Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

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

Let me start by welcoming the work done by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) in securing this debate. Let me also respond directly to the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who has rightly long had concern about the pressures in Kent and the conditions in Calais. I agree that all councils across the country should do their bit and the whole country should come together to support vulnerable child refugees.

Twelve months ago, when the Calais camp was cleared, I praised the work of the Government and the Home Office at that time to help 750 child refugees, and the speed with which they had acted. I welcomed, too, the Government’s decision 18 months ago to support the Dubs amendment, after it had received cross-party support. We have seen lives transformed as a result. I am thinking of the Syrian teenager I met in London who now has a place at university, after being out of education for many years. I am thinking of the Eritrean girls who are in safe homes, having previously been trafficked, abused and exploited along the way. That is what this Parliament and the Home Office’s action made happen. That is what the work of councils, campaigners, local volunteers and people across the country has made possible, by giving those children a future.

I wish I could keep on praising the Government for the action they have taken since, but sadly I cannot; some of the failures from the Home Office since then put this country and Parliament to shame. The Dublin arrangements, which Ministers made work so effectively, so briefly, last autumn, have now become far too slow again. The failure of co-ordinated action across Europe, despite the partnership working we had 12 months ago, is now allowing the numbers to build up in Calais again, particularly those of unaccompanied child refugees. Why are the Government still refusing to publish the number of unaccompanied children and teenagers coming to Britain under the Dublin scheme? They have the figures and there is absolutely no excuse for not publishing them and making them available to everyone.

It is not good enough for the Government to try to fudge the facts by pointing to the number of children who come either with asylum-seeking families or through irregular and illegal routes instead. The whole point is that we want to reduce the number of people coming through the illegal, irregular and very dangerous routes and instead make sure that there are legal and safe routes to sanctuary. The longer we fail to have a functioning Dubs and Dublin scheme, the more we will simply see teenagers and children take these crazy, dangerous risks—on lorries, through tunnels, putting their lives at risk and causing huge problems to the system.

That is what makes the Government’s failure since last autumn on Dubs even more shocking. First, they announced they would close the scheme that Parliament voted for just six months after it was set up and started operating. They refused to even ask councils to look again at how many more places they could provide each year, even though we know that there were councils ready to do more. The Government miscounted the number and could not even get the figures right in the first place.

Worst of all, once the 480 places had been offered the Government just stopped filling them. After the first group had come through Calais, we had month after month of no child coming through the Dubs scheme at all. I hear that the Government may have managed to scrabble together a few additional numbers from France last month and I hope that is the case, but it is simply not good enough. Well over 250 places are still empty; at the same time, there are 63,000 unaccompanied children and teenagers across Europe who came to Europe this year.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her important work on this issue. She mentions the horrendous scale of this problem. Does she not think the Government’s inaction is so deeply troubling, given Britain’s history? This is not a new problem, and in the past we have opened our doors and been welcoming to refugees. That is a distinctly British thing to be able to do and we should be proud of continuing to do it. That is why the Government should definitely act.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Lady is right about that. We are also talking about something that has had cross-party support. I do not see this as a party political issue, which is why I would like to be able to welcome the work the Government have done. The trouble is that we have seen huge problems and the gaps in action on the Alf Dubs amendment—a measure that is widely supported.

Lord Dubs came through the Kindertransport and has done so much for this country, like so many other child refugees we have welcomed here. We are talking about children whose lives and futures are at risk, and we could be helping them. I am thinking of those such as the Iranian teenager I met in Athens on the very day the Government announced that they would open the Dubs scheme. I told him what we would be doing. He is a gay teenager who had fled because he was being persecuted in his home country. We had a long conversation, because he spoke brilliant English—he spoke no Greek. Yet he was one of very many children and teenagers in Greece without proper support and proper shelter, who needed a future and for whom we and our country should be doing our bit.

[Alan Mak]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I want to make some progress because other Members wish to speak.

There are nearly 3,000 unaccompanied children in Greece, of whom 1,800 are on a waiting list for shelter. Some of them are being held in police custody because there is nowhere else safe for them to go, and Harvard University has established that they are at risk of being trafficked by gangs and of being taken into modern slavery, which the Government have rightly condemned and are determined to stamp out.

The Minister will say that he has been to Greece and Italy to try to sort the issue out, but the problem is with our system, not theirs. It is not good enough simply to blame the Greek and Italian Governments for the failure to bring children in under the Dubs scheme. Our job was not just to rock up in Greece or Italy and say, “We have a whole load more hurdles and a whole load more headaches for you, and more complex bureaucratic procedures in our scheme for you to meet”; instead, our job should have been to design the Dubs scheme in a way that made it easy for the overstretched social services systems in Italy and Greece to send some of those children here to the sanctuary that this country had already promised to offer.

We must think of teenagers such as the 12-year-old Eritrean girl who is on her own in Italy, and whose case I have raised with the Home Office. Her brother is already in foster care here in Britain. The foster carer has offered to take the sister as well. The girl is only 12, but she has been in mixed accommodation with adult men in Italy. She has tried several times to run away. We could bring her over, through either the Dublin scheme or the Dubs scheme—frankly, it does not matter which. She is the kind of child we should be trying to help.

I urge the Government to reopen the Dubs scheme, to speed up the Dublin scheme, and to take fast action now, as the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire said. Let us fill those 280 places by Christmas. We must stop insisting on the unworkable cut-off date, which has no impact at all on whether children and teenagers arrive in Europe. It is drawn from some kind of fantasy world in which the detailed conditions of a small British refugee scheme somehow have an impact on whether children or teenagers make an incredibly dangerous journey to get to Europe in the first place.

Ditch the cut-off date, rip up some of the bureaucratic hurdles that the Home Office has put in place, and make the Dubs scheme work as Parliament intended it to and as we all voted for. We promised in good faith to do our bit to help those child and teenage refugees. We promised to do our bit, just as we did with the Kindertransport. The Home Secretary said herself that

“it is the children who matter most.”—[Official Report, 9 February 2017; Vol. 621, c. 639.]

It is. Members of this House could come together with the Home Office, on the same cross-party basis on which we came together 12 months ago and 18 months ago, to support child refugees again.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

The heart of my hon. and gallant Friend’s point is that people should claim asylum in the first safe place they arrive at. That is the agreement and that is how the system works.

We also welcome the efforts of our French colleagues, who in recent weeks have, as Opposition Front Benchers have also recognised, established additional welcome centres to those already in place across the country. Four new centres have recently opened, away from the port area, where those wishing to claim asylum will be supported through the asylum process, and regular transportation is provided to these centres.

Bearing in mind questions raised earlier this afternoon, I want to make it clear that we work closely with France and other member states to deliver and transfer 480 unaccompanied children from Europe to the UK under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. That is the opposite of what some Members have said this afternoon about that process having stopped—it has not, it never has, it is still open.

A High Court ruling handed down today confirmed that the Government’s approach to implementing section 67 has been lawful. The Government’s focus is on working with local authorities and other partners to ensure we are transferring eligible children to the UK as quickly as possible, with their safety and best interests at the centre of all our decisions.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Minister said the Dubs scheme is not closed. Will he therefore now agree to contact again local councils across the country and ask them what further places they could provide under the scheme for next year?

[Brandon Lewis]

I will come to the wider point around that shortly, but, as I have just said, the High Court has outlined that the process the Government have used is lawful.

Children have already arrived in recent weeks from France and transfers are ongoing. We have been working closely with Greece to put in place the processes for the safe transfer of eligible children to the UK, and expect to receive further referrals in the coming weeks. I say to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the Chair of the Select Committee, that she is effectively proposing that we should just take children from another country. I am sure Members must appreciate, when they think this through, that we simply cannot do that. We as a Government and a country must respect the sovereignty of other countries and their national child protection laws. That is the right thing to do.

For the year ending June 2017, we in the UK granted asylum or another form of leave to remain to more than 9,000 children, and have done that for more than 42,000 children since 2010. We are fully committed to ensuring that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and refugee children are safe and that their welfare is promoted once they arrive in the UK. That is why yesterday, as has been outlined, the Government published a safeguarding strategy for unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children, in recognition of their increased numbers and specific needs, backing up the point I made earlier that we want to make sure we are doing the right thing by the children who need our support.

Independent Review: Deaths in Police Custody

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Gentleman makes three important points. The recommendation on a national coroner service is one of the recommendations on which the Government are least persuaded at this time. The ministerial council will explore the idea, but the Government’s first instinct is to explore what further role the Chief Coroner can play in meeting some of the report’s recommendations and requests.

The hon. Gentleman asked about what happens after an incident and the role of the IPCC, and he is clearly critical of that. If he reads some of the Family Listening reports that came out with the review, he will see some really shocking stories of how bereaved families are treated at that deeply traumatic moment. That has to change, and it is one of the things I will be discussing with Michael Lockwood, the first director general of the new Independent Office for Police Conduct.

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

I welcome the report and the Government’s response. In West Yorkshire, we had the tragic case of Mark Camm, who died as a result of being held in police custody when he should have been sent to hospital as an emergency. His family campaigned for many years to uncover the truth about the lack of monitoring of him in a police cell. They also endured real difficulties because of the failure of the IPCC to investigate properly and in a timely way and ensure that lessons were learned from the case. I therefore welcome the Minister’s statement. Nevertheless, the report states:

“NHS commissioning of healthcare in police custody was due to have commenced in April 2016, but was halted by the Government earlier in the year. This report strongly recommends that this policy is reinstated and implemented.”

Will the Minister set out what the Government are doing in response to that recommendation? It is clear that appropriate emergency healthcare is immensely important in these cases.

[Mr Hurd]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Lady. Underlying a number of these tragedies is the fact the victims of these incidents were in the wrong place. They should not have been in police custody. We are trying to change the regulations to make it clear that police cells can be considered a safe place only in the most exceptional circumstances, and never for children. On healthcare in custody, there is different practice throughout the country. The short answer to her question is that it is one of the areas of complexity that we are taking to the ministerial council, which I co-chair. Its first meeting is on Wednesday.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

We are working with the UNHCR and with UNICEF on this issue, and we want to ensure that the application of these rules and this policy works in practice. I ask the hon. Lady to look again at the rules that I have outlined, because we can consider whether there are exceptional reasons to grant leave outside the rules.

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

The Minister will know that it is around 12 months since the Calais jungle was cleared, and Britain did its bit through the Dublin and the Dubs schemes to take some unaccompanied child and teenage refugees. Will he confirm, however, that since then no further child or teenage refugees have come to this country under the Dubs scheme and, in particular, that there have been none from Italy or Greece? Will he accept that the Home Office has designed the scheme in a way that is too restrictive and that makes it too difficult for Italy and Greece to send children here, despite the fact that there are still 280 pledged local authority places that remain unfilled? Will he now agree to revise the scheme to ensure that those 280 places can be filled before Christmas?

[Brandon Lewis]

We are working with other countries, which have their own national sovereignty. I was in Italy and Greece over the summer to talk about these programmes, and we are working with the Greek and French authorities to ensure that more children can come over and that we fulfil our duty. Let us bear in mind that when we get to the 480, the United Kingdom will have done more than other European countries, and we should be proud of that.

Immigration Act 2016: Section 67

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is important that we focus our help on the most vulnerable in the places that most need that support, while doing what we can as part of our work with our European partners to support those whom we have agreed to support.

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

The Minister knows that helping children in the region and those in Europe and already here is not an either/or. Parliament told the Government to help lone child refugees in Europe when it passed the Dubs amendment last year. I know the Government did not want to agree to it, but it was passed. The way in which they have narrowed the criteria, dragged their feet, and failed even to count councils’ offers properly is shameful. Will he confirm that they have helped only 200 children under the Dubs amendment, despite the fact that councils have offered nearly 500 places, and that there are tens of thousands of child refugees still alone in Europe? Italy and Greece cannot cope with what they are having to deal with. It is shameful that all he has managed to do is send a few officials to Italy and Greece to try to arrange a few procedures for the future, when this has been going on for years. Stop the warm words about helping the most vulnerable children and actually get on with it, as Parliament said the Government should.

[Brandon Lewis]

We are clear about wanting to give children the right support and ensuring they have the support network to be an important and valued part of our community. It is important that we do so within what local authorities can provide, bearing in mind the restrictions and capacity they have. In 2016 we granted asylum or some form of leave to over 8,000 children, and since 2010 we have done so for some 42,000 children. We are doing our bit. We want to continue to do that work. Other countries have their own rules and regulations. I am sure the right hon. Lady will appreciate from her previous role that we have to work with them and with what works with the laws. We shall continue to do so, which is why I will visit Italy and Greece to meet my counterparts next week.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Commons Chamber

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

Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack, who is conducting some of the inquiries, has said that the insulation has proved

“more flammable than the cladding”.

Has the Home Office had representations from the police or the fire service on this? Does the Minister sit on the Government’s taskforce and, if not, has whichever Home Office Minister does raised the testing of the insulation with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government? If not, will they do so urgently and call for testing of insulation to be done?

[Mr Hurd]

I can assure the right hon. Lady that both the Home Secretary and I have sat on the regular Cobra meetings that have addressed this, and I sit regularly on the sub-group as well. The right hon. Lady is right; of course, testing the cladding was the priority, but it is becoming increasingly clear that this is not just about the cladding. There is a significant issue with insulation and fitting, and there are considerable questions to be answered about safeguarding and risk inside buildings. That is what we have to understand better, informed by the police investigation and the public inquiry about what exactly what has happened, but we also have to get on with the business of stress testing our current systems.

Health, Social Care and Security

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

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

It is good to follow the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), who always makes a thought-provoking speech. I join the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary in paying tribute to our police force and emergency services, who have dealt with so many difficult incidents in the past few weeks, and in expressing sympathy with the victims of both the terror attacks and the Grenfell fire.

The Queen’s Speech suggests that the Government are carrying on as if, in the words of the Prime Minister, “nothing has changed, nothing has changed.” In fact, very much has changed. The Prime Minister called the election wanting a landslide. Instead, she has a hung Parliament. That means that this hung Parliament has to work differently, and that the Queen’s Speech has to respond differently too. Many Members wish to speak in the debate today, so I will keep my remarks short and concentrate on two areas where the Government need to change course as a result of the hung Parliament delivered to us by the electorate: public services and the approach to the Brexit negotiations.

This week, the Government recognised the importance of investing more in public services in Northern Ireland. They have rightly supported additional investment in schools and hospitals in Belfast, but what about those in Birmingham, Bristol and many other parts of the country? I support the Democratic Unionist party’s request for more investment to stop school cuts in Portadown, but I want to stop the school cuts in Pontefract as well. The DUP is right to request more support for jobs in County Down but what about in Castleford and in other places across the rest of the country?

The Government cannot say to parents, patients and people who need the support of police officers right across the country that, as a result of this hung Parliament, they cannot have more support for their public services—that they will have to face further cuts to their public services, with teachers lost from our schools and services squeezed from our national health service—but those in Northern Ireland can have additional funding. They cannot say to Mark Rowley, Cressida Dick and the other police chiefs doing such a magnificent job in difficult circumstances despite being overstretched that the Government can somehow find £1 billion to support Northern Ireland and to support those in the Government keeping their own jobs, but they cannot provide the additional resources the police and emergency services need to support their jobs at this difficult time.

That is why the Government have to rethink. It would be easy to rethink the police cuts and to decide not to go ahead with the cuts to capital gains tax that the Chancellor has pledged. It would be easy to cancel those cuts and put the investment into additional police officers on our streets. It would be easy for the Government to recognise that if we care about recruitment and retention in our public services—in particular in our national health service, which in many parts of the country is struggling to recruit the nurses and doctors it needs—then continuing with the public sector pay cap will make it harder and harder for our NHS and all our public services to get the talented staff they need. In the end, that will cost all of us, including the Government, more in the long run.

The second area in which the Government need to change course is their approach to the Brexit negotiations. Britain voted for Brexit in the referendum and Parliament has voted to trigger article 50, but the Prime Minister did not win the free hand that she wanted for the Brexit negotiations. She asked for it, but voters said no. That means that the Government need to change their approach to the Brexit negotiations. If we are to get a deal that is not only the best for our country but is also sustainable—one that does not unravel in a year or two years’ time and does not end up undermined because there is so much disagreement, not just in this House but across the country—then there must be an effort to build a consensus around that deal as well, not just to get agreement in Europe but to build that consensus across Britain.

That is why I urge the Government not to keep pursuing the negotiations through a narrow cabal but instead to open up the process—to set up a cross-party commission to hold the Brexit negotiations or to find other ways to include more voices and more transparency, and to strengthen the powers of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union, so that this House can properly have its say as well. I know that that means difficult ways of working and will be a challenge to those on both Front Benches, but they, and the whole House and the whole country, will benefit if we find a different way to do this.

[Joanna Cherry]

The right hon. Lady is making a powerful and persuasive speech as usual. I agree with what she has just said. Would she extend that to giving the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government a place and a say in the negotiations to leave the EU?

[Yvette Cooper]

I certainly think that the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government, and Northern Ireland too, need to be involved in this commission and this process, because it has got to work for the whole of the United Kingdom. I think that is possible, but only if all parts of the House and those on both Front Benches behave in a different way and recognise the responsibility that has been placed on us by the hung Parliament that we have been given. That means, too, that the great repeal Bill that the Government want to put forward can no longer be a Bill that simply accrues powers to the Government through Henry VIII powers, because in a hung Parliament the legislature simply cannot hand over huge power to the Executive. The legislature itself must be involved in those decisions, step by step along the way.

The right hon. Member for Mid Sussex was right when he said that the course before us is more complex than anything he or I can remember at any time. With a hung Parliament we will have to work differently, but that has to start with the Government. I urge them to start today by changing course on public services and, as the amendment before us asks, on public sector pay and supporting our public sector workers, but also by changing course in the approach to Brexit, in a way that can build consensus, not division. That ought to be the spirit of what the Prime Minister has said.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

I thank the Opposition for choosing to have this debate on security, health and social care. Like the Home Secretary, the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Health Secretary, I want to start by paying tribute to the amazing work of our emergency services in the recent terrorist atrocities. There are many stories, but two in particular sum up for me just how brilliant they were. The first was of an anaesthetist who picked up his daughter from the Manchester Arena when the bomb went off. He checked his daughter was safe, dropped her off at home and then went straight to work at Stepping Hill hospital. He worked through the night, and it was only in the morning that his colleagues realised he had actually been there when the bomb went off.

I also want to mention the paramedics who arrived on the scene at London Bridge. They arrived minutes after the incident. Gunfire was still happening and they thought they were being fired at, but they walked straight into that gunfire. When I met them, they said they were just doing their job, but I think that shows that there is no such thing as “just a job” in the NHS; it is a vocation. On behalf of the whole country as well as this House, I want to thank them for showing us the NHS at its best. I want to record the fact that it is not just in times of tragedy that our NHS is there for us; it is there seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

We have had a good and wide-ranging debate this afternoon. I congratulate, as the shadow Health Secretary did, the Members who made their maiden speeches; we heard some fantastic ones. I start with my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami). It is great credit to him that his mother is a pharmacist and his father is an NHS doctor. It is marginally less credit to him that he became a lawyer, but only marginally. He spoke with great passion and fluency about the importance of education. It was an excellent and moving first contribution to this House.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Colin Clark), a notable Conservative gain in the election. He spoke with great eloquence about the attractions of his constituency, including castles, beaches, restaurants and a golf course owned by the President of the United States. As for his campaign to get the Scottish Government to do more to deal with NHS staff shortages in his area, it is unusual for me to be on this side of the argument, but I can wholeheartedly support his campaign.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) for his excellent speech. A teacher of medieval history, he taught us about the 9th century church in his constituency and the need to learn the lessons of the peasants’ revolt against excessive taxation. I can assure him that on the Conservative Benches we do not need to learn those lessons; we have reached enlightenment.

I thank the hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) for his beautiful panegyric to his stunning constituency. He spoke very powerfully against witch hunting in the military and very powerfully in favour of the Union; both positions will have strong support on the Government Benches.

I welcome to the Labour Benches the hon. Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams). It is excellent to have another doctor in the House. He is, I think, the first ever Member to invite all hon. Members to join him at his 6 o’clock boot camp. As the shadow Health Secretary said, I feel as Health Secretary that I should set an example and join him, but unfortunately I have an unavoidable diary clash; that is a phrase he will learn to use as a new MP, I am sure. His passion for dealing with health inequalities came through loud and clear, and did him great credit.

I also want to thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine). She talked about the majesty of the three bridges across the Forth. For a couple of my teenage years, I grew up under one of them. She was absolutely right to want to reassure EU citizens working in the NHS of the vital importance of their role. I hope the Prime Minister’s comments this week will give them reassurance that we are seeking a deal that gives them the same rights to live and work here as UK citizens.

I apologise for not being able to mention all of the many other contributions, but there were some important themes that I want to touch on. A number of Members talked about the possibility of developing a more cross-party consensus on difficult issues around health and social care. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) spoke powerfully on that point, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). I would make this point. Governments of all colours always seek to get consensus on difficult policy issues, and this Government are no different. However, it takes two to tango, and we have had two elections in a row that the Labour Opposition have tried to turn into referendums on the NHS. If those on the Opposition Front Bench are willing to engage, then we on this side of the House are most certainly willing to do likewise.

[Yvette Cooper]

On an issue on which I hope there will be consensus across the House, the Secretary of State will, I hope, have heard the words of the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), who said that whether women from Northern Ireland can get an abortion in the English NHS is a matter for the English NHS. Will the Secretary of State agree to change the rules, so that Northern Ireland women do not have to pay in England for an abortion, if they need one?

[Mr Hunt]

I agree that all women, in all parts of the United Kingdom, should have the same rights to access healthcare. I note that a consultation on this matter is about to happen. The most important thing is that the voices of the women of Northern Ireland are listened to in that consultation.

We had powerful speeches on mental health, in particular from my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and the hon. Members for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) and for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), but also from many others. Mental health is a very big priority for the Government, particularly children and young people’s mental health, because half of all mental health conditions become established before the age of 14. It is particularly important to have better links between the schools sector and the NHS if we are to crack this problem. We have a Green Paper coming up later in the year that will seek to address that.

We also had a number of important speeches on the workforce and morale, including from my hon. Friends the Members for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) and for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), a doctor and a nurse respectively, who spoke with great authority. We also heard from Opposition Members, including the hon. Members for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), for Halifax (Holly Lynch), for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) and for Halton (Derek Twigg), who touched on issues around GP recruitment. On pay, all Members will recognise that whichever party is in power, we have to do the right thing for the economy. People will recognise that in the very difficult period that we have just had, it would not have been possible to increase the number of doctors by nearly 12,000 and the number of nurses in our wards by nearly 13,000 if we had not taken difficult decisions on pay. What I can say is that we will not make our decision on public sector pay until the pay review body has reported. We will listen to what it says, and to what people in this House have said, before making a final decision.

I want to mention what my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) said about his battle against sepsis. Everyone in this House, on all sides, is totally delighted that he won that battle, but how typically selfless of him to use his speech to talk about the 44,000 people every year who do not win their battle against sepsis. We will look carefully at what he said about a national sepsis registry. I also thoroughly agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) said about leadership in the public sector and the NHS. I look forward to more discussions with him about that.

On security, the shadow Home Secretary basically tried to turn an argument about public safety into an argument about austerity. However, I would gently say that for a shadow Home Secretary to protest about austerity in policing when she herself wanted to cut MI5 and the Met’s special branch, and when her leader wanted to cut the armed forces, is patently absurd. What she never mentioned is why we got into austerity in the first place: a global financial crash, made infinitely worse by profligate spending and a failure to regulate the City of London by the last Labour Government.

The shadow Health Secretary, the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), spoke eloquently about the NHS.

Terror Attacks

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Extremism comes in many different forms. “Un-Islamic extremism” is one way of describing it, and it is a perfectly reasonable description. I would expect the commission on extremism to ask people to give evidence, so that we can be sure to collect the best possible information in order to do the best possible job for our communities.

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

I join the Home Secretary in remembering the victims, and in paying tribute to the immense bravery of the emergency services and the public. I also join her in saying that extremists and terrorists must never divide us, be they Islamist extremists or far-right extremists, and wherever that violence comes from.

I welcome the proposal for a review by David Anderson of the attacks, but will the Home Secretary also tell us a bit more about them? For example, the Manchester attacker is reported to have been known to the intelligence services, and also to have travelled repeatedly to Libya. Will the Home Secretary tell us whether the man who committed that vile attack was on a watch list, and whether he was ever stopped by Border Force in the course of those journeys? Will she also ensure that the relationship between the intelligence services and Border Force is looked at as part of David Anderson’s review?

[Amber Rudd]

The right hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the relationship with the border forces and the security services. I would expect that to be looked at as well. I cannot, at this stage, give the right hon. Lady the additional details that she seeks. It is, of course, part of the nature of the security services that they do so much good work and we are not really at liberty to talk too much about it. However, I hope that the work that David Anderson does with them—which will start almost immediately—will help us to find the answers to some of those questions: for instance, quite how much the security services knew about that man, and whether there were instances that were missed, or whether this was just part of the much higher level of attacks that we are sadly witnessing at the moment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s long campaign on this issue. He is right that it is a concern that children placed with local authorities may abscond due to traffickers wanting their pay day—for want of a better phrase. It is absolutely right that local authorities understand their responsibility to care for those children and to ensure that their safety is maintained.

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

The Minister will have seen the Home Affairs Committee report, which is out today, that sets out the evidence we heard from charities and the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner about the increased risk of child trafficking if the Dubs scheme closes, from councils about their extra capacity, and from the Local Government Association that thousands more places could be available if the right funding is in place. New clause 14 to the Children and Social Work Bill, which is before the House tomorrow, has cross-party support, so will the Minister agree to seek further evidence from the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner and from local councils on their capacity, rather than rushing to close the Dubs scheme?

[Mr Goodwill]

I certainly look forward to appearing before the right hon. Lady’s Committee to give the Government’s side of the story. I do not recognise the figures that I saw, and I suspect that some of the methodology behind them will not bear too much scrutiny. If spaces are available with local authorities, it is important that they are made available for the national transfer scheme. Kent County Council, for example, has 400 surplus children over its normal capacity—Croydon is another—which makes things difficult.

Jamal al-Harith

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the case of Jamal al-Harith.

[The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I make it clear at the outset that the United Kingdom takes the security of its people, interests and allies very seriously, and we will not hesitate to take action in accordance with our inherent right of self-defence. The Government strongly discourage British nationals from travelling to conflict zones and work hard to dissuade and prevent people from travelling to areas of conflict.

It is, however, the long-standing policy of successive Governments not to comment on intelligence matters. The monitoring of individuals is an intelligence matter, and the Government do not and cannot comment on individual cases. Neither can the Government comment on whether particular individuals have received compensation payments.

In November 2010, the then Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), informed the House of Commons that the Government had secured a mediated settlement of the civil damages claims brought by detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in the early 2000s. The details of that settlement were subject to a legally binding confidentiality agreement, and we are therefore unable to confirm whether any specific individual received such a settlement.

More broadly, the Government’s priority is to dissuade people from travelling to areas of conflict in the first place, and our strategy works to identify and support individuals at risk of radicalisation. More than 150 attempted journeys were disrupted in 2015. Since Channel, the Government’s process to identify and provide support to individuals at risk of being drawn into terrorism, was rolled out in 2012, there have been more than 4,000 interventions to prevent radicalisation, but we have been clear that we will seek to prosecute those who travel abroad to commit criminal or terrorist attacks. Our brave men and women of the intelligence services and law enforcement agencies work every day to make sure that the risk to our citizens is minimised.

[Yvette Cooper]

It has been reported that Jamal al-Harith died in a suicide attack in Mosul, and in doing so killed several others on behalf of a barbaric extremist regime. If the reports are correct, he was a deeply dangerous man involved in the worst kind of extremism and terrorism that I am sure is widely condemned on both sides of the House.

We know that Jamal al-Harith was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2004, and it is reported that he received a payment from the Government after concerns that defending his case would lead to the revelation of intelligence and the compromising of national security.

The former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has provided information about the case, as has the former Home Secretary, Lord Blunkett. Everyone understands that some information cannot be revealed for intelligence reasons. However, the Minister has provided far too little information about such a serious case. Can he confirm whether Mr al-Harith was made any payment? Notwithstanding the subsequent welcome legislation to tighten the law, which had cross-party support, does he agree that people across the country will feel sickened at the idea of large payments being made to someone who may have been involved in serious terrorist activity?

We know that Mr al-Harith was subject to monitoring after 2004. Was he subject to monitoring between 2010, when the compensation payments are reported to have been made, and his reportedly leaving the country in 2014? Was he considered for a control order or a terrorism prevention and investigation measure? Can the Minister confirm that no one is currently subject to a TPIM? It is reported that al-Harith left to join ISIL in 2014. Was he being monitored at that time? Was he on any border watch lists at the time? We ask that question because, legitimately, we want to know whether this occurred because of a lack of intelligence about his case or whether there was some failure in the border watch list system, in which case there are legitimate questions for this House to pursue.

What happened to the payment allegedly made to Mr al-Harith? Do the Government know whether any of that money was subsequently used to fund terrorist or extremist activity? Was any monitoring in place in respect of any of these compensation cases? Has any attempt been made since Mr al-Harith left for Syria and Iraq to recover any of the payments that have been made? Is any of that payment left now? Can the Minister at least say whether the Government are now reviewing this case and will at least provide a report to the Intelligence and Security Committee, which will be able to listen to all the questions relating to intelligence so that we can understand whether such a serious case has been properly pursued, and that every possible action has been taken on behalf of both our national security and the British taxpayer?

[Mr Wallace]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her questions. Like her, and like my constituents, we will be outraged and disappointed by the sums of money that have been paid. As for the sums that have been paid, and that are reported to have been paid, I cannot comment on individual cases. Unlike former Home Secretaries, the Government are bound by their legal obligations—we cannot break those legal commitments—but I can say that some of the vulnerability that led us to have to pay those damages occurred when the right hon. Lady was a member of the Labour Government and when those individuals brought claims against us.

It is important that we recognise that that is why some of these claims had to be paid out and why, in response to those outrageous sums of money that have been reported, this Government and the coalition Government brought forward the consolidated guidance— David Cameron brought that forward—to make sure that our intelligence services act within the law and get the full support of the law in order to do their job. That is also why we brought forward the Justice and Security Act 2013 to introduce closed material proceedings so that in future claims brought by such people, held in Guantanamo Bay in 2004, can be challenged in court without revealing sensitive intelligence information and we can, thus, defend many of those claims. It is also why that Act brought in stronger powers for the Intelligence and Security Committee, in order that it can investigate such incidents and give confidence to this House that such events are properly investigated, with lessons learned if they need to be and allegations put to rest if they are found to be false. That happened as a result of these types of payments; that action was taken under the coalition Government of David Cameron to make sure that we minimise the risk of this ever happening again.

Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy)

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) and others on securing this important and timely debate.

I welcome the Government’s work to support refugees by investing in camps in the region and setting up the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme. I also welcome the work with the French last autumn to clear the Calais camp and get the children to safety. There has been a lot of important work, including by the Minister and the Home Secretary, and we should welcome that. I also pay tribute to their work with the French authorities in the autumn that got a lot of kids out of deeply dangerous circumstances in Calais and Dunkirk, where they were at huge risk of smuggling and trafficking, and into centres. The work brought many vulnerable children to this country and safety. This was Britain doing our bit to help some of the most vulnerable and at-risk children.

We have examples of teenage girls from Eritrea who have been abused, who have been raped and who have been through terrible ordeals but are now safe in school in Britain. We have examples of 12-year-olds from Afghanistan who are now safe with foster parents, instead of living in terrible, damp, dark, cold conditions in tents in northern France. We have teenagers now reunited with family in the UK, rather than living in such unsafe conditions.

It is because such effort—that partnership between Britain and France—was working that many of us were so shocked by the Government’s announcement on 8 February that they were not only closing the Dubs scheme, but ending the fast-track Dublin scheme, which had made so much difference to the lives of so many children and teenagers.

[Catherine West]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent contribution. Does she agree that when we heard that news it felt as though it was going against the will of this House and against those of us who had debated, voted and in good faith believed that the Government were going to do something under the Dubs amendment?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right about that, because this was a cross-party debate and cross-party work, with all of us supporting the Dubs amendment, just as it was cross-party pressure that got the Government to set up the 20,000 Syrian refugee scheme in the first place. There has been strong support from people in all parts of the House, and it was not for helping for only six months. That is the real problem with what the Government have done: it took them several months to get the Dubs scheme going in the first place, it has been running for only about six months and they have decided to pull the plug. I believe that is not in the spirit of the Dubs amendment that was agreed and passed last summer.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the speech she is making and the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to this debate. Does she agree that the shock we feel in this House at the abandonment of the Dubs amendment is echoed in our constituencies? Many of my constituents have written to me specifically about the plight of children. In a world that is closing the doors on so many different peoples’ migration, the plight of these children has really inspired our constituents around the country.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that many people across the country are deeply disappointed by this action, because the scheme was working. It was saving lives and people’s futures. Charities told the Home Affairs Committee that they estimated that there had been a drop in the number of children and teenagers trying to get here illegally during the period in the autumn when a lot of this support was put in. We were therefore reducing the number of dangerous illegal journeys by providing the safe legal routes and undertaking the managed work with other countries. That is crucial in terms of clearing the camp in Calais to prevent the trafficking, the modern slavery and the dangerous illegal journeys.

Ministers have given four reasons for closing the Dubs scheme. The first is that it encourages traffickers. The second is that the French want us to close it. The third is that local authorities have no more capacity. The fourth is that the Government have delivered on the Dubs amendment. Let me take each in turn.

First, the Home Affairs Committee heard evidence yesterday from UNICEF, Citizens UK, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and one of the Children’s Commissioners. Those agencies are all doing important work with child refugees in Greece and Italy and along the French coast. All were categoric that the ending of the Dubs scheme will increase, not reduce, the trafficking risk, and that by taking away the safe and legal routes it will increase the number of children and young people who end up in the arms of traffickers and smugglers’ gangs, not reduce it.

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) and I visited Dunkirk and Calais on Monday. In Dunkirk, we met 13 and 14-year-olds who had been in the Calais camps. They had gone to the French centre and into safe accommodation, but for all kinds of complicated reasons their claims had been turned down and they had lost hope and got lost in the system. They are now back in Dunkirk in a really dangerous situation. I am really at a loss to know how the camp is allowed to continue as it is, because it is clearly being run by a smuggling gang—there is no doubt about what is happening in that Dunkirk camp. Two teenage boys we met were sleeping in a hut with 80 adult men. It was deeply unsafe, and when we asked them they said that they felt unsafe. They had gone back there because they had lost hope in any chance of the legal system getting them to safety.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

My feeling is that that is terrible—it is really bad—but why are the French not doing anything about it? Why should it be us? Why are the French not dealing with that situation? They should be, because it is in France, which is not an unsafe country. Lots of people live there quite safely, so why are we worried about us doing something about it when in that situation it should be the French?

[Yvette Cooper]

Of course the French should be dealing with the trafficking that is taking place in Dunkirk, and there should be enforcement. Frankly, though, other countries need to do something as well, because we can be in no doubt that the gang that is operating there, taking families across from Dunkirk to Britain, will have a lot of operations in Britain as well. There ought to be co-ordinated police action against that trafficking gang, because that is absolutely important.

The joint action between Britain and France to get the children into French centres was working in the autumn. Some of the children were then going into the asylum system and safety in France, and rightly so; some of the others—perhaps the most vulnerable or those with family in Britain—were getting sanctuary in Britain. The two teenagers we spoke to both said that they have family in Britain. They had been turned down, but given no reason—there was no piece of paper and nothing in the system—for why they had been turned down. As a result, they had turned up in Dunkirk and in Calais again. We will see more and more children arriving in Calais and Dunkirk and going back, at risk, pushed by the fact that the safe legal route has been taken away.

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I rise to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham). I was with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in Dunkirk on Monday, and I came away thoroughly depressed and really angry with the French authorities for letting this happen again. It took me a few days to digest what I had seen, and I came away feeling that it was not right and that they should be doing more, but the point is that they are not. If we do not work further downstream, in Greece and Italy, the children will continue to come and they will come back to Calais. Dunkirk is like groundhog day—it is Calais II. When they come back in volumes, as they will, it will then become our problem.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Lady is right. We need to prevent young people from ending up in Calais and Dunkirk in the first place. That means working through the Dublin and Dubs schemes, whether in France or, better still, in Greece and Italy, to prevent them from travelling in the first place. We need all countries to work together to share responsibility for these deeply vulnerable young people.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I am going to make some progress because I am conscious of the time.

Secondly, the Minister said that the French have urged us to stop the Dubs scheme, but according to what President Hollande has said, the evidence is that the reverse is true. I am worried that the co-operation we had in the autumn appears to have broken down.

Thirdly, it has been said that local authorities do not have capacity, but that was not what the Select Committee heard in evidence yesterday. The Local Government Association said that it had not been consulted specifically on Dubs; it had been consulted on the national transfer scheme. We should have more detailed consultation on Dubs. We heard from local councils that they wanted to offer more places but those places had not been taken up, and that if local authorities all met the 0.07% target that the Government have said is appropriate, there would be 3,000 more places on top of those already taken by those children who have arrived spontaneously.

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I am going to make some progress, because Mr Deputy Speaker wants to move on.

Fourthly, the Government have said that we have met the spirit of the Dubs amendment, but that is simply not the case. Not only have we not met the spirit of Dubs, but the Government are failing again on the Dublin agreement. The expedited system that was temporarily in place in France was working. Ministers have said that they will learn lessons from that, but they do not seem to be doing so.

The Minister said in his answer to the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) that there were somehow 115 people in Greece, but we were told by the charities yesterday that there was only one person working on child transfers in Greece, one in Italy and one in France. That is not enough even to review the Dublin cases that were turned down and that the Home Office said it would review. I do not see how it can review those cases if none of those children has paperwork, has been given any formal response about why their case has been turned down, or has a process through which to apply to have it reviewed. The Government have done some good things. I ask them not to rip them up now.

This is what one of the child refugees who we helped said:

“Many of us have been traded like cattle between groups of smugglers...many of us know someone who died.”

Another said:

“Assaulting women, sexually abusing children—the smugglers are really not nice people.”

We created some safe legal routes that prevented the traffickers and the illegal, dangerous routes. They were working. That approach did not solve the whole problem—it addressed only a limited part of the refugee crisis—but it was about Britain doing its bit. It was about Britain being better than this. We in this House were all proud of it. I really urge the Minister to reopen the Dubs scheme, reinstate a proper, effective Dublin process and let Britain do its bit to help refugees again, just as we did for Alf Dubs, generations ago.