secretary should change the rules with a stroke of her pen, and that anyone who is subject to a deportation order should simply be deported? In a similar spirit, may I suggest that if she can get it done by Friday, I will gladly drive him to the airport myself?

[Yvette Cooper]

The last Government had 14 years—or at least four years, since the EU settlement scheme was introduced—to deal with some of these issues. We take very seriously the need to speed up and improve enforcement of returns for those who have no right to be here. The immigration system and the asylum system can only work and command public confidence if the rules are respected and enforced. That means that if someone does not have a right to be here, there should be proper enforcement. We are working to speed up enforcement, which is why there was a significant increase in returns over the summer, but we will continue to do so, and we will continue to consider what further amendments can be made to improve matters.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

The Home Secretary has quite rightly lambasted the absolute failures of the last Government on mass immigration, but could she comment on whether people in the Home Office will be held accountable for allowing systems and controls to crumble in the last five years, and on whether people in the Office for National Statistics will be held accountable for getting their numbers wrong by almost a quarter of a million people in just one year?

[Yvette Cooper]

Conservative Ministers made policy decisions that they asked Home Office officials to implement. Fundamentally, the Conservative Government need to take responsibility for policy decisions that they made in 2021, which led to a big increase in migration for work, for example, and a big increase in the net migration numbers, at the same time as training was being cut in the UK. That has had damaging consequences for confidence and trust, but also for the functioning of the UK economy and labour market, because we should be doing far more to train people in everything from engineering to construction. There are a whole series of different areas where we should increase training here in the UK.

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary confirm how many country deals are being worked on to ensure that people can be returned to their country of origin, and when does she expect them to have a material impact on the level of migration to the UK?

[Yvette Cooper]

Some of the work that we are doing with different countries is about speeding up existing returns arrangements, which sometimes do not work effectively enough. Sometimes it is about relatively practical improvements to existing arrangements that take far too long or have too many hurdles. We are already doing that, which is why we had a significant increase in returns over the summer. It is why we organised a series of charter flights, including the three largest charter return flights in UK history, which have all been organised since the general election as part of the practical work that we are doing, step by step, to increase enforcement and returns.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

While we are reassured by the previous answers that the Home Secretary is committed to increasing the processing of asylum claims to clear the backlog, the Liberal Democrats would push her to go further and faster. Will she consider our calls to end the ban on asylum seekers working, and reduce the time limit to three months so that they are able to contribute to their cost of living, integrate into society and start to pay a fair share within the communities that they wish to join?

[Yvette Cooper]

No, I do not think that is the right thing to do. We need to clear the backlog, speed up decision making and ensure that those who do not have the right to be here are swiftly returned. Where we have had people arrive from Ukraine or Hong Kong, we want to see them working, being part of the economy and being able to support themselves and their families, but where somebody does not have the right to be here, the important thing is to make the system work and make sure that they can swiftly return.

[Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)]

Villages such as Datchet in my constituency are bearing the brunt of the fact that 6,000 more illegal economic migrants are staying in asylum hotels since this Government came into office. These single adult males represent something like 2% of the village’s population, so what assessment has the Home Secretary made of the extra pressures on vital local services, particularly GPs and dentists? What assurances can she give my constituents that they will not miss out on vital appointments as a result of the sudden demographic change?

[Yvette Cooper]

We think that using asylum hotels is the wrong way to respond to the system that we have, which is why the increase in the backlog as a result of the previous Conservative Government’s collapse in decision making has been so damaging. That is why we now have additional caseworkers in place and asylum decisions back at the levels that they were previously, so that we can clear the backlog and make sure that we do not need to use asylum hotels. The previous Government opened 400 asylum hotels and quadrupled the cost of the asylum accommodation system. That has a shocking impact on the taxpayer, and we are already saving money by bringing the costs down.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

We need a firm but fair and compassionate approach on immigration, as I think everyone in the House would agree. Human rights non-governmental organisations have warned that people being returned to Iraq could be at risk of human rights abuses, so can the Home Secretary tell us what reassurances she has had on that point? Will human rights always be a red line when she is striking migration deals in future?

[Yvette Cooper]

The agreement that we reached and signed with the Iraqi Government explicitly commits to support for international law, international humanitarian law and human rights, and this was one of the issues that we discussed as part of the meetings. The hon. Gentleman will also know that every decision in the asylum system is made on its individual merits to ensure that, where somebody is being rejected from the asylum system and is being returned, it is safe and appropriate to do so. But we do believe that there are many people currently in the immigration enforcement system who should be safely returned to their homes, and that is why we have increased the process around enforcement and returns this summer.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

To end, we have Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am sure that this is a thrill for everybody. I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. The failures of the previous Government may undoubtedly be a reason for this uncontrollable migration number, but my constituents in Northern Ireland—who have had their winter fuel allowance removed and who are seeing an increase in the cost of living that is pushing many working families towards the poverty line at warp speed—are interested not in a blame game but in getting immigration sorted and the boats stopped.

What will the Government do to achieve a reasonable immigration policy? How they will deal with those who have not come here legally and who do not deserve to be here ahead of the families from Afghanistan, who were instrumental in the war effort there and who are still waiting in the correct procedural queue rather than jumping off boats?

[Yvette Cooper]

Enforced returns for those with no right to be here were up 19% this summer, and voluntary returns are up 14%. We think that those should increase. On the overall immigration system, we will be setting out in a White Paper new proposals to better link the Migration Advisory Committee, the skills bodies across the UK and other organisations to identify stronger controls that are also linked to stronger training requirements, so that as well as having the visa controls in place, we also have clear requirements to train here in the UK to ensure that we can tackle the big increase in net migration for work that we saw over the last five years.

I think the hon. Member would probably agree that most people across the country want to see strong border security and a properly controlled and managed immigration and asylum system. We have not had that for too long, but those are the proper controls and fair systems that we need to get back in place so that we can fix the foundations and everybody can have confidence in the system for the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

That is the end of that statement. I will give the Front Benchers a few moments to shuffle over quickly and quietly.

Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation: 2022 Report and Government Response

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

In accordance with section 36 of the Terrorism Act 2006, Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has prepared a report on the operation of the Terrorism Acts in 2022, which is being laid before the House today.

I am grateful to Mr Hall KC for his thorough report and have carefully considered the recommendations and observations included within. I am today also laying before the House the Government’s response to the report (CP 1211). Copies of the report and the Government’s response will be available in the Vote Office and will also be published on gov.uk.

[HCWS261]