Legal Migration
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
Migration has always been an important part of the history of our nation. For generations, people have travelled here from all over the world to contribute to our economy, study in our universities, work in our public services and be part of our communities. And British citizens continue to travel across the world to make their homes abroad. This Government recognise and value the contribution legal migration makes to our country and we believe the immigration system needs to be properly controlled and managed.
Under the previous Government, net migration trebled in five years, heavily driven by a big increase in overseas recruitment. This Government are clear that net migration must come down. While we will always benefit from international skills and talent, including to keep us globally competitive, immigration must not be used as an alternative to tackling skills shortages and labour market failures here in the UK. For that reason, we are setting out a new approach.
The Office for National Statistics estimates that net migration in the year to December 2023 was 685,000, compared to 184,000 in the year to December 2019, before the pandemic. Non-EU long-term immigration for work-related reasons increased from 277,000 in the year to December 2022 to 423,000 in the year to December 2023, and work-related reasons replaced study as the main reason for long-term migration.
The number of work visas issued (including to dependants) in the 12 months to 31 March 2024 (605,264) was over three times the number for 2019, prior to the pandemic, and 24% higher than in the 12 months to 31 March 2023 (486,614). That reflects a failure over many years to tackle skills shortages and other problems in the UK labour market, meaning too many sectors have remained reliant on international recruitment, instead of being able to source the skills that they need here at home.
This is why we are setting out a different approach—one that links migration policy and visa controls to skills and labour market policies, so that immigration is not used as an alternative to training or tackling workforce problems here at home. This approach will be important to enabling delivery of the Government’s broader agenda.
The Migration Advisory Committee will work with Skills England, the Industrial Strategy Council and the Labour Market Advisory Board as part of a new framework to support a coherent approach to skills, migration and labour market policy. For us to deliver on the Government’s missions, we will need to tackle labour market challenges in all parts of the United Kingdom, so these bodies will engage and work closely with the devolved Governments.
The Education Secretary has announced the launch of Skills England, which will bring together the fractured skills landscape, create a shared national ambition to boost the nation’s skills, and lead the work on identifying sector skills gaps and plans.
The Chancellor has convened the first growth mission board, and the Work and Pensions Secretary has set out a plan to bring people back into the labour market, supported by a new labour market advisory board to help drive change and get Britain working again. The King’s Speech highlighted the intention of setting up the industrial strategy council, which will engage business and focus on key sectors to take advantage of new opportunities that can promote growth right across the UK.
Alongside the development of these plans and the establishment of the new framework, the Home Office will strengthen the Migration Advisory Committee, so that it can highlight key sectors where labour market failures mean that there is over-reliance on international recruitment.
As a first step, I am commissioning the MAC to review the reliance of key sectors on international recruitment. In particular, I am asking the MAC to look at IT and engineering—occupations that have consistently, over a decade or more, been included on shortage occupation lists and relied on significant levels of international recruitment. These occupational groups are in the top 10 occupational groups in the UK that have the highest percentage of their workforce made up of new foreign workers who have been issued visas.
We will also consider ways to strengthen the Migration Advisory Committee, including through the deployment of additional Home Office staff to its secretariat, ensuring it is able to work more strategically to forecast future trends, while continuing to review and provide independent, evidence-based recommendations on key areas of the immigration system.
A number of changes to the system were made earlier this year, including:
Restricting most overseas students from bringing family members to the UK.
Restricting the ability of care workers and senior care workers to bring dependants with them and requiring all care providers sponsoring migrants to register with the Care Quality Commission.
Increasing the general salary threshold for those arriving on skilled worker visas by 48% from £26,200 to £38,700.
Abolishing the 20% going rate discount, so that employers can no longer pay migrants less than UK workers in shortage occupations.
This Government support these changes and will continue to implement them.
The family immigration rules, including the minimum income requirement, need to balance a respect for family life with ensuring that the economic wellbeing of the UK is maintained. To help ensure that we reach the right balance and have a solid evidence base for any change, I will commission the MAC to review the financial requirements in the family immigration rules. The minimum income requirement is currently set at £29,000, and there will be no further changes until the MAC review is complete.
On 23 May, the previous Government announced a series of measures, building on the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee, to reduce the potential for abuse on the student and graduate visa routes. This Government strongly value the economic and academic contribution that international students make to this country, including those here on the graduate visa, and that is why it is important to ensure that the system is effective and not open to abuse. Therefore, we will continue with the previously announced measures to ensure that international students, the institutions they are coming to study at and the immigration system as a whole are protected from those who wish to exploit it —working closely with DFE to ensure that the measures are effective.
[HCWS51]
Southport Incident
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
I would like to make a statement about the devastating attack that took place in Southport yesterday morning. It is difficult to comprehend or to put into words the horror of what happened. These were young children dancing to Taylor Swift and celebrating the start of the school holidays. What should have been a joyful start to the summer turned into an unspeakable tragedy.
Three young children have lost their lives: Bebe King, aged 6; Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged 7; and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, aged 9. The police have released some words that Alice’s family have said:
“Keep smiling and dancing like you love to do, our princess.”
Six other children and two adults are still being treated for their injuries in hospital. The whole House, and the whole country, is united in shock and in grief. Together, we send our thoughts, prayers and deepest condolences to everybody who has been affected by these terrible events.
This morning I joined the Merseyside chief constable, chief fire officer, police and crime commissioner and my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) to lay flowers on the street of the attack, and the Prime Minister is in Southport with the Mayor of the Liverpool city region this afternoon. I also met this morning with some of the first responders—the Merseyside police, North West Ambulance Service and Merseyside Fire and Rescue—who arrived at an unimaginably distressing scene yesterday and who responded with heroic professionalism. They were aided by passersby—NHS workers and off-duty emergency workers—who heard the calls of distress and ran to help.
As the police officers said to me when we spoke, they do these jobs knowing that they can be called upon in the toughest of times, but nothing, still, can prepare you for an attack on little children. I want to recognise the toll that can take. Those emergency workers were back at work yesterday. They live locally. Some of them had been to the dance centre in the past with their own children or relatives. They wanted to be out in their own community, continuing to serve and support the people of Southport. That is public service at its very best.
I also offer my sincere thanks to everyone in the NHS—hospitals across the region are tending to the victims and supporting their families right now—and to Sefton council and Merseyside police family liaison officers, who are already working to provide extensive support to the victims’ families and to the community. This morning I met staff from Victim Care and the Samaritans, and local youth workers, who are also already providing local support to those who need it. The Home Office and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government stand ready to support them and work with them as they deal with the distressing aftermath of this terrible attack.
Merseyside police are now leading an extremely serious criminal investigation, and they are being supported by counter-terrorism police. So far, Merseyside police have confirmed that just before noon yesterday morning they were called to the dance studio, where 13 people had been attacked—11 children and two adults who tried to prevent the attack. They arrested a 17-year-old male at the scene. The police have said that they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the attack and they do not believe that there is an ongoing threat.
As you have rightly reminded the House, Mr Speaker, this is an ongoing investigation, and it must not be impeded or compromised in any way. That means that all of us have a responsibility not to do or say anything to cut across or prejudice the criminal investigation. We must let the police do their job, and they have my full backing in that task. More than that, we must show respect for the families. When there are updates, Merseyside police work hard to try to provide information first to the families, although that is not always easy or possible.
Likewise, it is extremely important that people do not spread damaging misinformation online. False information has already been extensively shared in the last 24 hours. Those who do this for their own purposes risk undermining a crucial criminal investigation. I ask everyone to show some respect for the community in Southport, and for families who are grieving and in trauma. In these dark and difficult moments the police must be able to get on with their work, and communities must be given the time and space to grieve and to heal without outside voices seeking to use events to stir up division or advance their own views.
There will be other questions that flow as the investigation develops. We will doubtless in the days ahead discuss terrible violence and its causes. The investigation will of course pursue any contact that the suspect may or may not have had with different agencies before the incident took place. Southport will no doubt be in our minds when we debate Martyn’s law, which was part of the King’s Speech. But for today, the most important focus of all must be the injured children, the grieving and traumatised families, and the people of Southport, who are in shock at what has happened.
Tonight, people from across Southport are gathering for a community vigil. When I visited this morning, many people were gathering at Southport football club, which had thrown its doors open for the community, and where youth workers told me that they were determined to keep supporting Southport children with events this summer. I hope that everyone will recognise the sense of community and solidarity among the people of Southport, who have come together to support each other in the most terrible of times.
The words of one paramedic have stayed with me. He described how terrible it was when he arrived and how despairing he felt, but also how proud he was of his colleagues and passers-by who pulled together to help. He said that while facing the very worst of times, he also could see around him in his colleagues and passers-by who were working together to save lives the very best of humanity. That is what we keep in our hearts as we think of Southport, and as we think of the grieving families. Most of all, our thoughts are with the little children, and we keep them in our prayers tonight.
I commend this statement to the House.
Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of her statement.
This was a heinous attack on innocent children and those caring for them at the start of the summer holidays. It has no doubt left families broken and a community scarred. I am grateful to the Home Secretary for coming to the House to update us on the situation, and I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for allowing flexibility on the Order Paper so that this event could be discussed.
The Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have, of course, done the right thing by going to Southport today to offer the Government’s condolences, and I echo their sentiment. All our thoughts are with the victims of this appalling attack, their families and the people of Southport at this incredibly difficult time. Our thoughts are especially with those who have lost their lives and those who are currently being treated in hospital, some of whom are in a critical condition. We think of their families at this time.
I want to thank our emergency services who responded to this horrific attack. We should never take the bravery of the people who serve us for granted, and it is a reminder that when they run towards danger and unknown circumstances, we are duty-bound to give them our support so that they can act decisively and with confidence, and do everything they can to save lives. Of course, our ongoing thanks go to the staff of the national health service who are currently caring for the victims who are receiving hospital treatment. Particular thanks go to the members of the public who intervened to help, despite the significant danger to them. Their bravery cannot be overstated.
We still know little about the details of what happened yesterday, and the right hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that we should give the police the time to do a proper and thorough investigation. She is also right to highlight the impact of misinformation and disinformation online; enough people are already distressed without their distress being amplified by speculation and gossip online. I would ask that she follow up on the conversations that I had in the United States of America with the social media platforms about their responsibility in this regard. This is also a reminder to all of us that we have a personal responsibility to check before we share, and that we should not feel the need to get involved in the grief of others.
There will, of course, be a time when we must ask how this happened, so that we can take the right steps to ensure that no child, no family and no community has to face the anguish that the people of Southport are feeling today. It is too early for us to know the full picture, but an attack on innocent children enjoying their summer holiday strikes to the hearts of us all. No matter what drove this individual to commit this appalling crime, we stand together in solidarity with the people of Southport today.
I want to finish by saying that our hearts go out to the three young girls who have lost their lives: Bebe, Elsie and Alice. We cannot imagine what their families are going through now, and I know the whole House will join the Home Secretary and me in expressing our condolences to them. I thank the Home Secretary for her statement.
Yvette Cooper
I thank the shadow Home Secretary for his words, and for his support for the families and whole community in Southport. I particularly thank him for his tribute to the emergency service workers. He will know from all his past experience the heroism they show, but that was strained beyond anything we could have imagined by what they had to deal with yesterday. I also thank him for his recognition of the bravery of the passers-by who came forward to help.
I agree with the shadow Home Secretary about the responsibility on every one of us; the police need to be able to pursue their investigation. There will be wider questions for other days, but the most important thing is that every one of us supports the police in their investigation. I also agree with him about the responsibility on social media companies; we need to recognise that things are taking place on social media that go against their terms and conditions and their commitments. They need to take some responsibility for that.
Above all, this is about young children and their families, who will be grieving, and there will be many other children who were involved yesterday who will be facing great trauma as well. This is a moment when it is not just the people of Southport who will be desperately wanting to come together to support their own; this is about all of us, not just across this House but across the whole country, being there for the people of Southport and the families who have lost loved ones.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) is in the constituency, so I am going to call the most immediate neighbouring MP, Bill Esterson.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport is at the vigil that is taking place as we gather here. I am sure that he and his constituents are grateful for the visits of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary earlier today. He and they will also be grateful to the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary for what they have said this evening.
This is about Bebe, it is about Elsie and it is about Alice. It is about three young children who were murdered. The Prime Minister talked about a collective trauma for the people of Merseyside, and I think that is exactly what is going on. My constituents are reflecting that, as are the people in Southport. I want to pass on the thanks of my constituents to the emergency services for their response, and for the fact that they are back at work today, as the Home Secretary said. I also want to thank those local people who intervened, as the shadow Home Secretary mentioned.
I want to add to what the Home Secretary said about the importance of the responsibility of everyone here and everyone more widely, and to the concerns that she and the shadow Home Secretary expressed about what has been said on social media. I think the best way to respond to it is to look at the overwhelming sense of love and support that is seen at the vigil, and in the many messages that have been left in the floral tributes and online from the vast majority of people, not just in Southport but across the country. That is the appropriate way to support those victims and their grieving loved ones this evening.
Yvette Cooper
I thank my hon. Friend for his words. I know how much he and his constituents, as close neighbours of Southport, will be feeling this now. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Southport, who I spoke to today. He set off back home the moment he heard about this horrific attack yesterday, to be there in the community. He was showing such leadership with the local residents in the community and at Southport football club, where so many people had come together today. This is just immensely hard for communities, as all of us will know having felt our own communities facing pressure, but it is still so hard to imagine just what the community will be going through. I know that they will very much welcome everyone’s support.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats extend our heartfelt condolences to those affected by the horrific events that have unfolded in Southport. I cannot begin to imagine the profound grief of the families of Elsie, Bebe and Alice, or the sense of clinging that the families of those children still in hospital must be feeling right now, knowing that they would do anything to keep those beautiful babies alive.
We echo the deep gratitude for our emergency services and the courage and professionalism that they will have shown, as well as for the adults in the room who were clearly trying to protect the others who were there. The community has endured the unimaginable: young lives lost in an act of such senseless violence. I pay tribute, along with the Home Secretary, to the outreach workers, the council and the police. She will know that councils are under a lot of strain right now. Is there extra funding that they will be able to access, so that they can address not just the scars that are happening now but the scars that are likely to emerge?
Finally, the Home Secretary is right to point out that this is not the time for “what ifs”—we need the investigation to happen first. I also echo her plea to everyone to think before they post on this matter. However, will she commit to come back to the House, because at some point there will be lessons that need to be learned? I hope that, collectively as a Parliament, we can say to this grieving community that, whatever lessons may be learned, we will make sure they are also enacted.
Yvette Cooper
I welcome the hon. Member’s words and her support for Southport—the community, the families and the emergency workers. She is right to recognise the impact that dealing with something as awful as this can have on emergency workers—on those who had to respond—and it is right that we should recognise that and show our support; we owe those workers our support and thanks for what they had to face and the way they responded. But, most of all, everybody will want to support the grieving families and the victims—those who have been most affected and who will have seen huge trauma as a result. Victim Care Merseyside is already working closely to provide support. The Merseyside family liaison officers do an incredible job; I have met them in difficult circumstances in the past, and I know they will continue to do so. The Home Office and other Government Departments stand ready to work with them and to support them to make sure that the community gets the support it needs.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May I draw the attention of the House and the wider public who may be watching to the fact that the Sky News feed has a link to the JustGiving website to raise money for the bereaved families, with all the costs that will be associated with their bereavement? That is a practical way in which people can contribute.
May I also briefly draw attention to the fact that when these situations arise, some of the most heroic participants are women on the scene? I have never understood why the courageous women who went to help Lee Rigby confront his murderers never received a bravery award. I also still do not understand why Grace O’Malley-Kumar, who instead of running away from her murderer sought to fight the killer of her friend Barnaby, has not been honoured although it is not too late. Let us try to draw the inspiration we can even from the darkest of deeds such as this.
Yvette Cooper
I welcome the right hon. Member’s tributes to the bravery of those who were there—not only at the incident in Southport yesterday but at previous horrific attacks. They were called on to show great bravery in the most difficult circumstances, and we should recognise that. We should all recognise that there were adults there yesterday who did everything they could to protect children who were being attacked, and who faced awful circumstances themselves as a result. All of them will be in our hearts and in the hearts of people right across the country.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
On behalf of myself and the DUP, I extend my deepest condolences to the bereaved, the devastated families and, importantly, those in hospital who are fighting for their lives. I also put on record my thanks to all the emergency services—the police and the ambulance service—and to those adults who made themselves available with no thought to their own safety. I think the message is clear for all the families: we grieve with you, our hearts ache with you and all of us in this great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have all of you in our prayers. Parents—mums and dads—want to know that their children are safe, so does the Home Secretary agree that that must be the goal? Perhaps she can outline just how that can be achieved?
Yvette Cooper
All of us will share the hon. Member’s emotion, whether as a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle, when we think about little children being affected in this way and just how devastating all of this is. It makes every parent want to hug their children a little closer when we see something as truly appalling as this happen.
Having been in Southport today at the football club, the youth workers were really keen to say to me that they were going to continue to support Southport children all summer and continue to organise events for them. They were doing so this morning and they had children playing football. Little boys and girls were out playing football at the Southport football club today, and the youth workers and their families were supporting them. There was a real determination to come together to support families and children, to never let a horrific incident like this stop all of us supporting our children, and for them to be out in the sun this summer holiday.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
On behalf of myself and Reform UK, I offer my heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the children involved. I commend the Home Secretary: she has carried herself with great dignity today, so I thank her for that. I was just looking at the three names of the children—it is absolutely heartbreaking to see the names of these little children. I kindly ask the Home Secretary, what more can we do as a House to support these families and the emergency workers up in Southport? Please send them our love.
Yvette Cooper
I thank the hon. Member for his support for the people of Southport and all the families. This is heartbreaking for the families of Bebe, Alice and Elsie. This is a moment for everyone to send them our love and support, and to do the same for the whole community in Southport, because this affects everyone. Everyone there knows someone who maybe once went to that dance class, is a neighbour, or is deeply affected by what has happened. This is our opportunity to support them, the police, who are carrying out this crucial investigation, and all the local groups and organisations who are coming together to support each other at this very difficult time.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement about this utterly horrific incident and for the way she made it. In memory of those who have already lost their lives and those who are still suffering in hospital, can we challenge the whole knife culture that exists on the streets of many of our communities and constituencies, where people believe that somehow or other carrying a knife is a good and cool thing to do? Young people have lost their lives. A horrific incident has taken place. People are traumatised by it. That message needs to go to everybody who thinks that carrying a knife is somehow a good or cool thing to do.
Yvette Cooper
I thank the hon. Member for his support for the families who are affected and for the people in Southport. He makes a wider point about the issues around knives and knife crime. This has to be a moral mission for all of us. There is wider debate that we will have on other days about some of those issues. For today, this is still about Bebe, Elsie and Alice. This is still about the families who are waiting by the bedsides of their little children tonight, and those across the community who will be thinking of them.
Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
I join the Home Secretary in expressing my deepest and heartfelt condolences to the families of Alice, Bebe and Elsie. Words cannot express the sorrow they must be feeling after experiencing the worst nightmare of every parent. Indeed, heartfelt prayers are with all those children and elders who are still in the hospital, and solidarity with the entire community of Southport. Will there be additional support mechanisms put in place for all the emergency workers who attended the scene, to ensure their wellbeing is a priority?
Yvette Cooper
Again, I welcome the support for the families and for all those who are not just grieving, but dealing with trauma today. It is important, as I think I said earlier, that we think of the emergency service workers, who had to deal with the most difficult of circumstances on our behalf. They have done so to keep the rest of us safe. Let us be clear: they saved lives yesterday. They showed bravery when they arrived on the scene and they saved lives, and they will have endured the most difficult of circumstances to do so. I raised this with the chief constable of Merseyside and also with the chief fire officer, to ensure that those who were there, including the paramedics, get the proper support that they need. I can assure the House that I was told that that support is already being put in place and that the Merseyside police are already getting the additional support.
Police Remuneration
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
The tenth report of the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) was published today. The body considered the pay and allowances for police officers up to and including the chief superintending ranks in England and Wales. The 46th report of Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) was also published and made recommendations on the pay and allowances for the chief police officer ranks in England and Wales. I am grateful to the chairs and members for their reports and recommendations.
This Government value the vital contribution of police officers across the country who work tirelessly to keep us safe every single day.
Both the PRRB and SSRB recommended a consolidated increase of 4.75% to all police officer ranks and pay points with effect from 1 September 2024. The Government are accepting the recommendation in full. The Home Office will provide £175 million additional funding in 2024-25 to forces to help with the cost of the pay increase.
While the recommendation for a consolidated award of 4.75% is significantly above what had been budgeted for in the 2021 spending review, it is right that we accept it in full. Police officers have a crucial role to play in delivering the Government’s manifesto commitments to make Britain’s streets safe and increase public visibility through neighbourhood policing.
The PRRB also recommended that London weighting should increase by 4.75%; that the on-call allowance should be increased from £20 to £25; and that the dog handlers’ allowance should be uprated by 4.75% and the additional rate for officers with more than one dog be raised from 25% to 50% of the rate for the first dog. The SSRB recommended that the power of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) to vary a chief constable’s starting pay should be withdrawn. The Government are accepting these recommendations in full and they will take effect on 1 September 2024.
The PRRB recommended that the chief officer of police in each force should be given the discretion to set the starting salary for new constables at either pay point 1 or pay point 2 on the constables’ pay scale. This recommendation has been accepted, but implementation will be subject to detailed proposals from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) on the circumstances in which this discretion should be used, along with transition arrangements for those constables on pay point 1, to inform amendments to the Police Regulations 2003.
The PRRB also recommended the commissioners of the Metropolitan Police Service and City of London police be given further discretion to set the starting salaries of new constables at pay point 3 on the constables’ pay scale; and that this additional flexibility should be limited to a period of two years and be reviewed after one year. This recommendation has not been accepted. Instead, London allowance for officers appointed on or after 1 September 1994 will be increased by £1,250. Implementation of this increase will be synchronised alongside the wider changes to constable starting salaries.
The PRRB considered annual leave entitlements for officers in the federated ranks and recommended the time it takes to reach the maximum entitlement of 30 days should be reduced from 20 to 10 years, with effect from 1 April 2025 and phased in over three years. This recommendation has been accepted, subject to the submission of a satisfactory equality impact assessment by the NPCC to the Home Office. The PRRB further recommended that from September 2024, annual leave entitlement for new entrants should be increased from 22 to 25 days. This recommendation has been accepted but with implementation taking effect on 1 April 2025.
The Government welcome the PRRB’s recommendations that the Home Office, NPCC and APCC work together to undertake a comprehensive review of police remuneration, in order to produce a costed plan in preparation for the next spending review; and that as part of this, allowances in the NPCC’s schedule for review should be reviewed in their entirety in 2024-25. These recommendations will be subject to further discussions but must be aligned to a police workforce strategy.
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National Crime Agency Workforce Update
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
I am today announcing the Government’s decision on pay for the National Crime Agency for 2024-25.
The Government received the NCA Remuneration Review Body’s 10th report on pay for NCA officers designated with operational powers at grades lower than deputy director for the NCA on 20 June 2024. This will be laid before Parliament today and published on gov.uk.
I would like to thank the chair and members of the review body for their work gathering evidence from the NCA, the Home Office, HM Treasury, and the trade unions, resulting in their detailed, comprehensive report. The Government value the independent expertise and insight of NCARRB and take on board the useful advice and principles set out in response to my predecessor’s remit letter of 20 December 2023.
This Government are committed to supporting the NCA in its fight against serious and organised crime. As leader of the SOC law enforcement system, disrupting and dismantling the most harmful organised crime groups, a strengthened NCA needs to be able to set clear strategic and operational direction, and to develop shared capabilities to drive efficiencies. A strong pay framework is vital to the NCA being able to deliver this role and maintaining its operational performance.
The transformation of the NCA is vital to the agency’s ability to tackle the rapidly evolving and complex SOC threats currently faced. Part of this transformation includes empowering the agency’s ability to attract, recruit and retain the skilled workforce it needs, particularly those with technological and specialist skills, such as forensic scientists and cyber-security experts.
The recommendations for 2024-25 are as follows:
A redesign of the agency’s job architecture and an evaluation of all roles to consider which grades and posts are comparable to police officers and which are comparable to the civil service, police staff or the private sector.
A consolidated pay award of 5% for all NCA officers in grades 1 to 6. The spot rates for grades 1 to 5, and the minima and maxima of the standard pay ranges for grades 1 to 6, should be raised by 5%.
A 5% increase to the London and south-east weighting allowance.
A review of the allowances of NCA officers in Northern Ireland, with a view to those NCA officers who are subject to similar risks to Police Service of Northern Ireland officers receiving the same allowance as PSNI officers.
After careful consideration, I have decided to take the following approach:
Fully accept recommendations two and three: This headline 5% award and associated location allowance uplift will support and underpin the NCA’s ambition to recruit and retain the skilled workforce it requires.
Partially accept recommendations one and four: While I am supportive of the central premise of these recommendations, namely reform of the existing pay structure within the NCA, measures are already under way to develop a set of comprehensive proposals, which the Government will seek to implement in a timely fashion.
In reaching these decisions, I have given due consideration to a number of factors, including the value NCA officers give to the public by protecting them against the threat of serious and organised crime; affordability; and delivering value for the taxpaying public.
The Government endeavour to balance the need to ensure fair pay for public sector workers with protecting funding for frontline services and ensuring affordability for taxpayers. This award represents a significant increase, with this year’s 5% boost building on last year’s increase of 7%. The award will be funded within the NCA’s existing budget, and I am confident it will greatly support the agency’s efforts to eradicate the most dangerous organised crime groups operating within and against the UK.
[HCWS34]
Oral Answers to Questions
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
Before I respond to the first question, I simply want to say that I know the whole House will be concerned about the extremely serious incident that has taken place in Southport. All our thoughts will be with the families and loved ones of those affected. I have been in contact with the Merseyside police and crime commissioner and the Merseyside mayor to convey my support to the police, and our thanks to them and emergency services for their swift and courageous response. The response to this awful incident is currently unfolding, and the House and the public will be updated in due course.
Small boat crossings undermine our security and put lives at risk. Criminal gangs are profiting from this trade in human lives. That is why we are establishing a new border security command with additional cross-border police, and new counter-terror powers.
Lee Anderson
Six boats came over the channel on Saturday, and there have been reports of another four today. That is more than 500 illegal migrants being escorted into our waters by the French authorities. Does the Home Secretary agree that it is time to stop paying the French any more money until they stop being complicit in this evil trade?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member will know that these boat crossings are extremely dangerous. Another woman died in the channel yesterday, and criminal gangs are deliberately cramming boats to maximise their profits. They have been getting away with it for far too long. That is why we need the new border security command. It is also why we need to work not simply with the French police, but with police forces and organisations right across Europe and beyond, to pursue the gangs and prevent the boats from leaving the French coast in the first place.
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
The thing about borders is that they have two sides. The best way to secure a border is to have a constructive relationship with the country that it is shared with. What steps will the Home Secretary take to reach out to France and Belgium, in order to secure the border?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right that we need to strengthen work to prevent the gangs who are pursuing this vile trade in people. That is why we have immediately strengthened the UK presence in Europol and in the operational taskforces that go after the gangs. We are already in touch with leaders in France and Italy and right across Europe, so that we can strengthen co-operation, because the gangs are getting away with it and lives are being put at risk as a result.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
May I start by extending my support to the Home Secretary for whatever incident is going on in Southport, and to Merseyside police, given the incidents we are sadly seeing in Merseyside today?
Earlier this month, the right hon. Lady refused to rule out the UK accepting migrants from European countries in exchange for a returns deal with Europe. Does she accept that under any deal she does, some of those sent to the United Kingdom from the European Union could harbour extremist ideologies or pose a security threat? Will she commit to ensuring strong safeguards, including a right of refusal on a case-by-case basis, to stop anyone who could put Britain’s security at risk from entering this country?
Yvette Cooper
There will always need to be proper safeguards on security, and proper security checks on those who come to this country, but the problem with the boat crossings is that they undermine that border security. There are no checks on dangerous boat crossings, which put lives at risk, and on who criminal gangs choose to put into boats. We are clear that we need stronger border security. That is why we are setting up a new border security command, and counter-terror powers in new legislation. We recognise that returns—for example, of failed asylum seekers—have dropped substantially since the last Labour Government were in place. We have to turn that around; we want to increase returns.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
For far too long, violence against women and girls has been treated as an inevitability, rather than the national emergency that it is. Our mission is for the whole country to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. That has to start with drastically improving the policing and criminal justice response.
Josh Fenton-Glynn
I am proud to support the Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls. I know from my time as a councillor that the experience of victims is much better if the police empathise with them. Will my right hon. Friend agree to look at work done by Alison Lowe, the Deputy Mayor of West Yorkshire, on connecting survivors with police, to ensure that the police are more empathetic when dealing with these awful crimes?
Yvette Cooper
As a West Yorkshire MP, I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the work done by not just the Deputy Mayor of West Yorkshire, but the mayor and the chief constable. They have been looking at ways to improve women’s safety on the streets and speed up charging for domestic abuse. Charge rates for domestic abuse have dropped by about 40% across the country over the last eight years. That has to be turned around, because we need justice on those terrible crimes.
Christine Jardine
I welcome the Home Secretary’s comments, particularly in the light of a National Police Chiefs’ Council report that states that one in 12 women will be victim of a violent crime by a man. While police action is necessary, does she agree that this is a whole-Government and whole-society problem? We have to look at societal change and education, including health education, and we have to look at misogyny in the round, because it is about more than just violence; it happens to women every day, in the most everyday of circumstances.
Yvette Cooper
I agree with the hon. Member that this has to be a broad mission; that is why the Prime Minister has talked about it being not just for Government or any individual Department. We will work on it across Government, but it must be about society as a whole. The Education Secretary has talked about tackling toxic misogyny in schools as well.
Alison Hume
I welcome the steps that my right hon. Friend is taking to reduce violence against women and girls. Women’s refuges and other dispersed accommodation play a vital part in helping women and their children to escape domestic abuse. Scarborough has the highest domestic abuse rate in North Yorkshire, but we do not have a single refuge in the constituency of Scarborough and Whitby. Planning permission for a women’s refuge at Danes Dyke was granted in 2022, but progress has stalled due to rising business costs. Will the Home Secretary please advise on how the shortfall in funds referenced by North Yorkshire council, Beyond Housing and Homes England can be dealt with, so that this vital service can be built?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right to point out the important work done by refuges, as well as all kinds of voluntary sector groups who do immensely important work supporting victims and providing specialist advice. We have to recognise that funding for local council services has been hit; that is one of the issues that will be covered by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in her statement in due course. We want to see work done in every community across the country as part of this mission, so that we get the best impact from every pound there is for supporting women and girls who face violence and abuse.
Mrs Blundell
My constituency carries painful scars from a time when vulnerable girls were subjected to abuse and exploitation, but across the country it is not just so-called grooming gangs that present a danger to girls; abuse happens online, in institutions and in the home. What measures will the new Government put in place to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence, to ensure that what happened to vulnerable girls in my constituency can never happen again?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an immensely important point. She is a strong voice for victims of the most terrible abuse and violence. We need to ensure that victims get support, and that action is taken against perpetrators. Too often, the focus is on the too-weak support for victims, and there is not enough proper, strong action to go after perpetrators and ensure that they face justice for their terrible crimes. We will set out a new perpetrators programme to properly ensure that the police pursue the most dangerous offenders when it comes to violence against women and girls. That is the best way to ensure that everyone can stay safe.
Jess Asato
The situation facing specialist charities is acutely difficult. Many local services have had to close their doors due to a lack of funding, including, sadly, Suffolk Rape Crisis. Long-term sustainable funding is crucial if women are to be supported after abuse and kept safe from future harm. Could my right hon. Friend confirm that Labour’s mission will include a review of funding for these life-saving services?
Yvette Cooper
Our mission needs to be comprehensive, and to involve every area and local community; it is not just about the work of Government. We want strong partnerships in every area across the country, focusing on how to prevent violence against women and girls, ensuring that victims get support and pursuing perpetrators. We are keen to work closely with voluntary and third-sector organisations and refuges to make sure that we do that.
Catherine Atkinson
There were nearly 400 offences of violence against women and girls in Derby in 2022-23—shamefully, a fifth of all crimes in the city. I welcome the £83,000 for closed circuit television that will be put into operation by our new Derbyshire police and crime commissioner, but what further support can this Government provide so that women feel safe, and are safe, in our city centres?
Yvette Cooper
I agree on the importance of that. As well as doing work specifically to target violence against women and girls, this Government are determined to increase neighbourhood policing, to get police back on the streets to make sure that people feel safe. We have lost around 10,000 neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers in the past eight years. We need to turn that around so that everyone can feel safe on our streets.
Tracy Gilbert
How will my right hon. Friend work with the devolved nations to ensure that we meet those targets?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend raises an important point. The mission needs be right across the UK. We must address this issue in all corners of our country, work in partnership, and learn from what has and has not worked in keeping women safe. We will continue to do that.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
The right hon. Lady may be aware of Plymouth’s “Male Violence against Women and Girls Report” and its recommendations. It was commissioned to help the city, including part of my constituency, rebuild following two violent tragedies in 2021. Our belief has always been that our recommendations could form a blueprint for how towns and cities across the country address violence against women and girls. Will the right hon. Lady meet me to discuss how we might work together on this issue?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member raises an important point. I have talked to Plymouth MPs over many years about the terrible incidents that Plymouth has had to endure, the impact on the community, and the importance of learning lessons to prevent future violence. We will continue to work with Plymouth, and I am sure that the safeguarding Minister will be happy to talk to her further about this. We need to ensure both prevention and a strong and robust response from law enforcement.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
I applaud the new Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls. In my previous role as the chief executive of Devon Rape Crisis, I learned how insidious widespread access to pornography among our children and young people is, and how damaging it is to both boys and girls. Could the Secretary of State assure me that the Department for Education will be involved in this mission, with a widespread education programme in all schools across the country about how dangerous pornography is? Will she commit to working with internet companies to further tighten up safeguards, in order to create a fail-safe mechanism, so that our young people cannot access this vile pornography?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member may know that a review on pornography was established under the Conservative Government. That is due to report in the autumn, and we look forward to its conclusions. Let me take the opportunity to say that we will work with anyone on tackling violence against women and girls. Far too little has been done for too long, and we have inherited a legacy of far too much damage, but we want to pull everyone together to tackle this terrible crime.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Does the Home Secretary agree that it is shocking when there is violence against female emergency workers? How committed is she to ensuring that perpetrators face the full weight of the law?
Yvette Cooper
Women must have the protection of the law wherever they face violence. That includes women emergency service workers, women police officers, and women shop workers who face violence in their job. That is one of the reasons why we are strengthening the law on assaults against shop workers, which particularly affect women at work, and why we need stronger action in policing. Too often, violence against women and girls has been seen as an inevitability, rather than a national emergency on which we need much stronger action.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Next month, the community in Twickenham will once again remember Amelie Delagrange, the French student who, many Members will remember, was brutally murdered on Twickenham Green some 20 years ago. Sadly, so little has changed since then. In a local survey by Richmond and Kingston youth council, 69% of boys said that they would not intervene, or would be unsure about intervening, if they witnessed friends sexually harassing someone. May I reiterate calls from both sides of the House for work with the Department for Education to make sure that boys, as well as girls, learn what is and is not acceptable?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member is right that this needs to start early and start young. There is a strong personal commitment from the Education Secretary to starting this in schools, and continuing it throughout life, so that young men grow up understanding the importance of challenging misogyny and standing firm against violence of all sorts against women and girls. The hon. Member refers to awful cases from the past. She is right that for too long we have seen these cases and nothing has changed. We cannot let that go on. This has to be a moment for change. It is an opportunity for all of us to come together to make sure that happens.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Home Secretary very much for her positive answers to all the questions put forward. University of Ulster research from 2023 shows that an eye-watering 98% of women in Northern Ireland experience at least one form of abuse in their lifetime. Between 2017 and 2021, 35 women and girls were murdered there, a level of violence unprecedented across this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. What discussions will the Home Secretary have with the Justice Minister back home about strategies for Northern Ireland for tackling abuse?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member is right to raise this issue; it affects us in all corners of the United Kingdom. We are keen to work in partnership everywhere and anywhere to tackle these appalling crimes. The truly awful thing is that sometimes, when a terrible murder is looked into, authorities come to the conclusion that things could have been done to prevent the abuse, or the terrible murder or crime. We have to make sure that lessons are learned, and that it is not groundhog day, with us making the same mistakes again and again.
Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
Once again, I welcome the right hon. Lady to her place. I welcome her Government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls. It is an incredibly important agenda, and it builds on the work that the previous Government —my Government—did in this area. This issue remains a long-standing priority for me. I am very proud that, as Foreign Secretary, I led the international women and girls strategy, which meant that this issue was addressed internationally, not just domestically. Her desire to halve incidents of violence against women and girls fits neatly with my aspiration at the time to make the United Kingdom the safest place in the world to be a woman or girl.
We have seen an increase in arrest rates for violence against women and girls—they went up by 25% between 2019-20 and 2022-23—and a 38% increase in charge rates for rape over a year, but we recognise that there is significant and regular under-reporting of violence against women and girls. I want to make sure the right hon. Lady’s agenda does not inadvertently dissuade women from coming forward, so what specifically will be the metric by which we measure the halving of violence against women and girls?
Yvette Cooper
The shadow Home Secretary has made the important point that we need to be addressing the prevalence of violence against women and girls, not simply the reporting. We know that there are many areas in which reporting needs to increase because there is often under-reporting, and we have work under way at the moment in order to ensure that that can be measured.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about the increase in charge rates. If a very small number increases by just a little bit, it is still a very small number. The charge rate is still far too low, and the number of prosecutions and convictions for domestic abuse is more than 40% lower than it was eight years ago. This requires a major overhaul of the system, and I look forward to working with the right hon. Gentleman’s party and with all parties in order to do that, but we must be very honest with ourselves about the damage that has been done.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
Last week’s crime figures showed that shoplifting has increased by 30% in a year and street crime has gone up by 40% in a year. At a time when antisocial behaviour has become a serious challenge in some town centres, neighbourhood policing figures are down by a further 28%. This is deeply damaging because communities need to feel safe, particularly at the heart of their communities. That is why this Government are determined to restore neighbourhood policing. The new crime and policing Bill announced in the King’s Speech will include strong measures to support neighbourhood policing and to give the police stronger powers to crack down on shoplifting and antisocial behaviour in order to keep our streets safe.
Adam Jogee
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for that answer. My constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme raise crime and antisocial behaviour with me almost daily, which is why they welcome the Government’s commitment to restoring meaningful and effective neighbourhood policing. Will she meet me to discuss how Newcastle-under-Lyme can best benefit from this important step in the right direction?
Yvette Cooper
The policing Minister and I would be very happy to talk to my hon. Friend about the importance of rebuilding neighbourhood policing in his constituency and across the country. Fundamentally, this is about making communities feel safe, and about restoring the confidence of local communities in policing and community safety in their area.
Yvette Cooper
For the former Home Secretary to talk about scrutiny and transparency, given that he failed to tell the House that he was spending £700 million over two and a half years on sending four volunteers to Rwanda, is just shocking. The problem with his policies is that he was not sending failed asylum seekers or asylum seekers anywhere. In fact, his Government sent more Home Secretaries to Rwanda than they did asylum seekers.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Lauren Edwards (Rochester and Strood) (Lab)
Yvette Cooper
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important case. This was an awful attack on a serving soldier in her constituency. All of our thoughts will be with him and with his family and friends, and we wish him a most speedy recovery. We give Kent Police our full support in investigating this incident and in providing reassurance and community patrols in the area.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Spiking is a terrible crime, it is extremely dangerous and too often it is not taken seriously enough. We will work with anyone and everyone to tackle this appalling crime, so that not only is more work done to prevent spiking in the first place, but, when it does take place, the perpetrators feel the full force of the law.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
Yvette Cooper
I think most people in this country want to see strong border security and a properly controlled and managed asylum system, where we do our bit for those who have fled persecution and conflict, but where those who have no right to be here are returned. We do not have any of those things at the moment. That is why we are strengthening our border security and why we continue to support important routes such Homes for Ukraine and the support for Afghanistan.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
In Tooting town centre, we have had Operation Kenny rolled out this year, which has been fantastic in tackling violent crime and making people feel safer. It has meant more police patrolling the streets on a continuous basis and has led to a 70% reduction in crime. We would like to see that programme rolled out across the country, so can I tempt the Home Secretary to visit Tooting to see the fantastic effects that it is having?
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
Yvette Cooper
I agree with the hon. Member that the problems we have seen with off-road bikes—the deafening and distressing harassment that they can sometimes cause—are serious. That is why this Government are determined to strengthen the law on off-road bikes to give the police more powers and to put more police on the street. I hope that his party will support that now.
Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)
In my home town of Blackpool, knife crime has risen 416% since 2015-16. When I was out with young people in Blackpool a few weeks ago, they told me that it is now the norm that young people across my town carry a knife. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me to discuss this matter urgently and address the issue in Blackpool?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right that we have seen deeply damaging increases in knife crime. That is why we are making it part of our mission on crime to halve knife crime over the next 10 years. That has to involve stronger action on knife sales, stronger action in the law and stronger prevention with the new young futures programme.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The seasonal agricultural workers scheme remains absolutely vital for farmers, largely due to the piecemeal nature of its running by the last Government, which means that farmers have not been able to make the investment decisions that they want to. Will the Home Secretary commit now to a scheme for the whole of this Parliament to provide certainty to farmers and workers?
Immigration and Home Affairs
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
I beg to move amendment l, at the end of the Question to add:
“but respectfully regret that the Gracious Speech does not commit to boosting defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030 with a fully funded plan, fails to include measures that provide an adequate deterrent to migrants crossing the channel illegally, fails to mention rural communities, farming and fishing, does not include a legally binding target to enhance the UK’s food security or a commitment to increase the UK-wide agriculture budget by £1 billion over the course of the Parliament, introduces new burdens on businesses without sufficient measures to support them, fails to set out a concrete plan to tackle the unsustainable post-covid rise in the welfare bill, does not adequately protect family finances and the UK’s energy security in the move to net zero, and fails to provide adequate protections for pensioners and working people to keep more of the money they have worked hard for.”
Yesterday, at the Dispatch Box, I welcomed the Home Secretary to her role, and I now take the opportunity to congratulate the wider ministerial team who work with her. They will have inherited a hard-working team of civil servants dedicated to the protection of this country and the people within it. However, I am sad that the hon. Member for Aberafan Maesteg (Stephen Kinnock) has not made the transition from shadow immigration Minister to immigration Minister. His contributions are a great loss to the Conservative party.
With the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson) in her new ministerial role, I am sure the Clerks of the Home Affairs Committee will be looking forward to arranging her first session promptly and will, like me, be closely monitoring how quickly her new boss fully implements all the recommendations of the Committee she formerly chaired.
While I do not have time to mention each of the new ministerial team individually, I want to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips). She knows I planned to single her out and I do not apologise for doing so; I think that it is a very good appointment and she is well suited to her role as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for victims and safeguarding. She knows that tackling violence against women and girls was a priority for me. We have previously shared the stage at events in the House discussing that subject. I genuinely look forward to working with her and contributing in any way I can to her success in this incredibly important area of public policy. She has highlighted some of the crucial work that this place can do in bringing to the attention of the country and the wider world the continued plight of too many women.
The election highlighted the important work of the Home Office in defending democracy. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), the former security Minister, for his work with the defending democracy taskforce. Again, that is an area where we will seek to be a constructive Opposition. I was disgusted to see how the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley and many other, mostly female, colleagues and candidates were treated during the general election campaign. No one who cares for democracy, irrespective of their party affiliation, should be willing to tolerate that. The defending democracy taskforce continues to have incredibly important and urgent work to do. We should continue to work together, as we did when our roles were reversed, to root out violence and intimidation, and to ensure that candidates and Members can vote with their conscience and campaign with their hearts, free from intimidation or threats.
While the Prime Minister has been enjoying his honeymoon period at NATO and welcoming visitors to the European Political Community event at Blenheim Palace, which was very well organised by this Government’s predecessors in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the same honeymoon period has sadly not been afforded to the Home Secretary. Members will all be familiar with the seven days of creation; the new Home Secretary has managed seven days of destruction. On day one, she cancelled the partnership with Rwanda, taking away the deterrent that the National Crime Agency said we needed in order to break the business model of people smuggling gangs. In doing so, on day two, she created a diplomatic row with Rwanda, whose Ministers sadly had to read about the Government’s decision in the British media, rather than receiving direct communication from the Government. That was a level of diplomatic indecency that will cast a shadow over the relationship not just with that country, but with many others.
On day three, the Home Secretary announced an effective amnesty for tens of thousands of people who arrived here illegally. We said that the incoming Labour Government would do that. They promised that they would not, yet that is exactly what they did. On day four, she started work on getting back into the EU through the back door by negotiating to take more migrants from the continent. On day five, a Labour Government Minister went on national radio to advocate the relaxing of visa rules from the EU, before being slapped down for saying the quiet bit out loud.
On day six, Home Office figures released by the Government showed that the visa curbs that I put in place when I became Home Secretary have cut migration by 48% since last June—she can thank me for that later. On the seventh day, the Home Secretary probably tried to get some rest, but she will now know what I have long known, which is that, as Home Secretary, there is not the luxury of that day of rest.
Therefore, despite a terrible first week of weather to bring in the new Labour Government, we saw almost 500 asylum seekers arrive on small boats. As of today—
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
Will the right hon. Member give way?
Mr Cleverly
The Home Secretary will be making a speech in due course.
As I say, almost 500 asylum seekers arrived in the first week, and, as of today, more than 2,000 asylum seekers have arrived in small boats since Labour took office. The second week at work was not much better.
Mr Cleverly
The right hon. Member has the opportunity to speak in a moment. We have seen riots in her back garden, on the streets of Leeds, and police officers, clearly not confident that they will enjoy her support, having to take a backseat. Like so much of what was said ahead of this general election, “Take back our streets” was clearly just a Labour slogan.
We then saw Neil Basu, a very highly respected former police officer, with whom I worked when I was on the Metropolitan Police Authority, and General Stuart Skeates, a senior official at the Home Office, with whom I worked in a former life as well as when I was Home Secretary, ruling themselves out of leadership of the new so-called border security command. They did so, I am sure, because they know what we know, which is that that is little more than a fig leaf to hide the fact that the Labour Government are doing less on migration and hoping to achieve more. The reality, as everybody including the people smugglers know, is that the small boats problem is only going to get worse under Labour.
Yvette Cooper
I thank the shadow Home Secretary for giving way. It is a shame to puncture his fantasy and bring him down to the real world in which he and his party trebled net migration and left us with the highest level of spring boat crossings on record. Perhaps he can answer just one factual question. He has spent £700 million over two and a half years running the Rwanda scheme; can he tell us how many asylum seekers he has sent?
Mr Cleverly
As I said on the radio this morning, if the right hon. Lady is going to pluck figures out of the air, she should avoid nice round numbers, because it is a bit of a giveaway. She will know that we brought people into detention and that we had chartered flights. The fact that the new Government scrapped the scheme and, with a degree of diplomatic discourtesy, did not even—[Interruption.] Labour Members can groan from their Benches, but they will get used to the fact that we cannot treat international partners in this way.
Our relationship with Rwanda was entered into in good faith by both parties. The Rwandans discovered that the incoming Government were tearing up that bilateral relationship in the pages of the British media. The Home Secretary should learn that her new Foreign Secretary should have had the diplomatic courtesy at least to pick up the phone to his opposite number in Rwanda to explain what was going to happen before they read about it in the British press. She and I both know that her Government would not have acted with that level of vile discourtesy had that partner been a European country. [Interruption.] Labour Members can groan all they like, but we all know that is true.
The simple fact of the matter is that the new border security command replicates in all respects the work of the small boats operational command. It took almost the whole general election campaign before the right hon. Lady attempted to clarify the roles. We still have very little clarity on the division of labour between the so-called new border security command and the small boats operational command. Yesterday, at the Dispatch Box, she tried to imply that there had been no returns under the Conservative Government, but let me put some facts and figures on the record. Last year, we returned more than 25,000 people to their home countries, including almost 4,000 foreign national offenders, in order to keep ourselves safe—foreign national offenders for whom, I would remind the House, her Prime Minister in his former guise fought tooth and nail to prevent being deported. Voluntary and enforced returns were both up by more than two thirds, at their highest level for five years—operations done by our immigration enforcement officials, which sounds a lot like a returns unit to me.
I am not sure what the right hon. Lady was doing while in opposition, but she might be surprised to learn that we were indeed smashing the gangs, and we were making sure that people were arrested and incarcerated. Last year, we smashed almost 100 criminal gangs through our law enforcement agencies. I remind the House that Labour Members voted against the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which is the legislation that we have been using to incarcerate those people smugglers. They voted against that legislation. Labour, in government, are now so worried about their continuing reputation for being and for looking weak on immigration that they felt the need to announce a raft of things to sound tough which basically already existed. They announced the border security command, even though there is already a small boats operational command. They announced a returns unit, even though immigration enforcement already does that. What will they announce next? What will they invent—the RAF? I look forward to seeing what functions are to be replicated.
We will look at legislation when it comes forward but, as I have discussed, the Government already have the tools they need, and as long as they do not undermine their own efforts by scrapping more things, we might see an opportunity for them to reduce numbers, in large part because we passed the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024. The right hon. Lady has tools at her disposal.
On legal migration, I remember coming to the Government Dispatch Box in December last year and presenting to the House a series of visa curbs to cut net migration. With our measures, 300,000 people who came here last year would no longer have the right to come, reducing migration by a record amount. Already the data is showing that, because of the actions I took as Home Secretary, visa applications are down by 48% compared with June last. On the current trajectory, net migration is set to halve in the next 12 months, thanks to the actions that I took—actions opposed by the Labour party at the time.
The Labour manifesto said that net migration would come down, but not by how much. As I said, the first 50% of that reduction is because of actions I took. Perhaps, in her speech, the right hon. Lady can confirm how much further than that 50% she envisages bringing net migration down. Labour talked tough ahead of the election about clamping down on employers bringing in foreign workers, but those plans have apparently now been shelved, as we saw nothing of them in the King’s Speech and have not heard anything more about them.
On policing and crime, I am delighted to have my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) as shadow Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime. There are many brilliant things about Stockton, a place I have visited and enjoyed, and he is of course one of those wonderful things. I welcome the plans set out in the King’s Speech for a crime and policing Bill to tackle issues such as antisocial behaviour, retail crime and knife crime and to drive up standards in the police force. Of course I welcome them, because those are issues that I put forward when I was Home Secretary. The Government can therefore count on our general support for these measures, if they bring forward detailed proposals that properly address the issues. I really hope that the right hon. Lady has more success than I had getting her colleague, the Mayor of London, to focus on bringing down violent crime in our capital city. We will of course scrutinise the legislation alongside the victims, courts and public protection Bill.
Over the previous Parliament, it was the Conservative party that put 20,000 new police officers on the streets. At the election, we promised to hire an additional 8,000 full-time, fully warranted police officers to protect our neighbourhoods. During the general election campaign, the Labour party made no such commitment, limiting their aspirations to only 3,000 full-time, fully warranted officers. I hope that they will match our commitment to 8,000.
Mr Cleverly
I am very proud of the fact that in many parts of the country, including my county of Essex, there are now more warranted police officers than at any time in the force’s history—in sharp contrast to Labour-run London, where the Conservative Government put money on the table to recruit extra Metropolitan police officers and the Labour Mayor of London has spectacularly failed to recruit those officers, has not backed officers when they said they needed to do more stop and search, and has seen knife crime accelerate, distorting the whole national picture. I really hope that the right hon. Lady takes this seriously. She can chuckle all she likes, but this is about kids getting stabbed on the streets of London, and she should take this more seriously. [Interruption.] She should recognise that we introduced tougher sentences under the Public Order Act 2023 to clamp down on disruptive protests—the benefit of which we have already seen this week with the jailing of Just Stop Oil protesters—in addition to plans to grant the police further powers to clamp down on protests that go too far and disrupt the lives of people around this country.
Yvette Cooper
The shadow Home Secretary knows he should not make such disgraceful, unfounded allegations about my response to knife crime. He knows that I have met families right across the country who are devastated by knife crime, including in towns and smaller communities and suburbs where this terrible crime is going up. His party, when in government, repeatedly failed to ban serious weapons on our streets. Will he now support this party and this Government when we bring in the bans on ninja swords and dangerous machetes that he should have brought in long ago?
Mr Cleverly
I made the observation that, while I was talking about young people getting stabbed, the right hon. Lady was chatting and chuckling with her colleagues on the Front Bench. That was a statement of fact. The point is that we have got a grip of crime, but in the parts of the country controlled by Labour police and crime commissioners, including London, that is sadly not the case.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
I welcome everybody to the final day of the King's Speech debate. I also welcome the shadow Home Secretary’s words about the excellent ministerial team that we now have in the Home Office, and his continued support for the defending democracy taskforce, which I know he and his shadow Security Minister, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), took immensely seriously when they were in government. I can tell the House that we will be meeting later this week, our first meeting after the election, to review some of the issues that I know have affected Members right across the country. We are extremely serious about what happened during the election and how we all need to respond and to stand up for our democracy.
To listen to the shadow Home Secretary, no one would think he had just spectacularly lost a general election; apparently under the Conservatives we have just all had it so good for such a long period of time. However, I am glad to see him enjoying opposition so much. Long may it continue!
This may be the final day of the King’s Speech debate, but of course it is only the beginning of the Tory leadership hustings. The shadow Home Secretary’s name is on the list, and we look forward to his launch, maybe late this week—it is very exciting. As someone who has unsuccessfully stood for their party’s leadership in the past, I do have some sympathy with his predicament. It is not just that he is only the bookies’ fifth favourite; he is not even the leading candidate from Essex, or even the leading candidate from his shadow Home Office team.
I have some bad news for both the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Security Minister, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge. Their chances have been dealt a hammer blow by that strategic brain and deputy leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden), who was elected at the same time as them in 2015. When asked who the stars of his generation are, he said:
“There’s only two people from my generation that I could see leading the Conservative party: Rishi Sunak or Vicky Atkins.”
How disappointing is that? Discounted by the great election guru of the Conservative party before they have even started.
Mr Cleverly
Just for expectation management, may I ask when the Home Secretary will start talking about her portfolio?
Yvette Cooper
The shadow Home Secretary spent his entire speech not talking about any of the challenges that the country faces but simply playing to the Conservative Back Benches with a fantasy leadership application speech.
What is it about these former Home Secretaries and Ministers? Apparently, of the last seven Home Office Ministers in Cabinet, six of them are running. We have the previous Home Secretary, the Home Secretary before that and the Home Secretary but one before that—the same person, strangely, because, never forget, it is possible to be sacked from the same job twice—plus the Home Secretary before that, the former Security Minister and the former Immigration Minister.
They have quite a record between them: they have trebled net migration, let boat crossings hit a record high this spring, decimated neighbourhood policing—there are 10,00 fewer neighbourhood police and police community support officers on our streets—let record numbers of crimes go unsolved, bust the Home Office budget by billions, and, yes, spent £700 million sending just four volunteers to Rwanda. If they are now lining up to do to the Tory party what they have already done to the Home Office and the country, well, frankly, they deserve each other. Every one of them championed that policy on Rwanda—although the shadow Home Secretary, to be fair to him, did notoriously describe it as “batshit” crazy. Well, maybe that is what someone needs to be to stand for Tory leader right now. [Interruption.]
We have heard that the Conservatives are going to run this contest until November. We have five months—[Interruption.] Oh, does the shadow Home Secretary want to deny having ever described the Rwanda programme and development partnership as “batshit”? I will give way to him if he would like to respond.
Mr Cleverly
If the right hon. Lady can say when, where and to whom that was said, carry on.
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. Gentleman was the one who said it, so he is the one who will know. If he wants to deny that he ever said it, I will not say it again—honestly—but I think that he protests a little too much with this sort of wriggling. He would not do very well under interrogation.
We have heard today that the leadership contest will run until November. We have five months of this. There are hardly any Tory MPs here because they are all off doing their little chats and meetings. It is like a cross between “Love Island” and the jungle. Rob and Suella have broken up, and now John has gone off with Kemi. Everyone is looking over their shoulder for snakes and rats. Apparently somebody has had a nervous breakdown, and that is probably all of their Back Benchers, dreading getting a little text saying that another candidate wants a chat. We can see it. Look at them all. They are all saying, “I am a Tory MP. Get me out of here.” That is exactly what our Labour MPs have just done: they have got a lot of Tory MPs out of here because the country is crying out for change—for what the Prime Minister has described as a decade of national renewal on our economy, our public services and our relationship with the world, and in politics itself, by bringing politics back into public service again.
I say to all hon. Members, on my side and on the Opposition Benches, that I will work with everyone to restore Britain’s sense of security, public safety on our streets, secure borders, and confidence in our police and criminal justice system. Yes, I will repeatedly challenge the Conservatives on the legacy that they have left us, because the damage is serious, and I think that they have been hugely reckless with the safety of our country. Yes, the approach and values of our parties may be different, but I think that there are important areas where we should be able to come together to bring change in the interests of our country, our communities and our security, because that is what public service means. That is what this Labour Government are determined to do. We have set out in the King’s Speech three Home Office Bills on crime and policing, borders and asylum, and security. I will cover each issue in turn, starting with safety on our streets and confidence in the police and the criminal justice system.
Everyone will have, fresh in their minds, the concerns raised by constituents during the election campaign. I fear that, at a time when we have 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police and PCSOs, confidence in policing has dropped. Street crime and knife crime are surging in towns and suburbs—not just in our cities—and shoplifting has become an epidemic. Those are the kinds of crimes that really affect how people live in their own communities, yet too little is being done.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her new position. Before the election was called, we had succeeded in a cross-party campaign to make cuckooing a criminal offence in the Criminal Justice Bill, which then sadly fell. I notice that in the crime and policing Bill, there is no mention at all of cuckooing. Does she support the idea of making cuckooing—using the homes of the most vulnerable in society for criminal behaviour—a criminal offence? If so, will she commit to introducing that process again? She would have my support, and I can guarantee that she would have the support of the previous Government, because I told them so at the time. Over to her.
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. Member raises an immensely important point, which we support. I am happy to talk to him further, or he can talk to the Minister with responsibility for victims and safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips). A series of issues included in the Criminal Justice Bill, which fell when the election was called, had cross-party support and need to be taken forward.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her appointment. One issue that was agreed on a cross-party basis was the campaign that we led on abolishing the Vagrancy Act 1824. We concluded that that change would be beneficial for homeless people because they would no longer face arrest and would be provided with assistance. Will she commit, on behalf of the Government, to introducing that change as part of the legislation?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member makes an important point—there was a lot of cross-party agreement. There were also areas where the last Government’s attempt to respond ended up provoking a lot of disagreement and where we had different views. I suggest that he discusses the detail further with the new Home Office Ministers, because we take the matter seriously but want to ensure that we get it right and do not make the errors that the previous Government made in the detail of their response.
As well as the issues around community and town centre crime, we have had an important report from the police today warning that violence against women and girls is “a national emergency” that has not been taken seriously for far too long. We have record levels—90%—of crime going unsolved. The criminal justice system and prisons are being pushed into crisis. Too many people have the feeling that nothing is done and no one will come. We cannot go on like that.
For us in the Labour party, this is rooted in our values. Security is the bedrock of opportunity. Families cannot prosper and get on in life if they do not feel safe. Communities cannot be strong if they do not feel secure. A nation cannot thrive if it is under threat. Respect for each other and the rule of law underpin who we are as a country; they are how we sustain our democracy and our sense of justice and fairness. Too often, those things have felt undermined.
That is why we have made safer streets one of the five central missions of this Labour Government—a mission to restore and rebuild neighbourhood policing, to restore trust and confidence in policing and the criminal justice system, and to deliver our unprecedented ambition of halving serious violence within a decade. That is a hugely ambitious mission: halving serious violence means halving knife crime and violence against women and girls over the next 10 years. I know that will be extremely difficult, but I ask everyone to be part of it, because it is so important and we should all be trying to keep people safe.
Florence Eshalomi
I welcome the Home Secretary to her place, and I know that she has campaigned on this really important area for many years. She talked about all of us being involved in this mission. Does she agree that the people who are working with these communities on the ground—youth workers, independent domestic violence advocates, doctors in A&E units, school employees and teachers—all need to be involved in this conversation? Many of those people see what is happening before the authorities do, and it is vital that they are part of this national conversation.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is exactly right. This has to be a mission for all of us—it is not just about what the Home Office does, although we want the Home Office to do so much more in this area. It is not just about what the Government do; it has to be about all of us. It has to be about recognising that for generation after generation, people have just shrugged their shoulders about unacceptable violence against women and girls. It has just been seen as normal—just one of those things that happens—when actually, we should not stand for it. This is an opportunity for change, and to bring everyone together to make that change. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that those who are on the frontline, seeing that violence in practice, are often also those who know what needs to be done.
As part of the new crime and policing Bill, we will bring forward measures to tackle violence against women and girls. That includes making sure that we have specialist rape and sexual assault units in every police force and specialist domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms, recognising the terrible tragedy of what happened to Raneem Oudeh and how devastating it was: she called 999 four times on the night she was killed, and no one came. For her and her family, we have to make sure that we make changes. We have to get neighbourhood police back on the beat, so we will introduce a new neighbourhood policing guarantee and new arrangements to cut waste, compelling forces to change the way they procure, in order to make the savings we need—savings that we will put back on the frontline.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Home Secretary for her speech and for all the possibilities she has put forward, which we will hopefully endorse later today when the votes come. As the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) mentioned, an attitude change needs to happen in society, and it is important that the media promote it in a positive way.
There have been, I think, 28 murders of women and girls across Northern Ireland over the past few years. That concerns me greatly, so when the Home Secretary brings forward the ideas she is describing in the form of legislation in this House, will she share those policy and legislative changes with the Northern Ireland Assembly? What she has described today can be beneficial for all of us in this United Kingdom, and in particular for Northern Ireland. It is really important that my constituents and ladies and girls across Northern Ireland feel safe, and at the moment, they do not.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member makes a really important point: this is about all of us, and Northern Ireland has some of the highest levels of domestic abuse murder. This issue is immensely serious, and the safeguarding Minister is already planning to have those discussions, because we should all be learning from each other about what it takes to save lives and keep people safe.
We will bring in new powers on antisocial behaviour, including new respect orders and new action on off-road bikes, which are dangerous and deafening and are being used to terrorise some communities. We will also take action against the soaring shoplifting that has seen supermarkets chain butter, cheese and fabric conditioner to the shelves, reversing the previous Conservative policy on low-value theft, and we will stand up against the appalling violence against shop workers. For years, the Co-op, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, major retailers, small shop owners and shop workers across the country have urged us to strengthen the law against assaults on shop workers, and through this King’s Speech, we will do so.
We will also increase standards in policing, including through mandatory vetting standards across forces and improvements around misconduct.
Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)
On the topic of mandatory vetting, does my right hon. Friend agree that we should also have psychological testing for the police? Some of the incidents that have been brought to light, such as the kidnapping and killing of Sarah Everard and the pictures taken of Bibaa and Nicole in Brent, are appalling and can only be done by people who have lost compassion in their job.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Some of this is about the vetting standards before people are appointed as police officers, but some of it is about the culture that can operate within forces—or small groups within forces—that always needs to be challenged, including by leadership. We want to see national vetting standards.
Let us be clear: there are police officers who do an incredible job every day of the week to keep us all safe, while also showing immense bravery. For 14 years running, I have been to the police bravery awards to hear incredible stories of heroism, but those brave officers are badly let down—just as communities are badly let down—when other officers fail to meet those standards or when they abuse the power they have. That is why the standards and safeguarding issues are so important.
Turning to knife crime, no parent should have to lie in bed worrying that a son or daughter might not come home. One of the hardest things is to talk to parents who are grieving—who stand with a photo in a frame, because that is all they have. It is important that all our communities take action to prevent our young people from being dragged into crime and violence. The King’s Speech means new laws to get dangerous knives off the streets, such as ninja swords of the type that was used to kill 16-year-old Ronan Kanda near his home in Wolverhampton two years ago. I pay tribute to the tireless campaigning of Pooja, Ronan’s mother. We will also set up a radical new Young Futures prevention programme to stop our teenagers being drawn into a life of violent crime, bringing services together around young people in the way that the last Labour Government’s Sure Start programme did for our youngest children. It will be a programme for teenagers, to help them get back on track.
We will also bring forward new legislation on borders, security and immigration. Legal migration has trebled in the past five years; the biggest driver has been overseas recruitment, with work visas soaring because the last Government ran what was effectively a free-market, laissez-faire approach to both the economy and the immigration system. They completely failed to tackle skills shortages: areas such as engineering have been on the shortage list for decades if not generations, never having a proper programme. We have seen the number of engineering visas go up while the number of engineering apprenticeships has gone down. We have to turn that around, which is why, as well as continuing with visa controls, we will draw up new arrangements to link the points-based system with new skills plans. That is why the Education Secretary has drawn up plans for Skills England.
Jim Shannon
One of the issues we have been pursuing over the past few years has been the fishing visa scheme to bring crews in. The last Government brought suggestions forward, but they put a very high ceiling on wages, meaning it was impossible for some of the crews in the fishing boats to bring people in under the visa scheme. Will the Home Secretary meet me and other interested parties in this Chamber who represent fishing communities to discuss a way forward? I believe there is a way of doing it, and I very much look forward to working with the Home Secretary to ensure that that is a possibility and that we have a future.
Yvette Cooper
I am sure the hon. Member will continue to raise issues in this Chamber until every Minister has met him on one issue or another, and I am sure all of our Home Office Ministers will be willing to do so.
Let me turn to the issues of asylum policy, many of which we discussed yesterday. I have highlighted them, and I will continue to do so because I am still, frankly, shocked about the amount of money that was spent.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
We have heard lots about tough action on asylum seekers and tough action on immigration. What the Home Secretary has not talked about in her statement yesterday and her speech today is the value of immigration, how it assists our economy and how it enriches some of our communities. Can we hear some more about that from the Home Secretary, because surely we are not going to replace one Tory hostile environment with a new Labour hostile environment?
Yvette Cooper
Let us be clear: immigration is important to our country and has been through the generations, with people coming to this country to start some of our biggest businesses or to work in a public services, but it also needs to be properly controlled and managed, so that the system is fair and so that rules are properly respected and enforced. The issue of illegal migration trebling over the last five years has, I think, reflected some fundamental failures around skills and fundamental failures around the way the economy works. It is important that those are addressed, and that we do not just shrug our shoulders and turn our backs. We believe in having a properly controlled and managed system, and that is the right way to deal with this.
Similarly, turning to asylum, it has always been the case that this country has done its bit to help those fleeing persecution and conflict, and we must continue to do so, but we must also have a properly managed and controlled system. We raised yesterday the shocking scale of the £700 million spent sending four volunteers—just four volunteers—to Rwanda. The decisions on the asylum hotel amnesty that the Conservatives have in effect been operating are actually even worse and have cost even more money. I know that the shadow Home Secretary has said that he does not recognise those figures, but I wonder if he actually ever asked for them. I would say to him that it was one of the first things I asked for, because I am sick and tired of seeing Governments just waste money with careless policies when they have never actually worked out how much they are going to cost.
The Conservatives’ policy under the Illegal Migration Act 2023—with the combination of sections 9 and 30 —was to have everybody enter the asylum hotel system or the asylum accommodation system, and never to take any decisions on those cases. There is a shocking cost to the taxpayer of up to £30 billion over the next few years on asylum accommodation and support. It also means that the rules just are not being respected and enforced. It is deeply damaging and undermines the credibility of the asylum system, but it also leaves the taxpayer paying the price.
Yes, the King’s Speech does bring forward new legislation on borders, asylum and immigration. That will include bringing forward new counter-terror powers, including enhanced search powers and aggressive financial orders for organised immigration crime, and we are recruiting new cross-border police officers, investigators and prosecutors, as well as a new border commander. This is part of a major upgrade in law enforcement, working with cross-border police stationed across Europe to be able to tackle, disrupt and dismantle the actions of criminal gangs before they reach the French coast.
Finally, let me turn to national security, because when it comes to defending our nation against extremists and terrorists, against state challenges and hostile threats, or against those who try to undermine our democracy and values, I hope this House will always be ready to come together. I pay tribute to the police and the intelligence and security services, which work unseen to keep us safe. In that spirit, I hope the whole House will be ready to support Martyn’s law, drawn up by the tireless Figen Murray in memory of her son Martyn Hett, so that we learn the lessons from the terrible Manchester attack, when children and their parents who went out for a special night never came home and lives could have been saved. That, I hope, is the moment to end on, because we will debate, argue and have differences of view, but in this House, at the very heart of our democracy, we can also come together to keep communities safe.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Christopher Chope)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Border Security and Asylum
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for standing up for the Opposition Front Benchers, as I know you have often done for me in the past? I apologise to the shadow Home Secretary for the delay in the arrival of the statement.
Most people in the United Kingdom want to see strong border security, with a properly controlled and managed asylum system where our country does its bit, alongside others, to help those who have fled persecution, but where rules are properly respected and enforced so that those with no right to be here are swiftly removed. At the moment, we have none of those things. Border security is being undermined by criminal smuggler gangs, and the asylum system is in chaos. Tragically, 19 lives have been lost in the channel so far this year, including children. No one should be making these perilous small boat journeys.
Criminal gangs have been allowed to take hold along our border, and they are making huge profit from undermining our border security and putting lives at risk. They should not be able to get away with it. Crossings in the first half of 2024 are up by 10% on last year—the number is going up, instead of coming down. At the same time, the asylum backlog is getting worse, as decision making in the Home Office has dropped. Home Office spending on asylum support has increased sevenfold in the space of just three years. This cannot go on. Since my appointment two weeks ago, I have reviewed the policies, programmes and legislation that we have inherited from our predecessors, and I have been shocked by what I have found. Not only are there already serious problems; on current policies, the chaos and costs are likely to get worse.
On our border security, it is clear that the security and enforcement arrangements we have inherited are too weak. Criminal gang networks are operating with impunity along our border, across the continent and beyond, and across the UK too. Action between Britain and France in the channel has improved, and is preventing some boat crossings. The work of the small boats operational command in the channel is important and will continue, but we need to go much further. We should be taking far more action upstream, long before the boats ever reach the French coast. Co-operation with Europol and other European police forces and prosecutors is far too limited, and enforcement against exploitation and trafficking in the UK is far too weak. Information sharing with our European neighbours has reduced, rather than increased. As a result of these weak arrangements, I am extremely concerned that the high levels of dangerous crossings that we have inherited are likely to persist throughout the summer.
Let me turn to the Rwanda migration and economic development partnership. Two and a half years after the previous Government launched it, I can report that it has already cost the British taxpayer £700 million—in order to send just four volunteers. That includes £290 million on payments to Rwanda and the costs of chartering flights that never took off, detaining hundreds of people and then releasing them, and paying for more than 1,000 civil servants to work on the scheme—for a scheme to send four people. It is the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen.
Looking forward, the costs are set to get worse. Even if the scheme had ever got going, it is clear that it would have covered only a minority of arrivals, yet a substantial portion of future costs were fixed costs—for example, the annual direct payments to Rwanda, the contracts for escorts, the staffing in the Home Office, the detention and reception centres, and more. The taxpayer would have still had to pay out, no matter how few people were relocated. Most shockingly of all, over the six years of the migration and economic development partnership forecast, the previous Government had planned to spend over £10 billion of taxpayers’ money on the scheme. They did not tell Parliament that. I thank the Rwandan Government for working with the UK in good faith, because the failure of this policy lies with the previous UK Government. It has been a costly con, and the taxpayer has had to pay the price.
I turn to the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which has been in place for a year. We were told that it would stop the boats, but it has clearly failed. The legal contradictions in the Act are so great that they make it unworkable; indeed, 12 months on, the central duty has not even been enacted. It is also costing the taxpayer billions of pounds. Under section 9 of the Act, people who arrive in the UK can claim asylum and get asylum accommodation. However, under section 30, if they arrived after March 2023 and meet key conditions in the Act, no decision can be taken on their case; they just stay in the asylum system. Even if they have come here unlawfully for economic reasons and should be returned to their home country, they will not be, because the law does not work. Only a small minority might ever have been sent to Rwanda; everyone else stays indefinitely in taxpayer-funded accommodation and support.
The Home Office estimates that around 40% of asylum cases since March 2023 should be covered by those Illegal Migration Act conditions. The remaining 60%, under the previous Government’s policy, should still have been processed and cleared in the normal way. However, even though previous Ministers introduced this new law 12 months ago, they did not ever introduce an effective operational way for the Home Office to distinguish between the cases covered by the Illegal Migration Act and the other cases where decisions should continue—that is, between the 40% and the 60%. As a result, decisions cannot be taken on any of them.
I have been shocked to discover that the Home Office has effectively stopped making the majority of asylum decisions. Thousands of asylum caseworkers cannot do their proper job. As a result, the backlog of asylum cases is now going up. This is the most extraordinary policy I have ever seen. We have inherited asylum “Hotel California”—people arrive in the asylum system and they never leave. The previous Government’s policy was effectively an amnesty, and that is the wrong thing to do. It is not just bad policy, it is also completely unaffordable. The cost of this indefinitely rising asylum backlog in hotel and accommodation support bills is astronomical. The potential costs of asylum support over the next four years if we continue down this track could be an eye-watering £30 billion to £40 billion. That is double the annual police budget for England and Wales.
This newly elected Government are not prepared to let this chaos continue, so let me turn to the action we are urgently taking to restore some grip to the system, to tackle the chaos and to get costs down. First, I have informed the Rwandan Government that we will be ending the migration and economic development partnership. We will save £220 million on further direct payments to Rwanda over the next few years and we will immediately save up to £750 million that had been put aside by the previous Government to cover the MEDP this year.
Secondly, we will invest some of the saved money from the migration partnership into a new border security command instead. It will bring together the work of the Border Force, the National Crime Agency, the small boats operational command and intelligence and security officers. The recruitment has begun for a new commander and we will put in place additional cross-border officers, investigators, prosecutors, and intelligence and security officers with the new counter-terror-style powers against organised immigration crime announced in the King’s Speech last week. We are immediately increasing UK officers’ involvement in Europol and the European Migrant Smuggling Centre.
Thirdly, we will replace the Rwanda migration partnership with a serious returns and enforcement programme. We have immediately replaced the flight planning for Rwanda with actual flights to return people who have no right to stay to their home countries instead. We are immediately redeploying Home Office staff away from the failed Rwanda partnership and into returns and enforcement, to reverse the collapse in removals that has taken place since 2010. I have tasked the immigration enforcement team with intensifying enforcement activity this summer, targeting illegal working across high-risk sectors.
Fourthly, we will end the asylum chaos and start taking asylum decisions again so that we can clear the backlog and end asylum hotels. The new border security, asylum and immigration Bill announced in the King’s Speech will bring in new replacement arrangements, including fast-track decisions and returns to safe countries. In the meantime, I am laying a statutory instrument that ends the retrospective nature of the Illegal Migration Act provisions, so that the Home Office can immediately start clearing cases from after March 2023. Making this one simple change will save the taxpayer an estimated £7 billion over the next 10 years. Fifthly, as the Prime Minister has just set out, we will work closely with our European neighbours to tackle the upstream causes of migration, including through the Rome process.
This country will always do our bit alongside others to help those fleeing war and persecution, but we need a proper system where rules are enforced. There are no quick fixes to the chaos created over the last 14 years. It will take time to clear the asylum backlog, to bring costs down and to get new enforcement in place to strengthen our borders and prevent dangerous boat crossings, but there is no alternative to serious hard graft. We cannot waste any more time or money on gimmicks. The country voted for change, and that means it is time for a sensible, serious plan. I commend this statement to the House.
Mr Speaker
This very important statement overran slightly, so I am more than happy for the Opposition spokespersons also to run over, if need be.
I call the shadow Home Secretary.
Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I welcome you back to your place, on my first opportunity to do so. In my time as Home Secretary and, before that, Foreign Secretary, you were very kind about my minor indiscretions at the Dispatch Box, my late deployment of statements and my slight overruns. You have always been very kind to my family in sometimes quite trying circumstances, which I very much appreciate.
I also take this opportunity to congratulate the right hon. Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper) on her appointment as Home Secretary. It is a challenging but incredibly rewarding job and, because the nation’s security is now very much in her and her Ministers’ hands, I genuinely wish her all success in everything she is looking to do.
The right hon. Lady inherits a dedicated team of Home Office civil servants who will help her to keep the country safe and secure. They helped me when I was in her position and, although it is disorderly to recognise their presence, if I were to wave my hand vaguely in their direction, I might take the opportunity to thank my previous private office civil servants.
My notes say that I want to thank the Home Secretary and her team for advance sight of her statement, but I will put a line through that.
The Labour party, and indeed the Home Secretary, likes to talk tough on border security, but today’s statement, despite all the hyperbole and the made-up numbers, is basically an admission of what we knew all along, which is that the Labour party has scrapped the Rwanda partnership on ideological grounds, removing a deterrent that the National Crime Agency said we needed.
The level of discourtesy directed towards the people and Government of Rwanda is quite breathtaking. To have them read about this decision in the papers before anyone from the UK Government had the good grace to formally notify them is an error, and no one in this House believes for a moment that this level of discourtesy would have happened had the partnership been with a European country.
Labour has given an effective amnesty to thousands of asylum seekers who were banned under Conservative plans. Labour’s plans amount to doing less than the Conservatives were doing when we were in government, merely changing the signs above a few desks in the Home Office with its so-called border security command and returns unit. Before the election, the right hon. Lady said that she would create a returns unit, and now the narrative is that she will redeploy some staff—not increase the number of staff, but redeploy some staff—which shows that the returns function already exists.
There is no safe third country to which to return people who cannot be returned home, so where will the right hon. Lady send people who come here from countries like Afghanistan, Iran and Syria? Has she started negotiating returns agreements with the Taliban, the ayatollahs of Iran or Assad in Syria? If she is not going to send to Rwanda anyone who arrives here on a small boat, to which local authorities will she send them? We were closing hotels when I was in government, so I wonder which local authorities will receive those asylum seekers. If not Rwanda, will it be Rochdale, Romford or Richmond? Most importantly, can the right hon. Lady now confirm that people who arrive here illegally in a small boat will be able to claim asylum? Finally, how long after the right hon. Lady briefed the media that she is scrapping the Rwanda partnership did she have the courtesy to speak directly with the Rwandan Government?
It is because we now have no deterrent that nobody wants to head her new so-called border security command. Neil Basu, a former senior police officer for whom I have huge respect, was Labour’s No. 1 choice, and he has ruled himself out. We now learn that General Stuart Skeates, a highly respected former general in the British Army, who was, in large part, responsible for delivering the Albania deal, which cut small boat arrivals from that country by 90%, has resigned from his position as director general for strategic operations. To misquote Oscar Wilde, “to lose one border commander could be seen as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness”—perhaps even incompetence. I notice that the new job advert—it is available online for those who are thinking of applying—for Labour’s border security command says that the role is not located in Kent, where the channel is, but is flexible from Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Durham, Glasgow, Liverpool or Manchester, none of which, the last time I checked, are anywhere near the English channel.
The reality is that everybody knows, including the people smugglers, that the small boat problem is going to get worse—indeed, has already got worse under Labour—because there is no deterrent. People are being sold a lie when they are being smuggled into this country, across one of the busiest shipping lanes. We need to stop them. Too many lives have already been lost. Sadly, six more have been lost in the channel in the last few weeks, and our hearts go out to them and their loved ones. We disagree on many things, but we can agree that we need to put an end to this evil trade. Sadly, the initial decisions made by her Government have made the problem worse, not better.
Yvette Cooper
I welcome the shadow Home Secretary’s words about the dedication of Home Office officials and about the importance of work on national security. As he knows, when I was shadow Secretary of State, I always worked with him and supported him around national security issues. I know he will do the same and I welcome him to his shadow post. I presume what we heard was the first of the Conservative leadership contest speeches.
I will respond to some of the things the shadow Home Secretary said. We need to be clear about what we have inherited from him and his party. Under his party, we have had the highest level of spring crossings ever. Gangs have been left to wreak havoc, not just along the French coast but across our border, through our country and back through Europe. Asylum support costs are set to rise to £30 billion to £40 billion over the next four years as a result of his and his party’s decisions.
As for the idea of deterrence, I am sorry but four volunteers being sent to Rwanda is not a deterrent to anyone for anything at all. The idea that he would spend £10 billion on this fantasy, this fiction, this gimmick rather than ever do the hard graft—£700 million has already been spent on sending just four volunteers in two and a half years. We have often warned that, frankly, it would be cheaper to put them up in the Paris Ritz. As it turns out, it would have been cheaper to buy the Paris Ritz.
As for the amnesty, I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman has ever understood the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which he voted for and he inherited from his predecessors. He asks if people who arrive illegally can claim asylum—that is exactly what happens under section 9 of that Act. They can all claim asylum, enter the asylum system and be entitled to asylum support. That is what happens in the system, which we have inherited, that he has presided over and run since he became Home Secretary. The problem is that people enter the asylum system but never leave. He did not bring in operational arrangements to try to take decisions properly. His Home Office effectively stopped taking the majority of asylum decisions in May. Perhaps he did not know that, but that is what happened in his Home Office. This party and this Government do not believe in amnesties. We think that the rules need to be respected and enforced. His party is the one that has given an effective amnesty to people who can end up staying in the asylum system forever. We believe that the rules should be enforced. The problem is that that is what the shadow Home Secretary believes too. He does not believe any of the stuff that he has just said. He is only saying it for his Tory leadership contest; he is just too weak to tell his party the truth. He thought that the whole policy on Rwanda was “batshit” and then he went out to bat for it. It is just not serious.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I welcome my right hon. Friend to her place and thank her for her statement. We all suspected that policy in the Home Office under the previous Government was a bit of a mess, but we did not realise how much of an expensive mess it was until she provided us with the details in her statement.
Let me ask the Home Secretary about the attraction for people to come here illegally to work in the black economy. If people have suspicions, they have to go to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, UK Visas and Immigration and the police to get action to deal with those activities. I note that the Home Secretary is looking to try to combine the approach to deal with illegal working in the car washing sector. Will that be a systematic change of approach, and will it be applied to other sectors as well? It would be very welcome if that were the case.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. We must tackle the illegal working and also the exploitation that can often drive a lot of what happens. That is why we are intensifying the immigration enforcement, which is part of our new, huge expansion to the returns and enforcements unit. He is right that the process, which has become too complicated and too bureaucratic, needs to be simplified to make sure that the rules are being enforced. We have set out the high-risk sectors on which we wish to focus this summer, but we need a more systematic approach. We have talked about a single enforcement approach, and we will be setting out more details about those plans.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
In 2018, the number of small boat arrivals stood at 299. In 2023, last year, the number had risen to more than 29,000. What happened in those intervening five years? One thing that happened was the closure of the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, which was introduced by the coalition Government in 2014 and was designed to select some of the most vulnerable people from refugee camps in Jordan, near Syria. What we have seen since the closure of that scheme is people choosing instead to make for these shores rather than applying in refugee camps. Will the Home Secretary rule out the offshore processing of asylum seekers, or will she consider introducing a scheme similar to the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, which could incentivise asylum seekers applying for asylum close to the war zones afflicting them?
Yvette Cooper
I welcome the hon. Member to his new post. He is right to talk about the importance of the UK doing its bit to help those who have fled persecution and conflict. It is why I strongly believe that the Homes for Ukraine programme was immensely important. Personally, it has been important to our family. It is important that the UK has done its bit, including in previous years around Hong Kong and Afghanistan. That must continue to be the case, but that help must operate alongside a properly functioning system, otherwise criminal gangs will continue to exploit the system whatever it is. At the moment, those criminal gangs are getting away with it.
Let me turn to the specific issue of offshore processing. In fact, the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme was a form of offshore processing, just as the Homes for Ukraine scheme was. There are different ways to arrange these things. Our approach is always to look at what works. As long as it meets proper standards in terms of international law, we should be serious about what it is that works in order to tackle the complex problems that we face.
Joani Reid (East Kilbride and Strathaven) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. I think that my constituents will be incredulous when they are informed of the extent to which the previous Government wasted so much money on this scheme. What commitments can she give the House that we will be able to rescind our commitments to spend further money on any such programmes, and that no further public money will be wasted?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I welcome her to Parliament, and I welcome her asking questions on this issue. We have to take a strong, rigorous and robust approach to value for money in every Department. It cannot simply be the responsibility of the Treasury; it has to be the responsibility of the Home Office, and of every Government Department. That is the approach that this Labour Government will take. I am frankly shocked that under the last Government not just the Home Office but the Treasury, the then Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues all signed off on these incredibly high payments and costs. They must have had the modelling that would tell them how much the costs would go up by, yet they signed off on them. Our Government are determined to pursue value for money at every stage.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
If the number of small boat crossings are higher next summer than this summer, will she resign?
Yvette Cooper
I realise that the right hon. Member is keen to get rid of me before I have even finished standing up at the Dispatch Box. Unfortunately, we have seen a succession of Conservative Home Secretaries—eight, I think, in the last eight years—none of whom resigned. Two of them were sacked under the last Government—actually, those two were the same person. Look, we have to be serious about this, because the dangerous boat crossings are undermining border security and putting lives at risk. Nobody should be making those journeys, and we have to work not just here but across other European countries to stop boats before they reach the French coast in the first place, to ensure that lives can be saved and the gangs are held accountable for their terrible crimes.
Josh Simons (Makerfield) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement on the shocking figures that are symbolic of the failure of Conservative Members to restore control over our borders. I note that, despite that spending of taxpayers’ cash, removals of failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders collapsed under the Conservatives. What is the Home Office doing to ensure that those who have no right to be in the UK are swiftly removed and the rules are properly enforced?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I welcome him to his seat in Parliament. He is right that removals of failed asylum seekers have fallen by a third since 2010. Removals of foreign national offenders have fallen by a quarter. That is not good enough. It means that the rules are not being respected or enforced, and it is why we will set up a new returns and enforcement programme. We have committed to 1,000 additional staff to work on returns and enforcement, to ensure that the rules are respected, not only where we have returns agreements in place but looking at individual cases as well. We must ensure that we have a system that people have confidence in. There is a lot of chaos to tackle, but we are determined to do it.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
The Home Secretary is absolutely right to lay into the Conservatives for their shambles of an immigration policy, which will define them for years to come, but all I am hearing is her being harder on asylum seekers. Enforcement seems to be her priority. When will we hear about the safe and legal routes that asylum seekers access to come to this country, and will she stop the dehumanising and scapegoating language, and pledge to take no quarter from the belligerents behind me?
Yvette Cooper
As I said in response to the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), ensuring that the UK always does its bit to help those who have fled persecution is really important. We have done so through different programmes in the past. We had the Syrian families programme back in 2015, which was important, but we also have to ensure that the system works and has credibility, and that the rules are enforced. Too often at the moment the rules are not enforced, but they need to be, so that everyone can respect the system. Also, too often we have criminal gangs causing havoc, able to undermine border security and making huge profits. It has become a criminal industry along our border, and that is deeply damaging. I agree that this cannot be about rhetoric; nobody should be ramping up the rhetoric, especially alongside gimmicks that do not work. We have to be serious about this issue and put in place sensible plans that work.
Mike Amesbury (Runcorn and Helsby) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary—the Labour Home Secretary—to her place. We have inherited an almighty mess, with asylum accommodation costing £8 million per day. It is absolute chaos and, according to The Sunday Times, there are even middlemen and middlewomen taking advantage and profiteering through the system. How is she going to get a grip of this chaos we have inherited from the previous Tory Government?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend raises an important question. As well as a failure to tackle the criminal gangs taking hold along the channel, there has also been too much of a focus on gimmicks and a failure to have practical planning in place. For example, there was a failure to ensure that there were proper long-term contracts on asylum accommodation, so that instead the chaos at Manston a couple of years ago led to last-minute hotel procurement, which was completely inappropriate accommodation and cost a fortune as well.
We have to tackle that. That is why we have set out plans and we are determined to make sure that we can get that backlog down and end asylum hotel use. As a result of the chaos with the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the fact that the Home Office had stopped taking decisions, that will now take time and it will be difficult to sort out, but that is why the statutory instrument we are laying before the House today is so important. That alone should save the taxpayer £7 billion.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I know the Labour party managed to go an entire election campaign without answering this question, and the Home Secretary failed to answer it again when asked by the shadow Home Secretary, but I will give it one more try. Where does the Home Secretary intend to send failed asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Syria and Iran?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Gentleman obviously does not understand the system that his party and his Government put in place. All the people who are in the asylum system are staying there. Under his policies for those individuals, they are now being sent all around the country into asylum hotels. That is the system the Conservatives have left us with. We do not think that is the right thing to do. We think that asylum decisions should be taken on a case-by-case basis. That is the right thing to do. We also think we should have proper returns agreements and do what his party should have been doing, under his own policies, for the 60% of people who continued to be entitled to asylum decisions but were not getting them under his Illegal Migration Act. What we will do is run the asylum system effectively, which his system should have been doing.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the forensic work she has been doing in her Department. What considerations has she given to humanitarian visas for people in Gaza to be reunited with their family, if they are studying in the UK or working in our NHS? My constituent has a wife and two little children in Gaza at the moment; he cannot return home, yet the last Government refused to make provision for them to come and be reunited with him in the UK.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend will know that there are long-standing arrangements for family reunion and for refugees. There are also different concerns that have been raised around Gaza, because there is a real importance to people’s being able to return to their homes in the middle east too. If she has an individual case that she would like to raise with my hon. Friend the Immigration Minister, she is very welcome to do so.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
When I was in the migrant camps in northern France last year, the migrants told me and some of my colleagues that one deterrent that would stop them coming would be if they were turned back in the channel or sent back the same day. We saw the Border Force agency take a boatload back just last week. Will the Home Secretary now, with that advice, grow a political backbone and order the Border Force to send the boats back the same day?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member refers to an incident in the channel where there was co-operation between Border Force and the French authorities that also involved returning people to the French coast. That operational co-operation is important, but I would just say to him that “co-operation” is the really important word. If we want to prevent gangs operating and organising, and prevent boats from reaching the French coast in the first place, we have to work closely not just with France but with Germany and other European countries, and with the countries through which some of the supply chains are operating. It is that co-operation that he and some others in his party have quite often refused, but it will be important and is our best way to stop the criminal gangs.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
In a few short days, my right hon. Friend has simultaneously saved the taxpayer a tremendous amount of money and got more people in the Home Office working on getting the system sorted than in previous years. I congratulate her on that. Does she agree that it is entirely in keeping with Labour values to ensure safe refuge for those fleeing war zones, and, at the same time, to ensure that those who are not entitled to be here are repatriated, saving the UK taxpayer money?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. There are principles here about doing our bit to help those who have fled persecution while also ensuring that the rules are enforced so that people who do not have a right to be here should be swiftly returned. At the moment, none of those things applies or is working properly. We have to restore order to the asylum system so that we can go back to the principles that, going back many years, the UK has always stood for.
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
It is a huge relief that the vile Rwanda scheme has been scrapped. I have listened carefully to the Home Secretary’s statement. Given that 94% of people seeking asylum in this country are ready and eager to work to support themselves, and that freezing them out of work leaves them in destitution and means that the UK misses out on tax revenue from their work, and on much-needed specialists and professionals such as the nurse I met recently in an asylum seeker project in Bristol, will the Home Secretary take the advice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and urgently lift the ban on asylum seekers working?
Yvette Cooper
No, I do not believe that is the right approach, because we need to make swift decisions and ensure that the rules are properly respected and enforced. I am concerned about employers who exploit those who have sometimes arrived as a result of criminal gangs, trafficking or smuggling. I do not believe that employers should be able to exploit those kinds of routes and journeys. If people who have fled persecution are granted asylum in this country, of course they should be able to work and to do so swiftly, but if they are not entitled to be here—if they have not fled persecution—and should be turned down and returned to their home country, they should not be able to work in the UK.
Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)
My constituents take this issue seriously as they are at the very frontline and the Conservatives have left us with open borders. I thank my right hon. Friend for dealing with the matter with such seriousness. How long will it take to put the border security commander in place, and what sort of impact will they have in assisting law enforcement?
Yvette Cooper
I thank my hon. Friend and welcome him to his position. I know that his Dover and Deal constituency has faced real pressures as a result of the criminal gangs and the small boat crossings. I thank him for his work and experience in tackling these issues. He knows very well the work of the National Crime Agency, for example, in tackling the criminal gangs.
We are putting in place the steps for the border security command straight away. We have already begun recruitment not just for the new commander but for additional staff: hundreds of additional cross-border police, security and intelligence officers, and specialist investigators and prosecutors. That work will start straight away. We have already immediately increased the UK presence in Europol and its European migrant smuggling centre so that we can get on with that work to build those partnerships and take action.
Greg Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)
I am sure the Home Secretary agrees that this is a moral issue: we must never again see people dying in the channel. However, does she also agree that deterrence must be a part of the panoply of measures that we put forward? I am not clear on what deterrent measures she is going to put in place or—because this question has failed to be answered a number of times—what will happen to failed asylum seekers from countries such as Syria, Iran and Afghanistan?
Yvette Cooper
I agree with the hon. Member that it is devastating that lives are being lost, including children’s. We have seen increasing violence from some of the gangs, crowding more people on to these overcrowded boats, which has resulted in a seven-year-old girl losing her life.
The hon. Member talks about deterrence. The problem with the Rwanda scheme is that it is clearly not a deterrent: four people being sent over two and a half years is not a deterrent at all. There are also no deterrents at all for any of the criminal gangs, which at the moment can operate with impunity, so we have to start by ensuring that the criminal gangs can face justice and that action is taken against the supply chains earlier on—that we have consequences, and that there is a deterrent there.
I would also say that a system whereby people can arrive in the UK and stay in the asylum accommodation system forever, which is the situation under the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which the hon. Member’s party voted for, means that there is no disincentive for anyone. It makes it very easy for people to stay indefinitely and work illegally, even if they have no right to be here. That goes against the rules and means that the system is just not working.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, which contained some really quite revelatory points about the state of the finances. Sandiacre in my constituency has been home to two asylum hotels, one of which I was very pleased to see close recently, but the Best Western hotel remains open. This is a huge cost to people in my constituency and across the nation, and it leaves asylum seekers caught in an endless and inescapable limbo. What steps will the Home Secretary take to ensure that we can close asylum hotels once and for all?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We need to clear the backlog—not just let it grow and grow, which is what the Conservatives were doing, but clear the backlog so that we can end asylum hotels, which are inappropriate and extremely costly. Having discovered that the Home Office had effectively stopped taking the majority of asylum decisions under the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Cleverly)—who does not seem to know what his own Department was doing as a result of his own policies—I am extremely concerned that that will now take longer to do, but it remains an immensely important thing that we have to do. The other thing we will have to do is tackle the backlog in the appeals process that the Conservatives had allowed to grow, which is also slowing down the system.
Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)
I congratulate the Home Secretary on her appointment and on her statements to the House. Following on from a previous question, but perhaps with a nuance, will asylum seekers—perhaps after initial registration—be allowed to work and pay taxes while their applications are pending?
Yvette Cooper
If people have a right to be in the UK—if they have fled persecution and been granted refugee status, or they have come to be here on a visa through the normal processes—we will of course have them contributing to our country. That has been the case for generations, but if people are not here lawfully— if they have not fled persecution, and should fail the asylum process and be returned—they should not be working in the UK. This is simply about having a swift system so that we can make decisions quickly and ensure that the rules are enforced.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend in her place on the Government Benches. I am proud that Bradford is a city of sanctuary, and of organisations such as Bevan Health, set up by a GP in my constituency, which works to deliver vital healthcare to asylum seekers who are awaiting decisions, sometimes for over 12 months and in many cases in hotels. Can my right hon. Friend provide an assurance that asylum seekers will continue to have access to essential healthcare as our Government work to clear the asylum backlog, so that in future fewer people will be left languishing in hotels?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right; it is really important that we try to clear the backlog as rapidly as possible. It includes some people who are very vulnerable and may be in need of support. It also includes people who should not be in the UK, and the system should operate fairly so that they are swiftly returned. But we actually have to get back to decision making. I thought I would be coming to this Dispatch Box and saying, “Well, what we want to do is to speed up or accelerate decision making.” I did not think I would be standing at this Dispatch Box saying, “No, no, we actually have to restart asylum decision making in the first place, because the Conservatives just stopped it.” I really had not expected that. It really is far more shocking than I had imagined, and I really thought I had a good imagination.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
When you take a drug dealer off the street corner, guess what: another one appears, because of the vile drugs trade and the amount of money involved. My constituents in Boston and Skegness believe it is exactly the same with trying the Home Secretary’s policy of smashing the gangs. If she smashes one gang, it is like a game of whack-a-mole: another one will appear and then another one, because there is so much money involved. Here is the point: how long will the Home Secretary give her policy before realising that the only policy that will work is the one she actually started last week, which is to pick people up and take them back to France, which we are entitled to do under international maritime law? It will help British citizens, help British taxpayers and help the French, and it will reduce the magnet factor.
Yvette Cooper
I say to the hon. Member that no one should be making these dangerous journeys, and the criminal gangs are making massive profits from organising these boats. I just do not think they should be able to get away with it, and they are at the moment. We should be taking action against those criminal gangs, and I simply do not accept that it is impossible to go after them. We must ensure that we take action not just on the gangs themselves, but on their supply chains, the routes the boats are taking and their finances, and that we properly and substantially increase law enforcement resources. As hon. Members will know, we have had cases where journalists have identified smugglers and those responsible for being involved in some of the smuggler gangs, and I think those gang members should be facing law enforcement. It is essential that we do this. This is about properly standing up for the rule of law, as well as making sure that we do everything we can to prevent these dangerous small boat crossings.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
I am very pleased to see the Home Secretary take her place. My constituents in Aylesbury have two concerns: first, that we re-establish control of our borders; and secondly, that we remember the need for compassion for vulnerable people fleeing conflict and persecution. On that point, will she commit to ensuring that there are resettlement routes for people fleeing desperate and dangerous circumstances, and what will she do to ensure that they are viable?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right, and I welcome her to her place in this House. I think what people in this country have always wanted is that combination of strong border security and a proper, fair system, so that we do our bit alongside other countries to help those who have fled persecution, but also so that the rules are enforced and those who do not have a right to be here are returned. She will know that there is a series of different resettlement routes or different forms of support—for example, the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which continues, and some of the Afghan resettlement schemes. We are concerned about the operation of some of the Afghan schemes, and we are looking further at that to ensure they are functioning properly.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. The tragedy of desperate people dying in the channel is compounded by desperate people dying in the Mediterranean and the Aegean as human beings fleeing all kinds of horrible situation seek a place of safety. Is she co-operating with other European countries on a safe route for asylum seekers? Is she prepared to look in a much more humane way at the desperate situation facing people fleeing human rights abuses and wars around the world?
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. Member makes an important point about what is happening in the Mediterranean, and about the pressures we have seen and the fact that, as the Prime Minister said in his statement, we have seen not just conflicts, wars and persecution, but the impact of climate change, making people travel and sometimes leading them to make dangerous journeys. We should be working to prevent the need for those dangerous journeys in the first place. That is why the Prime Minister announced last week at the European Political Community summit that we will invest over £80 million, alongside work with other European countries, also as part of the Rome process, both to tackle some of the wider criminal gang networks that still operate in the Mediterranean and to ensure that we address the injustices and serious crises that lead to people making such dangerous journeys in the first place.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to her place. One of the consequences of the collapse in our asylum system over the past few years has been the increasing and intolerable pressure on local communities —my constituents in Hartlepool raise this with me time and again. Will she outline how the steps that she is taking will begin to reduce that pressure on communities such as Hartlepool?
Yvette Cooper
I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. There is a real challenge from the chaotic way the asylum system has been run, which has led to the last-minute procurement of hotels and has ended up being extremely costly. Everybody loses out from spending billions of pounds on this system, but also from local authorities often not having time to work with communities or accommodation providers to ensure that things are managed in the right way. Because asylum decisions stopped being taken, there will now be some challenges in getting the system working again, which means that bringing down the backlog will take longer than we initially anticipated. But we are determined to do this; it is the only way to get back to having a functional system that everybody across the country should be able to support.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I welcome the Home Secretary to her place and wish her well for the future, and I thank her for the helpful and confident answers that she has given.
There is, of course, a glaring issue regarding border security much closer to home: the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This border was patrolled by Republic of Ireland officials, and understandably so as their right to protect their nation is paramount. However, it is also clear that the Good Friday agreement does not preclude the need to conduct checks on the border. What discussions have there been with the Police Service of Northern Ireland and security forces in Northern Ireland to ensure that the open border with the Republic of Ireland does not become a free route for UK immigration?
Yvette Cooper
It is a pleasure to get my first question at the Dispatch Box from the hon. Member, and I look forward to very many more. He raises important issues. The border issues between Northern Ireland and Ireland are of course different; we rightly have different arrangements that reflect our long-shared history. But we also have very close co-operation. We have close policing co-operation, close information sharing, and additional information sharing that is not currently possible under the arrangements we have inherited with other European countries. It is important that those information-sharing arrangements continue, and hopefully we can build on them with other European partners.
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. I share her astonishment at the scale of the mismanagement of the asylum system by the previous Government. My constituency of Colchester has hosted many asylum seekers and refugees over the years. We are a city of sanctuary. Our local authorities have played a full part in supporting that work. Will she confirm that those local authorities will be fully engaged in the work going forward to ensure that we have more effective support systems?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right to raise the importance of working closely with local authorities. We are determined to do that. The Immigration Minister already has work in chain looking at how we can have better working co-operation between the Home Office and local authorities. It is also important to recognise that, through many generations, refugees have come to this country and contributed to our economy and society and been a hugely important part of that. It is partly because we have that important history that it is crucial to get the whole system functioning again, instead of the chaos we have at the moment, which undermines everyone’s confidence.
Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. The people of Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield want to see these crossings stopped and these gangs smashed, and they will welcome her tough action today. Because of the previous Government’s complete failure to control our borders, they spent millions of pounds a week on asylum hotels. What will she do to speed up the processing of people in these hotels and end their use?
Yvette Cooper
I welcome my hon. Friend to Parliament. We have to do all these things. We have to take action on the criminal gangs exploiting the situation in the first place, which involves much stronger co-operation with European colleagues. That must include the new counter-terror powers that will be in the new legislation as part of the King’s Speech to strengthen powers against organised immigration crime. Alongside that, we have to get the basics right. We have to start taking decisions again, as well as speeding up asylum decisions and making the system work again.