Oral Answers to Questions
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Mrs May
My hon. Friend raises an important issue. We want to ensure that we can put into action our undertaking to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees over this Parliament. As he implies, we take them directly from camps, so that we are able to take the most vulnerable, but we also ensure that there are proper security checks. In fact, at the moment, there are two levels of security checks: the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees undertakes security checks that involve biometrics, the checking of documents and interviews; and further checks, including further biometrics, are undertaken by the Home Office once people have been referred to it for resettlement in the UK.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The Home Secretary will know that many of the Syrian refugees whom Britain expects to help over the coming months are fleeing exactly the same terrible ISIS brutality that we saw on the streets of Paris this weekend. Does she agree with me that, as we stand in solidarity with Paris, it is important that we both strengthen our security against such barbarism and continue to give sanctuary to those fleeing it, so that we ensure that the terrorists cannot win?
Mrs May
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right: many of those refugees will be fleeing ISIS. Of course, some will be fleeing the actions of the Syrian Government. It is important that we provide sanctuary to those who have been displaced by conflict in Syria, partly by resettling a number of refugees here in the United Kingdom. As the right hon. Lady will know, we are also the second biggest bilateral donor to the region of funds to support refugees; a very important contribution of £1.1 billion is made by the UK taxpayer.
Paris Terrorist Attacks
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Mrs May
Of course, talks have been taking place in the G20 with a number of international leaders about Syria, what action needs to be taken about it, and its future governance. Obviously, I look forward to the outcome of those talks. It is important to ensure that every effort is made to bring about a resolution to the conflict in Syria, not only because of the impact that that could have on ISIL, but because of the many millions of Syrians who have been displaced from their homes as a result of the conflict.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement of solidarity with the people of Paris in the face of such terrible losses and this barbaric assault on all our values. I welcome the increase in resources and staffing for the intelligence and security agencies, which do so much work to keep us safe. I urge her to apply the same approach to core policing work, particularly around neighbourhood policing. She will know that the work that those teams do on prevention and local intelligence, which helped stop the killer of Mohammed Saleem, is immensely important. That is because this is a battle for hearts and minds, as I am sure she knows.
Mrs May
As the right hon. Lady says, this is indeed a battle for hearts and minds. As she will be aware, we have launched a counter-extremism strategy. We wish to work in partnership with mainstream voices in communities across the country to ensure that we promote the values that we share, and that we challenge the ideology that seeks to divide us. It is important that that work is undertaken in a variety of ways. A concern that people in many communities have had about some of the Prevent work is that it has been too much in the security space, and not enough about the integration and cohesion of communities. It is absolutely right that our counter-extremism work is done in partnership with people in communities, so that we work together to promote cohesive communities and mainstream voices.
Draft Investigatory Powers Bill
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Mrs May
On the last point, we will be talking to the Chairman of the Joint Scrutiny Committee, when appointed, about the appropriate timetable. Although we have the deadline of December 2016, we want to ensure that the process of scrutiny by the Joint Committee is a proper one, and the timetable will reflect that. On the judicial commissioners and the investigatory powers commissioner, we have already had some discussions at official level with the judiciary, as my hon. Friend might imagine. We would not be putting these provisions into legislation unless we had spoken to the judiciary about the requirements. Discussions about the precise elements that my hon. Friend and others have raised about the choice and number of judicial commissioners will be ongoing.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The police and the agencies will agree with what the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary have said about the need both for powers to deal with serious threats and for safeguards that are needed in a democracy. I welcome the Home Secretary’s agreement to judicial authorisation and her significant points about transparency, both of which issues reflect the David Anderson report.
I want to ask particularly about the investigatory powers commissioner. It sounds like something we have called for, but will that commissioner be accountable to the Executive and to the Prime Minister, which has limited the operation of some of the existing commissioners, or will he be accountable instead to Parliament or to the ISC? How will this interact with the existing counter-terror reviewer? I think David Anderson has done an extremely good job in that role.
Mrs May
On the right hon. Lady’s last point, there is no intention to change the role of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. As she will know, we have made some adaptations to that role in respect of what it covers and the reporting requirements, but there is no intention to change that role. Indeed, we are having discussions with David Anderson, ensuring that he has extra support for the role he is required to carry out.
I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and others who have raised this issue. The appointment of the investigatory powers commission will be a prime ministerial one, and the Prime Minister will appoint such members of other judicial commissions as are considered necessary. The Bill will set out the relevant qualifications that judicial commissioners will need to have to undertake their role.
As the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) will know, the existing commissioners report annually on the work they undertake. It is a great pity that that part of our process of oversight has never really been seen by the public, precisely because the reports usually show that the agencies are doing a very good job, so do not hit the headlines in the way that different sorts of reports would. We expect the independent investigatory powers commissioner to ensure that recommendations are made and to make public any views on the processes that emerge.
Oral Answers to Questions
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The Home Secretary has just said that she does not want people to make dangerous journeys, but the family reunification rules are making them do exactly that. A 17-year-old Syrian boy whose parents have been killed and whose brother lives here was told that the only way he could apply was to travel in person to apply to the nearest embassy or consulate. On the way to Turkey to do so, he was kidnapped and tortured for four days. That was a very dangerous journey, required by the family reunification rules. Will the Home Secretary personally review this case and agree to look at the family reunification rules so that we can support more desperate and vulnerable families? I urge her personally to do this.
Mrs May
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees referred earlier to the work that we are doing. Obviously, there are the existing family reunification rules, but we are also expanding the vulnerability criteria whereby we identify with the UNHCR those refugees who will be resettled here in the United Kingdom. That includes a category of vulnerable families.
Migration
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs May
My right hon. and learned Friend makes a very important point. There has indeed been discussion at European Union level. I and other colleagues, particularly the French Interior Minister, have encouraged the European Commission to work at pace. The initial proposal is for a centre in Niger. We are looking, as is the European Commission, at the possibility of a centre in east Africa as well. It is obviously important to look very carefully at where it is appropriate to have such a centre, because it needs to be a place of safety for individuals. This also relates to the important issue of illegal economic migrants, rather than refugees, in that it is about breaking the link between making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean and gaining settlement in Europe.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her kind remarks. She and I were first elected together in ’97, served on our first Select Committee together, were first promoted at the same time and have shadowed each other for about seven years. I can only wish that her promotion prospects will be rather more successful than mine.
May I ask the Home Secretary about the crisis? I welcome the work that she has done in the last week alone since we debated this matter, but she has been asked repeatedly to go further in taking refugees from Greece, as well as from across Europe. Some 230,000 people have arrived in Greece this year alone. She has provided only 1,000 expert working days to help them. Does she really think that all those people, many of whom are Syrian refugees, should remain in Greece? Does she think that other countries nearby should offer to help and to take some of those refugees? If she thinks that other countries should offer to help, why shouldn’t Britain?
Mrs May
I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. I simply say to her that politics is an interesting business, and despite what one’s future looks like at this point in time, one never knows what may happen in the coming months and years.
The right hon. Lady asked about the people who are in Greece. She recognised in her question that of those 230,000 people, not all are Syrian refugees and not all are refugees. There are people from other countries who have seen it as a route to enter the European Union. That is why the hotspots proposal is so important and why it is important to set it up as quickly as possible. There were indications on Monday from the European Commission and the Greek Minister that the support that is being put into that will enable people to be identified at that point, so that those who have a genuine claim to asylum can be supported appropriately and illegal economic migrants can be returned to the countries from which they originated.
Refugee Crisis in Europe
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the refugee crisis in Europe.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this emergency debate, and I thank the Home Secretary for coming to the House to respond to it. Given the scale and gravity of the refugee crisis now affecting Europe, it is right that Parliament has given time for the statement yesterday, for the debate today and for the chance to vote on a motion on the Scottish National party’s Opposition day tomorrow.
On 21 November 1938, the Labour MP for Derby, Philip Noel-Baker, secured a three-hour debate in the shadow of Kristallnacht. It was the debate that set in motion the urgent support for the Kindertransport, helping 10,000 Jewish children come to Britain. Parliament was united that day. He won support from all sides and from the Conservative Home Secretary, Samuel Hoare.
Yesterday we were not united, though there was much that we agreed on. The Prime Minister announced new help, which was welcome, but many of us wanted him to do more. I hope that today’s debate, and tomorrow’s, is the chance for us to forge new agreement across this House and to build a consensus and a national mission across the country on the further action that Britain needs to take.
Refugees are moving across our continent on a scale we have not seen since the second world war, with a third of a million trying to cross the Mediterranean this year, many ready to pay their life savings to criminal gangs who board them on to overcrowded boats and then leave them to drown. Fifty-two people were found dead in the hull of a boat. They had been forced into an airless hold, forced to pay to come up to breathe, and those who could not pay suffocated to death. The pictures of Alan Kurdi have moved a continent—the image of a three-year-old on a beach, a picture that should have been full of life and joy and instead was a tragedy.
Thousands more are making their way by land through the Balkans into Hungary, crowding on to trains, fearful of the police who come to check them and anxious not to be sent to refugee camps—so determined to reach German sanctuary that men, women and children in their thousands have set off ready to walk 300 miles along a motorway. In Calais, on our own doorstep, 3,000 people are sleeping in makeshift camps, many having risked their lives, with nine people in the past three months alone having lost their lives trying to cross to Dover.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I commend my right hon. Friend for her leadership in securing this debate and for what has been said over recent days. Does she agree that, as in the title of the debate, this refugee crisis goes beyond Syria and affects people fleeing many terrible situations in countries including Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq? The Prime Minister’s comments yesterday seemed to be wholly focused on Syria, but it goes far beyond that. Do we not need to consider those who are fleeing those situations across the whole area?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. The situation in Eritrea, for example, has led to many people fleeing that country. Independent observers have commented on the human rights abuses that have driven people to flee their homes there and travel often many miles, through many countries, to seek sanctuary in Europe.
It is true that some of the travellers have safe homes to return to, and immigration rules need to be enforced, but so very many of the troubled travellers no longer have any safe home. Syria has indeed been responsible for much of the increase in those travelling this year and in recent months, but situations in other countries have led to the increase in refugee numbers as well.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for securing this debate. She has referred to the unspeakable horror of the drownings and of the suffocation in lorries across Europe. In addition, does she agree that some countries on the fringes of Europe are now at breaking point as they struggle to deal with being on the front line of the worst refugee crisis for decades? A few weeks ago I was at a refugee feeding station in Kos, where I saw conditions that I had never expected to see in modern Europe. Parts of Greece are at breaking point. It is in our common interest to deal with that situation and to help the migrants and to help ourselves. Does she agree with António Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, that no country can do it alone and every country must play its part?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I agree that no country can do this alone. When we have a crisis that involves people fleeing across borders, of course no country can deal with it alone. I am like my hon. Friend in that the pressures in Greece are what I am most troubled about in Europe now. They provide the strongest argument for Britain to respond within Europe and not simply to help those from the camps near Syria.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
No one doubts the right hon. Lady’s humane instincts, and of course we should not be hard-hearted, but we have to be hard-headed. Given that millions are displaced in Syria and there is, quite understandably, no limit to how many want to come here, will she say exactly how many migrants Labour wants to admit to this country?
Yvette Cooper
I will say more about the number of refugees that I have already called for Britain to come forward and help. By deciding that we need to help, we are being very hard-headed. This is about our hearts and our heads, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, but both should be telling us that we need to respond to the scale of this crisis because it is not going away. Just because we cannot help everyone, we should not help no one. We should do our bit.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
In reality, though, it is not a case of helping no one, given our generous contribution as the second largest donor to Syrian refugees in terms of international aid. Where is the difference in terms of numbers? The Prime Minister has now rightly said that there should be more assistance for 20,000 Syrian refugees. The shadow Home Secretary has said 10,000, but the UNHCR has said that we need to get up to 30,000 by the end of 2016. Charities have said, “Let’s give hope to 10,000 Syrian refugees.” Where is the material difference? We are now on the same side in providing hope for at least the minimum number—in my view—of 20,000.
Yvette Cooper
If I may, I will come on to where I think the disagreement still lies, and happily give way to the hon. Gentleman again if he feels I have not answered his point. I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday, which was important. I welcome, too, the huge amount that is being done in aid, where Britain is playing a leading role. I applaud the work that this Government are doing to help and provide aid to those in the camps and to do more to start to help those from Syria.
Many of the troubled travellers no longer have any safe home to return to; they do need help and we should do our bit. There is a difference between immigration and asylum. We cannot let the troubled politics of immigration paralyse us and stop us doing our bit to help those who are fleeing conflict and persecution. Eleven million people in Syria have now been driven from their homes. In Palmyra and Mosul hundreds of men have been beheaded and their bodies hung from the roofs of ancient temples. Four million have fled the country altogether and most are living hand to mouth in neighbouring countries. Another 6 million have been displaced inside the country. Many of them, and many other refugees, are fleeing a new totalitarianism, and we should help those who flee to survive, just as we did against totalitarian regimes in the past.
We agree that Britain needs to do its bit to help. We agree that Britain should do most through support in the region with the aid to the camps, because it is far better to help people nearby to prevent dangerous journeys and to make it easier for them to return if things improve. As I have said, I applaud the Government’s leadership in supporting the camps and doing far more than other countries to provide aid at a time when food rations are running short and the UNHCR is desperate for more support. We agree that the Navy should be part of search and rescue, aiding those in peril on the sea. We agree that Europol and police forces should be driving action against the vile criminal gangs who prey on desperation and put a price tag on freedom—a price tag on breathing—and seek a profit on people’s lives.
We agree too that it is right for Britain to help orphaned and unaccompanied children from Syria if they will not be better off staying with family and friends. However, debates in the other place have raised concern about whether children who came from Syria, having no family back home and having made a life here, would be sent home when they reached the age of 18. That would be inhumane. I seek clarification from the Home Secretary and urge her to assure the House that unaccompanied children who come from Syria to Britain will not be sent back to the region when they turn 18.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
With regard to tackling criminal gangs and the role of Europol, I followed the Minister for Immigration to Europol two weeks ago. It is involved in an operation in Sicily to try to deal with the criminal gangs. This is not just about taking in the refugees; it is also about dealing with the criminal gangs. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that the EU should increase resources to Europol to enable it, as the only strategic authority, to do a better job in tackling the criminal gangs?
Yvette Cooper
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The scale of the criminal challenge and the modern slavery that the Home Secretary has often talked about mean that we must have a response that matches the scale of the crisis and the scale of the trafficking that is taking place. Frankly, our response, not just in Britain but across Europe, does not match the scale of the challenge at the moment. We certainly need to support Europol and police forces right across Europe to work together to do more.
We agree that the Government should offer more sanctuary to those who are vulnerable in the camps in Syria and give them a chance to come to Britain instead. In fact, this House called for that nearly two years ago. I and Sir Menzies Campbell—soon to be Lord Campbell—and many Members on both sides of the House argued for it when we debated the issue in January 2014 and, as a result, the Home Secretary agreed to set up the programme in early 2014. That programme has so far helped just over 200 people and the Government have made a big change to their position by saying that they are now prepared to help 20,000. Even if the timetable is slow, I welcome the fact that they have agreed to do more.
I pay tribute to all those who in the past seven days have signed petitions and contacted MPs, charities and newspapers to speak out and call for action. That has changed the Government’s mind, which is welcome.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
Does the right hon. Lady agree that the right policy is to go to the camps in Turkey and Jordan where millions of people have sought refuge, and that the last thing we want to do is enact any policy that will act as a magnet for more people to make treacherous journeys such as that which ended with that tragic death on the Turkish coastline?
Yvette Cooper
We agree that we want to do everything we can to help prevent traffickers from being able to prey on the situation and to prevent some of the problems we have seen, but I disagree with the hon. Gentleman if he sees that as an argument for not helping those in Europe itself. I will come to that and will give him a chance to ask a further question later.
This is where we start to disagree. We need to urge the Government to do more. The Prime Minister said yesterday that he would help up to 20,000 refugees over the five-year Parliament, but the crisis is now. Helping 4,000 refugees this year is not enough. Compare that figure of 4,000 with the 24,000 in France and the hundreds of thousands in Germany; compare it with our population of 60 million; with the 10,000 we helped in just nine months under the Kindertransport; with the 19,000 Vietnamese boat people who fled to Britain from the Vietcong; and with the 24,000 Kosovans who came to Britain in the late ’90s. We can do more than this.
The Prime Minister said yesterday that he wants to get on with it. That is good and it might mean more than 4,000 in the first year. The trouble is that when we first urged the Home Secretary to take in Syrian refugees, she said they would do it as fast as possible, but in the end the scheme proved slow—only just over 200 have been helped. If they can help a full 10,000 in the first year, why not say so and why set a cap for the whole Parliament when we have no idea what the circumstances will be in a few years’ time? In fact, why set a cap for the Parliament at all?
I am afraid that the figure of 20,000 over a Parliament has the feel of coming up with a plan to maximise the headline number but to minimise the impact year on year. That is the wrong approach. We need to know how many the Government will help this year. How many can we help before Christmas, when the crisis is now? What can Britain do to help?
I made the suggestion of 10,000 straightaway simply by asking every county and city to take 10 families. I said we should ask councils how many people they would be able to help. Has the Home Secretary asked councils whether they can help?
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Swansea, of course, is a city of sanctuary and the leader of the council, Rob Stewart, has said that Swansea will help in any way it can. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the issue is to establish the capacity available for people who will willingly take people, rather than just plucking numbers out of the air, and that there is a welcome home for many people in distress across the country, including in Swansea?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. Swansea and other cities, including Birmingham and Sheffield, have already said that they are cities of sanctuary and will do their bit to help. I asked councils across the country whether they would help and within 24 hours, 40 councils confirmed that they would help and a further 20 have also done so. The Welsh Assembly Government have shown great leadership, saying that they will help, and the Scottish Government have also said they will help. They need support from the Government to do so, but they really want us to do our bit. Wales, Scotland and councils across the country are all saying that they will help, but only if we can work together.
Mr Burrowes
The right hon. Lady is right not to pluck figures from the air. There have been pledges to deliver just over 100,000 places and the UNHCR, which is the expert in the field, says that the figure should be up to 130,000 across countries by the end of 2016. Surely if we follow its approach and play our part in the delivery of 130,000 places by the end of 2016, that will provide a focus and we could ask the Home Secretary to provide details of how we can quickly reboot the vulnerable persons relocation scheme to assess those children and vulnerable people and get them here as quickly as possible.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Gentleman is right: we should look at all the different ways in which we can play our part and work with the UN. At the same time, the EU is today asking for 160,000 people to be resettled throughout Europe. The hon. Gentleman is also right to say that the UN has called for people to be resettled from the camps themselves. We should be doing that and working together. My proposal was a suggestion of a way forward by asking councils, but there are other ways to do this. The point is that Parliament should make known our commitment and view that Britain can do more to help. That is what people across the country are telling us. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should be looking for ways to do more.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does she agree that the organisations involved include not only councils, but national charities and local bookshops? We also have a local Songworks choir, and local schools are making collections. Children in Hornsey and Wood Green have been inspired to collect food and blankets and to give their pocket money, and churches and mosques across the piece are also involved. Somebody came to an advice surgery on Friday who was a refugee himself. I thought he wanted to discuss his own housing problem, but he has raised £14,000 through a local charity called Comkar. He was in tears and had a photograph of that little boy. He said, “That was my journey, but I made it and I want to do my bit,” so could we also reach out to and help civic communities?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right, because people want to help. They want to be able to do their bit and they want us to show that we are also prepared to do our bit from this Parliament. One million people have signed petitions in the past week alone and £500,000 has been raised in 24 hours for Save the Children. Almost 4,000 people have offered to open their homes for refugees. Earlier this week, a convoy of 15 cars travelled from Birmingham to Calais filled with donations for refugees in camps there. Faith groups, community groups, workplaces, businesses and councils are also involved. A business contacted me this morning to ask how it could offer jobs to refugees and give them a new start. That is the kind of country we are—this is the best of Britain. We have to now make this the best of the House of Commons as well by responding to that demand for help and action from our country.
I urge the Home Secretary to ask communities and councils how much they are able to do to help, and to call an urgent meeting with councils, community organisations, charities and faith groups to ask how we can work together to address this crisis. I will hold such a meeting on Thursday, but they could come to her instead and be part of a Home Office and Government-led programme across the country, showing the leadership we need.
We need a clear plan. We need the Home Secretary to spend the next month working across the country to draw up a serious plan for how we in Britain can help and to address the target of how many people we can take before Christmas and over the next 12 months. Britain is showing how much it wants to do; now we need a Government who want to do their bit, too, and who are ready to live up to the country they represent.
There is a second area of disagreement. The Government have said that they want to take only refugees from the camps near Syria, not those who are already in Europe. They have said—this point has already been raised—that they do not want to give people an incentive to travel through Europe in order to get asylum in Britain. The trouble is that people are travelling already. They did not wait for any asylum statement by the British Government before deciding to pack their bags and flee. Rations have halved in some of the Syrian border camps. Parents are despairing that their children will never go to school. They cannot work or go home and they are fleeing to Europe whatever we in Britain do or say.
Let us remember that Britain has already used the incentive argument in relation to search and rescue. The boats were withdrawn to deter people from travelling. Instead, many more came, and many more drowned because the boats were not there to help. Refugees are travelling and there is a crisis now.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
I was an aid worker in the Balkans for almost 10 years during the crisis in the 1990s, and I saw at first hand what it took to make somebody leave their home, their loved ones and the community they love. People do not flee such things lightly; they do so because of desperate conditions and war. Does my right hon. Friend agree that those conditions and the push away from areas of war far outweigh the pull of coming to a country such as Britain?
Yvette Cooper
I agree with my hon. Friend. Any of us who are parents know just how stressful it always is to travel with children; and to entertain the idea that any parent would take the decision lightly to travel with children across a continent—not knowing where they will sleep the next night, not knowing how long the journey will be, not knowing where the food will come from for their next meal—is to misunderstand the huge pressure and anxiety that so many of those desperate refugees are facing.
And they are travelling now. The UN has reported that 7,000 Syrians arrived in Macedonia on Monday alone. Some 50,000 people have arrived in Greece in just one month. In the Greek islands alone, 30,000 people are currently asking for sanctuary and help, including 20,000 on Lesbos.
To be honest, it is the refugees arriving in Greece that I am the most troubled about right now. Germany, Austria and Hungary are understandably focusing on helping the hundreds of thousands of people crossing their borders, while Italy, with help from the EU, is working to help more than 100,000 who have come mainly from Libya. But Greece needs much more help to deal with and respond to those who have arrived on its shores, and to provide them with humanitarian support.
The authorities are doing their best, but the camps are makeshift, without toilets or running water. Many people are sleeping outside, with nothing but cardboard to sleep on—and they include babies and children. There have been cases, too, of police using riot batons against refugees as tensions have risen. How on earth is Greece supposed to assess people’s asylum claims and provide them with humanitarian aid when 130,000 people have arrived on its shores this year alone?
The Prime Minister’s response yesterday seemed to be that the issues for Greece, Italy and Hungary were just a problem for the Schengen zone to deal with. Why is that? The Schengen zone did not cause millions to flee their homes, whether in Syria, Libya or beyond. The Schengen zone did not draw up the geography of Europe and its islands, by which our British islands are 2,000 miles from Syria, whereas the Greek islands are just three miles from the Turkish shore. I agree with Angela Merkel that the Schengen countries need to rethink their border controls now, but none of that is an excuse for us not to help.
Today, as we debate, the European Commission is drawing up plans to move 130,000 people into other countries. I agree that we should not be part of a quota system drawn up by the Commission, but I do not agree that we should turn our backs, and I do not agree that we should say that the crisis in Europe is nothing to do with us and that the only people that we will help will be from the Syrian camps.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that talking about whether we are or are not members of Schengen is in some sense a red herring? If the European family of nations means anything, it should mean that all European nations stand together in the face of this unprecedented crisis.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right because Europe is being tested. We are part of the Europe that is being tested now, and we should show that we are ready to respond.
That is why I think that the Home Secretary should ring up the European Commission today. While it is working out how to provide help across Europe, let us offer to do our bit. Let us offer to take 10,000 people this year, or a different number if she prefers. Let us offer to take the 3,000 children who have travelled to Europe alone, as Save the Children has suggested. Let us just offer to help—just be British, do something bold—say that we will fund the UNHCR to make assessments in Greece right now, say that we will send support to provide help and to bring the refugees from Greece to Britain to get the help that they need.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
Given that the Government have made a very generous contribution in providing support in the refugee camps and that they have made the welcome commitment to take 20,000 refugees, does my right hon. Friend agree that failing to work with other European countries to deal with the immediate problems risks our losing the moral leadership in Europe that our financial contribution would merit?
Yvette Cooper
I agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, I want to move on to that point. This should be an opportunity for us to work with other European countries and to get them to do more, both in providing aid for the region, just as we do, and in helping the refugees.
This problem is not going away. The reason I think that this is about responding with both our heads and our hearts is that if we do nothing, this problem will simply get worse. We cannot stand on the sidelines and watch while this happens. We cannot be the generation that turned our backs. We need a bigger plan.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
Will the right hon. Lady clarify? If she is suggesting that we should be taking migrants who are currently in the European Union rather than taking migrants directly from Syria, is she suggesting that we take fewer refugees from the Syrian camps than the 20,000 proposed by the Government, or that a substantially larger number of migrants overall should come both from Syria and from inside the EU?
Yvette Cooper
The Government’s current proposal is to take 20,000 refugees over five years, so we assume that that means 4,000 in the next 12 months. Yes, I am saying that it would be right for Britain to take more than 4,000 in the next 12 months. To be honest, it is very hard to set a number for a whole Parliament, because we do not know what the circumstances will be in future. I think we should start with the number we want to help in the next 12 months, and then keep that continually under review. We may need to help more, and we may be able to help more. We may find other long-term solutions, but we know that that will be hard. We should start with those we can help right now, and that must be more than 4,000.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way because she has come to the nub of the argument. Is not the distinction between desperate people in one place who have made a journey and desperate people in another place who have yet to make a journey as false as it is offensive? Surely our contribution to helping people who are in need should be based on need, not on a decision that they might have made from sheer desperation.
Yvette Cooper
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we need to do both. We cannot simply ignore people who have already fled out of such desperation, been on very difficult journeys and seen many terrible things along the way, including children who have endured all kinds of difficult and degrading treatments, whether at the hands of traffickers or in the form of the abuse they have left behind. We should help them because that is happening on our doorstep: we should be providing help in European countries, as well as in Syria itself, and we need to do so as part of a wider European plan.
We need a bigger plan, and Europe should be part of that plan. We do not have time today to debate a long-term solution for Syria, the military strategy against ISIL or the Government’s current approach to the Assad regime. We urgently need a new diplomatic initiative drawing on all the countries of the region, Russia, Iran, the US and countries from the Gulf and the EU, but no one believes that there is a simple foreign policy or military intervention that will swiftly restore millions of people to their homes.
We need a serious plan to cope with the humanitarian consequences, which could be with us for many years, and a plan for the region and the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, which have shown great generosity. However, as long as the refugees in those countries have no proper homes and no schools for their children and as long as they cannot work and have no hope, they will of course seek sanctuary in European democracies. In effect, we need a Marshall plan for the area to provide the long-term support that we need to provide the stability that we need.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The right hon. Lady mentioned that we do not have time to debate the bigger issue of what we do about ISIL, but in brief, how far does she think we should go to defeat ISIL in the region?
Yvette Cooper
The Prime Minister himself has said that acting against ISIL is a challenge for a generation. A response is taking place in Iraq and Syria at the moment. We wait for the Government to set out any further proposals that they have, and we will need to look at those in due course. However, that does not change anything about the humanitarian response that we need for those who are fleeing the conflict—not just those from Syria, but people from other countries who are crossing the Mediterranean.
Yvette Cooper
I am conscious that I have taken many interventions. Many people want to get in and I really want to complete my speech, so I will take just two further interventions and then complete my remarks.
Robert Neill
The right hon. Lady makes a very fair point about the need in the long term for what she terms a new Marshall plan. I have sympathy with that, but the Marshall plan only worked once the totalitarian barbarians in Europe had been removed. How far is she prepared to go to support those of us who think we should use every means to remove the barbarians who are currently destroying these countries?
Yvette Cooper
That is another debate. As I have said clearly, there is no quick military or foreign policy fix that will solve the humanitarian challenge we face. Nobody believes that there is a quick answer that will solve these problems.
Debbie Abrahams
I am in contact with Syrian families who are seeking asylum in the UK and who originally travelled to Europe through Hungary, where they were fingerprinted and photographed. Their concern is that they will be sent back to Hungary. What should we do in such cases?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend raises an important point about those who have travelled to Britain through other countries. That concern relates specifically to what is happening in Syria. I have said that the long-standing Dublin convention has worked well in many areas and could work well in future. However, the nature of the Syrian crisis and the humanitarian crisis that we face is straining that convention at its seams. The Government should think again about the refugees from Syria who have arrived in Britain whom they are deporting back to other European countries, even though those countries may already have taken far more Syrian refugees than we have. That is not about Britain doing its bit to help, particularly given the scale of the crisis we face.
We need a plan for Europe, not just a Marshall plan for the region, because people will keep trying to reach our shores, whatever we do—a plan that involves proper UNHCR-run assessment centres in the region before people try to make a dangerous journey, and EU funding for the UN to do the job; a plan that funds assessment centres in Europe in the places people are most likely to arrive, so that they do not start to travel in dangerous convoys across our continent; a swift system to respond to those economic migrants, perhaps from the Balkans, who need to return and to follow normal immigration rules; a plan to help the refugees get the help and support they need; a plan that takes on the vile criminal gangs; a plan in which European countries work together, rather than making life harder for each other; a plan by which the French authorities and the UN can do full assessments of those at Calais to determine how many are refugees and how many need support; a plan in which Europe stands strong in the face of the crisis in which it is being tested, rather than falls apart.
Why is Britain not leading the way in insisting on the scale of plan that we need? Why are we not demanding that Poland and other eastern European countries do their bit to help, backing up the calls from France and Germany for other nations to do more? Why are we not calling on the Commission to do more, particularly to help Greece provide the humanitarian support that is needed? Why are we not using our leverage in the EU to make sure that other countries do more to provide aid to the region? Why are we not recognising our responsibilities as one of the biggest and longest-standing EU countries to make sure that Europe responds? We should use that basic British diplomacy that we are supposed to be so good at to provide a bit of leadership on our continent at a time of crisis. Yes, that does mean that we have to do our bit to show that we are prepared to help within Europe, too.
Anybody who thinks that we can solve this crisis by pulling Europe apart is profoundly mistaken. Only by working together can we deal with the scale of this. Imagine how much harder it would be, whether to deal with the problems at Calais or the problems of people crossing borders through the continent, if we were to rip Europe apart and make it harder to work together.
In the end, this is about the kind of Britain we are and the kind of Europe we want to believe in. It is about whether we are brave enough and strong enough to act when the times demand it. When we hear the Hungarian Prime Minister—a democratically elected Prime Minister of a European country—warn that we should oppose people coming into his country because we cannot let Muslims into Europe, we should be chilled. We should remember how hard we fought to defend our democratic values, our compassion and our internationalism, not just in Britain, but in Europe; how hard we fought to build the idea of our common humanity; and how we cannot take those values for granted. In the end, these are the values that we believe in. In the 1680s, 50,000 Huguenots fled here from La Rochelle. Two hundred years later, 140,000 Russians fled here from the Tsar. In the 1930s, despite the recession and hardship our country faced, we took in more than 80,000 Jewish and European refugees.
In the Kindertransport debate 77 years ago, Philip Noel-Baker reminded parliamentarians of our common past. In his speech, he reminded the House of the Russian refugees after the first world war who were resettled in Greece, Bulgaria and Syria. Here is what Samuel Hoare, the Conservative Home Secretary of the day, told the Commons:
“There is no page in our lifetime which is so tragic as that of the sufferings of the refugees…Wave after wave of refugees has drifted across the world, uprooted from their homes, penniless, destitute, no country found ready at hand to receive them, separated from their families and their surroundings”.—[Official Report, 21 November 1938; Vol. 341, c. 1463.]
He continued:
“we, the United Kingdom…are prepared to play our full part and to take our full share with the other nations of the world. We accept the responsibility that is on our shoulders…owing to our wealth and other resources, we can play an important part”.—[Official Report, 21 November 1938; Vol. 341, c. 1466.]
I hope that our Home Secretary today will respond in the same spirit, and I hope that the whole House will do so too, both in the debate today and as we vote on a motion to follow up tomorrow.
Here is what the Labour MP for Gower, David Grenfell, said towards the end of the debate:
“The House this evening has shown a wonderful unanimity of sentiment and feeling, which must gladden the hearts of Members in all parts of the House. Within the framework of a feeling of common humanity and a common standard of civilisation Members in all parts of the House have filled in a picture which shows the House of Commons at its very best.”—[Official Report, 21 November 1938; Vol. 341, c. 1476.]
Another Member stated:
“we are at the turning of the roads…We could never set our hands to a better thing. To-morrow may be a hard day for us, but I feel that, by doing the things that are morally right, we shall achieve something which is worthy of the name of the British nation.”—[Official Report, 21 November 1938; Vol. 341, c. 1456.]
Let us today be the House of Commons at our best. Let us live up to our predecessors. Let us live up to our history. Let us live up to the generosity of the country that we seek to represent. Let us decide this week that we will do more to help.
Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. The European Union has agreed a Common Security and Defence Policy programme, to work with a Government in Libya when possible. At the moment, the situation in Libya is such that there is not a Government to provide the support to give the go-ahead for such a programme, but there are already plans on exactly the sort of point made by the hon. Gentleman.
We have established an organised immigration crime taskforce that brings together officers from the National Crime Agency, immigration enforcement, the Border Force and the Crown Prosecution Service to pursue and disrupt organised crime gangs. Some of the team are based in Europol cells in Sicily and The Hague. The rest are on standby in the UK to deploy. They will exploit every opportunity to smash the gangs’ criminal operations. Additional officers have already deployed to Senegal, Ethiopia, Greece, Malta and Tunisia to tackle the gangs at source. The taskforce will build on the progress made by the Home Office’s immigration enforcement command in tackling the gangs that target the most vulnerable. Working with the French authorities, our teams in Kent have already broken up 27 gangs in the past 18 months.
As others have said, this problem extends beyond the conflict in Syria. The UK is also a leading member of the group of European and African nations developing the EU’s Khartoum process, focused on concrete actions to combat people-smuggling and human trafficking in the horn of Africa.
Yvette Cooper
I appreciate it; the Home Secretary is being very generous. I think everybody in the House will agree with pretty much everything she has said. There is a lot that we agree on, but I really must press her on the areas of disagreement. Can she give me any good reason why Britain would not help to take some refugees from Greece? We know the difficulties that Greece is dealing with—coping with 50,000 people arriving in a month. Can the right hon. Lady give me any good reason why we should not do our bit, when other countries are doing theirs, to reach out a hand and take some refugees from Greece?
Mrs May
If the right hon. Lady will bear with me for 30 seconds, I will come on to the issues relating to Greece and Italy to which she referred in her speech. I just want to add this on the criminal gangs: it is not only the victims of conflict on whom the criminal gangs prey; some of those making the dangerous journey to Europe are refugees, but others are economic migrants simply hoping to improve their lot. That is why we are leading the argument in Europe about breaking the link between making these journeys and achieving settlement in Europe for those who are not refugees.
The right hon. Lady, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) said, put quite a lot of emphasis in her speech on portraying the United Kingdom as completely failing to work with other member states in the European Union. That could not be further from the truth. We have been working closely with other countries in Europe. The right hon. Lady referred to Greece and Italy and asked us to do our bit to help Greece. We are indeed already helping Greece. We are providing support to Greece and Italy. It is very clear to me and to the Interior Ministers of France and Germany that the European Union’s concept of providing hot spots, particularly in areas such as Greece and Italy, will make it possible to process people coming through more swiftly and give them better support as they arrive in Europe. That will make it possible to take quick action to grant asylum to those who need our protection and, of course, to be firm with those who do not. We need to get those hot spots or processing centres up and running. It has been taking too long and that is precisely why the Interior Ministers of France and Germany, with me, have asked the European Union to call the urgent Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting next week so that we can press this point and ensure we get action. I assure the right hon. Lady that I and the Government have indeed been leading in Europe on a number of these issues.
Yvette Cooper
I appreciate it. Once those assessment centres or hot spots are in place, what will happen to the refugees? Will the Home Secretary go into that meeting on 14 September and pledge not only to support the establishment of the hot spots and assessment centres but to take some of the refugees once they have been assessed? That would be Britain really doing its bit. That, I think, would be welcomed right across Europe and give her so much more leverage in getting Poland and other countries to do their bit as well.
Mrs May
Every country in Europe is working and contributing on this issue in a variety of different ways. We are very clear that the focus should be on helping Syrian refugees in the camps and in the region. We are not part of quota systems of resettlement and relocation within Europe for those who have arrived in Europe. We are helping in relation to the problems that Greece and Italy are already finding, as I have just indicated to the House.
I want to talk specifically on resettling refugees, particularly from Syria. As I have said, we are providing aid directly to people in the region. We believe that that is the best way to provide the greatest level of support to the largest number of people. We are embracing the need to provide protection here in Britain. We have always proudly done that. We operate some of the largest and longest-running refugee resettlement schemes in Europe. We have been among those EU member states offering the highest number of places in response to the current situation. Since the Syrian crisis began, we have granted protection to almost 5,000 Syrian nationals and their dependants under our normal asylum rules, in addition to the more than 200 we have taken under the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, which is for the most vulnerable people—survivors of torture and violence, women and children at risk, and people in need of emergency medical treatment. As the Prime Minister announced yesterday, we will significantly increase the numbers of people resettled under that scheme—up to 20,000 over the course of this Parliament.
Mrs May
I apologise to hon. Members; I indicated earlier that I would not take further interventions. I took interventions from the Opposition Front Bench. I will not take further interventions, because, as Mr Speaker said, 27 Back Benchers wish to speak in the debate. It is only fair to them if we on the Front Benches try to limit our comments.
Increasing the number of resettled refugees to 20,000 people over the course of this Parliament will not replace our humanitarian efforts. However, it recognises the resettlement of vulnerable refugees as an important part of the comprehensive approach needed to address a crisis on this scale.
Yvette Cooper
On this crucial point, the Home Secretary has said 20,000 over five years. How many will she take this year? Will she give a target for the number of people she will help this year, and will she make sure it is more than 4,000?
Mrs May
As the Prime Minister said in response to questions yesterday from hon. Members asking him to put a figure on the number in the first year, we will work with the UNHCR, which will identify the most vulnerable people. We will also work with local authorities, as the right hon. Lady mentioned. I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government are chairing a taskforce to ensure that across Government we are getting the maximum effort on this point. My right hon. Friend the Immigration Minister has already contacted the Local Government Association and the Scottish Government. We need to ensure appropriate accommodation for people when they arrive in the UK, so we will work with the UNHCR and scale up as quickly as we can, but I am sorry to say to her that I cannot put a figure on the number for the first year. If she thinks about the need to ensure that the UNHCR can identify the most vulnerable people and that the accommodation and support provided to those people here in the UK is appropriate for their needs, she will see that it would not be right simply to chase some figure for the first year. We need to ensure we provide the right support for the most vulnerable people, and we will continue to work with the UNHCR to identify those refugees.
As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we recognise that children have been particularly badly affected by the crisis. In most cases, the interests of children are best met in the region, where they can remain close to surviving family members, but where the UNHCR’s advice is that their needs should be met by resettlement in the UK, we will ensure that vulnerable children, including orphans, are a priority. We are already working with the UNHCR and a range of other partners to deliver these changes and to start bringing in additional people as soon as possible. As was referred to earlier, this carries a cost, but as the Prime Minister said yesterday, we will ensure that the full cost of supporting thousands of Syrian refugees in the UK is met through our aid spending for the first year, easing the burden on local communities.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
It is useful to reflect that we are not starting this debate from a position in which Britain has done nothing in the past. Britain has a proud tradition of providing a home for genuine asylum seekers and refugees, and international aid around the world. According to the Red Cross, last year 126,000 refugees were living in the UK and more than 30,000 people entered the asylum system, seeking asylum in this country. According to figures from the Home Office, nearly 5,000 Syrians have already been granted asylum in the UK. That is before the announcement made by the Prime Minister that we would take a further 20,000 people, through the Syrian scheme, during this Parliament.
We have had a big debate about that number, but I have heard nothing from the Labour party to say that it would take more than 20,000. Labour may take these people from different places but it has not said it will take more. All the shadow Home Secretary would say when asked about this point was that she thought we should take more than 4,000 this year. But as we have seen from what the Government have said, they are open to the fact that we may take more than 4,000 this year, because no fixed number for this year has been set.
Damian Collins
Any advance on 20,000? The shadow Home Secretary did not do this in her remarks when she was asked, but will she now give a figure? I think it would be helpful for the House to have some idea of what “more than 20,000” might be.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Gentleman should target his remarks at the Home Secretary who has given us no figure on how many we are to take this year. I started by saying that we should take at least 10,000 right now; we could do that. Government Members are trying to spread the number to 4,000 a year. That is simply not enough. We want to go further. Will they come back and say how many they want to provide for this year, by Christmas. The crisis is now.
Damian Collins
The problem is that the 10,000 figure for this year that the shadow Home Secretary has asked for could still be only 20,000 over the lifetime of the Parliament. The Government have not given a fixed number for this year; it could be more than 4,000. In many ways, this debate about numbers, while important, gets away from the main point, which is that the Opposition are not proposing a substantially different number of people to be granted asylum from Syria. That point has not been made during the course of this debate.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. As we are almost out of time, I call Yvette Cooper.
Yvette Cooper
With the leave of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I thank the House for a very thoughtful debate. It has been an important debate, but we have not yet heard what we need to hear from the Government. We all agree on the need to provide aid for the region, to take refugees from the camps and to tackle trafficking, but we need two more things. First, we need a commitment to providing more help this year, now, and to taking refugees straight away, because the crisis is happening now. Secondly, we need a commitment to take refugees from Europe, not simply from the camps. This year, 130,000 people arrived in Greece seeking sanctuary. Where do we think they are going to go if they cannot all stay in Greece? How are we going to persuade other European countries to help if we will not do so?
Tomorrow we will debate this issue again, and we will vote. I urge all Members throughout the House to read the report of the Kindertransport debate of 77 years ago before the SNP’s Opposition day debate, and before the vote. I ask them not to vote against the additional help that we need. We have a moral responsibility to do more. What the Government have done is good, but it is simply not enough. Let us do more.
Water Cannon
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. She and I are often at odds on Home Office issues—she will know that we have disagreed on issues relating to police reform, including on police and crime commissioners, and she referred to that at the end of her statement—but today, on the main substance of her statement, I could not agree with her more. She is exactly right to reject the application from the police and the Mayor of London to use water cannon, and I support her decision today. I also welcome the thorough and comprehensive way in which she has done so and agree with her on each of her three counts.
The Home Secretary is right to take immensely seriously the safety and health risks from this kind of weapon. She referred to the case from Stuttgart in 2010, where a man was blinded when he was hit in the face by a water cannon during a protest against a local infrastructure project. It was troubling that the submission from the Association of Chief Police Officers in 2014 calling on her to authorise water cannon did not even refer to that case—that did not reflect well on the thoroughness of the case being put forward.
Secondly, I agree with the Home Secretary that the operational case that was put forward is too weak to justify the authorisation of something so potentially dangerous. During the riots in 2011, the then president of ACPO, Sir Hugh Orde, described calls for the use of water cannon then as
“the wrong tactic, in the wrong circumstances at this moment”.
He said that
“excessive force will destroy our model of policing in the long term”.
Significantly, Sir Hugh Orde is one of the few chief constables to have authorised water cannon in Northern Ireland, where of course the circumstances are very different and where a unique threat is faced.
The ACPO paper from 2014 also says that
“history would suggest that the most serious outbreaks of public disorder have occurred spontaneously”
and therefore water cannon would not be suitable. Instead, it says water cannon would be useful for “planned events” and points to
“ongoing and potential future austerity measures likely to lead to continued protest”.
However, Britain has policed planned events in this country for centuries without the need for water cannon, by using communication with event organisers, using sensible policing strategies or, in exceptional cases where violence is expected, such as with English Defence League marches, using the power to ban marches or relocate them. Can the Home Secretary confirm that she believes the police do have a wide range of powers available to them to deal with serious public order threats or serious criminal threats on our streets, be it in the capital or across the country? I agree with the Home Secretary that water cannon have never been deployed in England, Scotland or Wales and no one has put forward any justification for why that should change now.
The Home Secretary also pointed out that the Mayor of London has already purchased three water cannon. Can she confirm that that cost £218,000 of Greater London Authority money, and that it was done before getting her authorisation and was based on an operational case that has now been proven to be extremely weak? Can she also confirm, as she seemed to be saying in her statement, that he did not even seem to have bought particularly good water cannon, as it appears that they are 25 years old and need at least 67 major repairs and alterations? Given that the Chancellor has now grounded the Mayor’s airport ambitions, may I strongly welcome her comprehensive pouring of cold water on his cannon ambitions, too?
I agree with the Home Secretary that deploying water cannon could also be counterproductive and could damage our long tradition of policing by consent. She rightly has a responsibility not only to look seriously at any proposal put to her by the police and to make sure that they have the powers they need, but to take account of the fact that our model is based on nearly two centuries of policing by consent, with people becoming police officers from their communities to represent and protect their communities. Public order policing, just like any other aspect of policing, is based on that consent and confidence, and to weaponise policing further would create significant risks. The Home Secretary is therefore right to reject water cannon today and Labour strongly supports her decision.
Mrs May
I thank the right hon. Lady for her remarks about the decision I have taken. May I echo one of the comments she made about Northern Ireland? It is important that we recognise that the policing circumstances there are completely different from those the police face in England and Wales, and I would just like to commend the work that the Police Service of Northern Ireland does. Its officers face significant threats and significant trouble, and they do that job with integrity and professionalism.
The right hon. Lady is also right to say that a range of powers are available to the police in England and Wales to be able to deal with public order, as they have been doing for many years. At least one chief constable referred in his correspondence to me to the way in which they like to work with communities when public demonstrations or marches are about to take place, and would prefer to be able to use those methods of communication and working with communities to ensure that public order is maintained at all times.
The decision on the three machines was a matter for the Mayor of London. The point that she makes, crucially, about the level of trust is a significant one; it is about that model of British policing. As Peel said,
“the police are the public and the public are the police”
and we should treasure our model of policing by consent.
Calais
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and for advance sight of it this morning.
When order breaks down, a difficult situation can become desperate. That is what is happening in Calais. Today, there are reports that three people were injured after they broke into the French channel tunnel terminal. That comes just a week after a young man from Eritrea died, attempting to board a freight train headed to Britain. We do not know the circumstances of his death, what made him travel more than 3,600 miles to try to enter Britain, nor how much he paid to criminals who may have profited from his death.
The Home Secretary talked about the serious and growing challenge for hauliers, who are worried continually about the security of their load, whether people will try to break in and whether someone might be caught under their wheels, and about the holidaymakers who see people walking between the queuing cars and worry about the security of their boot, but this is a terrible crisis at our border in which lives are being lost and people are being injured.
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement today, but it is not the first one that we have had and there have been urgent questions too. The situation has been exacerbated by the huge problems caused by the strike action, but the underlying problem has been getting worse as well. I welcome the additional measures, such as the lorry zone that she announced. I thank Kent police, Border Force and all the authorities for the difficult job that they are having to do. Will she confirm whether the lorry zone is additional capacity? Eurotunnel has already talked about there being additional capacity in place, but has warned that that is just making more people try to get into the tunnel and enter the trains directly. Will she clarify that point? Will she tell us how many additional staff the UK has deployed to Calais since last year and how many additional enforcement staff the French authorities have deployed?
Will the Home Secretary explain what is happening when people are found attempting to cross illegally? She referred to 8,000 people. Is it true that many of them are simply being returned to the streets of Calais to try again? What action has she taken to get a proper process in place in France to assess whether they have an asylum claim and are fleeing persecution or to assess their immigration status and whether they need to return home? Will she say whether the British authorities are fingerprinting those whom they find, which I have raised with her before?
The Home Secretary and I will agree that the French authorities need to do much more. Under the Dublin convention, it is their responsibility to assess those who may be vulnerable or who have asylum claims, and who should not be further victim to people traffickers or the despair that comes from being a vulnerable refugee travelling over large distances. Such people need an assessment early on, either in France or in the other countries that they have come from. What is she doing to ensure that the French authorities are assessing those who are living in camps or on the streets in Calais before they make an attempt to reach the border? Can she tell us how many people have been assessed in Calais by the French authorities, and what is being done to increase the number being assessed, rather than simply leaving people in the camps and leaving the problem to get worse?
The Home Secretary will know the importance of diplomatic action and partnership working with France. The former Home Secretary and Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough had to do exactly that when he negotiated the closure of Sangatte many years ago. It would be helpful to hear from her what progress is being made, because at the moment it looks as though the problem is still getting worse.
The Home Secretary talked about the work that is being done to tackle people smuggling more widely, but what is being done to make sure that immigration control and asylum process assessments take place in the southern Mediterranean countries too?
Finally, while it is crucial for us to strengthen border security to ensure that action is being taken in France to address this serious problem, we have a responsibility across Europe to deal with the humanitarian crisis that has been increasing the problem. A significant part of the problem is caused by the war in Syria, which is the worst humanitarian crisis of our generation. We all know of the pressure on families that are fleeing that situation.
The Prime Minister said that the UK Government would accept a “modest expansion” of the programme to accept Syrian refugees. I have urged the Home Secretary many times in the House to accept far more UN refugees from Syria. How many does she now expect to accept? I urge her to work with local authorities across the country, including on reviewing the support processes, to get them to offer places for those who are fleeing persecution. This country has a long tradition of providing humanitarian support and sanctuary for those who need it.
We have had a series of urgent questions and statements, but the problem is getting worse. Can the Secretary of State really put her hand on her heart and say that she thinks that as a result of her statement, things will be better in six months’ time than they are today? It does not feel like they will be. What else can she do to prevent the crisis from simply escalating, and to prevent us from simply being in the same situation in a few months, having the same discussions and asking the same questions, with her being able to give only the same answers?
Mrs May
I thank the right hon. Lady for her response and for her gratitude for my coming to the House and making a statement.
The right hon. Lady referred to the work of the police and Border Force officials, as I have done. We should recognise the professionalism with which Border Force officers deal with circumstances such as the current ones. They had contingency plans in place for the possibility of a strike related to MyFerryLink, and those plans were put into action. From the Border Force’s point of view, what it did operated smoothly. We should recognise the professionalism with which its officers approach their job. A number of resources have been deployed over time around the Border Force ports, and it operates a flexible system to ensure that it can move resources around.
The right hon. Lady asked whether the lorry park or buffer zone that I described was additional capacity. It is a new secure area that is being set aside, because if lorries are queuing it is easier for illegal migrants to try to get on to them. Putting lorries separately in a secure zone means that we can remove people’s ability to access them. The French have also put in extra staff, and in particular they have increased the number of police in the area, including riot police.
As the right hon. Lady said, and as I recognised in my statement, previous Governments have worked with the French authorities on this issue for many years. The juxtaposed controls at Calais and Coquelles are important to us and work well, but they have come under increasing pressure. She asked about the progress that has been made, and I point out to her that in 2014-15, the Border Force, its contractors and the French authorities prevented about 40,000 attempts to enter the UK illegally at the juxtaposed controls in France, compared with 18,000 in the previous year and 11,000 the year before that. There is increasing pressure, but also increasing ability to make identifications. As I indicated, we have put in some more technology to help that process.
In 2014 the number of organised criminal networks dismantled in the Calais region increased by 30% compared with the previous year, so the increasing joint working and collaboration with the French authorities is having an impact on the ground.
The right hon. Lady asked how asylum seekers are being dealt with. That is being addressed in a number of ways, but I return to a point that I have made in the House before. The number of asylum claims in France has increased—she referred to that point—and the French authorities have encouraged people to make asylum claims in France. There is a further upstream issue for both us and the French Government, which is what action the Italian authorities can take when people arrive across the Mediterranean on Italian shores. We have offered and given the Italian authorities increased support in fingerprinting and registering people properly at that point.
We have said before that we expect several hundred Syrian refugees to be relocated to the UK over a period of years as part of our vulnerable persons relocation scheme, and we are increasing that number by a few hundred. I remind the House that we have not set a target number, but those are people in particular need. We work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which identifies such people. Some of them require long-term medical treatment, which we will provide in the United Kingdom. We are trying to focus support on those who are most in need.
Oral Answers to Questions
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman does well to remind us of the appalling events in Srebrenica, and I remember the shock we all felt when we saw what had happened. I applaud all organisations that aim to work among faiths to encourage tolerance and understanding, so that we all respect each other’s faiths while being able to continue to worship as each individual wishes.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
We have all been appalled by the terrible attack in Tunisia and our thoughts are with the families and friends of the 30 British nationals who have lost their lives. We know that tomorrow will also be a painful day for the families of the 52 people who died and the hundreds who were injured in the terrorist attacks in London 10 years ago. It is a day that none of us can forget, and tomorrow we will remember those who lost their lives. It is testament too to the hard work of our intelligence services and police that so many plots and attacks have been prevented since 7/7.
We all agree that action must be taken to prevent both violent and non-violent extremism here in Britain and that public sector organisations need to do more. I raised with the Home Secretary several times in the last Parliament my concern that the Government are still not doing enough to support community-led prevention programmes on extremism. May I urge her to look again at that and to make sure that it is a central part of her next strategy on extremism?
Mrs May
I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments and I intend to refer later to the 10th anniversary of 7/7. As she says, no one will ever forget that terrible day, and our thoughts are with all of those who suffered as a result of those terrible attacks.
We have delivered a significant number of community-based projects through the Prevent agenda. It is right that we want to work with communities, and that will be part of our counter-extremism strategy, especially looking at those communities that are perhaps more isolated than others and working with them, as I was saying earlier, to help to ensure that we see across our society a valuing and a sharing of the values that we all hold, so that we do not allow those people who wish to radicalise youngsters and others to divide us.
Yvette Cooper
I welcome the Home Secretary’s comments because I have seen some very good community-led projects, in Cardiff, Bradford and online, which so far have lived hand to mouth and have not had Government support or backing from the Department for Communities and Local Government or the Home Office. If she is able to offer that support in future, it would be hugely welcome.
May I also ask the Home Secretary about support for policing? She has rightly worked hard to prevent the counter-terror budget from being reduced and to ensure that it was supported, but she will know the concern from various senior police officers involved in counter-terrorism that neighbourhood police should also play a central role, working with communities in the prevention of extremism. Can she assure us that in the next spending round and in her Home Office budget decisions she will also ensure that neighbourhood policing and the wider policing work are properly protected so that they can play an important part in protecting the national security of our nation?
Mrs May
I can assure the right hon. Lady that in looking at the policing budget I will consider all aspects of policing, and I recognise the role that neighbourhood officers play. We do have Prevent officers working in local communities and doing an excellent job identifying issues there. They are working with local authorities, community groups, schools and others to ensure that we provide support and do what we all want to do—as she suggests—which is to eradicate extremism and the poisonous ideology that leads people to seek to do us harm.
Reports into Investigatory Powers
Yvette Cooper Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her thoughtful speech and for scheduling the debate so swiftly after the publication of David Anderson’s report. I called for the debate in response to the statement two weeks ago and it has been swiftly delivered.
I should also apologise to the House, as I already have to the Home Secretary and to you, Mr Speaker, for the fact that I cannot be here for the closing speeches. It is my daughter’s school graduation, so I hope the House will forgive me for being there instead.
This will be a good debate and it is an opportunity to debate the right legal framework to protect our liberty and security in the digital age. I join the Home Secretary in paying tribute to the quiet heroism of our intelligence services, agents and counter-terror police. Their work is necessarily secret and their successes are rarely reported, but their success is measured, bluntly, by a lack of column inches and TV headlines. We are rightly all proud of them.
There is also no doubt that as the world becomes increasingly connected and as we increasingly rely on smartphones, tablets and other technology to communicate and organise our lives, that has repercussions for the fight against terrorism and serious and organised crime. David Anderson’s report contains the startling fact that in 1975 there were 1 billion connected places, that by 2010 there were 5 billion connected people and that by 2020 there will be 50 billion connected devices.
Our lives are increasingly online, and with that opportunity come great challenges. For example, we know that Twitter is a lot of fun for many people, including many Members of this House—although, perhaps, not yet the Home Secretary—but it has also been used to connect extremists and recruiters with young people in the United Kingdom, including the young girls who left for Syria from Bethnal Green earlier this year. New devices, mail services and apps are used to help us all keep in touch, build amazing new businesses and organise our lives, but also by some to commit crimes and abuse. Online crime has risen exponentially and we have also seen awful cases of online child abuse that we are still failing to address as a country.
We have also seen growing problems with organised cyber-attacks for major companies, infrastructure and the Government. The operations of the police and intelligence agencies need to be able to keep up with these new forms of crime and national security threats, but at the same time the checks and balances, safeguards and oversight that are needed must keep up with new technology. We have a long and proud tradition in Britain of having those checks, balances and safeguards for our liberty and our privacy. We must ensure that action by the state is proportionate, so those checks and balances must keep up with the fast-moving changing technology.
We have argued for some time that the legal framework is out of date. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act is, in David Anderson’s words,
“incomprehensible to all but a tiny band of initiates”
and in the long run that means that it is “intolerable”. Its interaction with previous legislation, including the Telecommunications Act 1984, is baffling, too, and even after being briefed on some of the work that the agencies do and having studied the legislation over seven years—often with a wet towel wrapped around my head, which was the only thing that enabled me to get my head around it even temporarily—I still find it hard to be clear about what is possible and what is not under the law as it stands and about the extent of existing safeguards. That is unsustainable as a framework for legitimacy for the vital work the agencies do, which is why we have called for some time for a review of RIPA, why we argued for it in the debates last summer and why we have welcomed the Government’s agreement to ask David Anderson to produce this report.
The report is extremely thorough and ranges from ideas of privacy in ancient Babylonia to what Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of a rather different kind of empire, thinks of the topic. It provides us with an opportunity for Parliament, civil society, the intelligence community, law enforcement, communication providers and, crucially, the public properly to consider the powers and safeguards we need.
As David Anderson recently said:
“The threat that I see of not accepting my recommendations, or recommendations along these lines is that people become disenchanted with the whole business of intelligence gathering. They believe some of the wilder allegations…that the state is reading into people’s emails the whole time when patently it isn’t. If this sense of disillusionment and disenchantment is perpetuated and spreads further then I think both law enforcement and intelligence lose the public confidence that they actually need if they are going to do an effective job.”
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making a good and comprehensive speech. Is it not appropriate that David Anderson’s report is entitled “A Question of Trust”? Surely that is one of the most important things in bringing the public with us on this issue.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is exactly right. There is strong support for the work of the intelligence agencies and the work they do in Britain, which has historically always been the case, but we should never take that for granted. It would not be fair on the intelligence agencies to take it for granted, so maintaining that sense of trust and confidence across the whole of society and not simply across the majority of people is extremely important for the work that they do. If we are to protect both our liberty and security in a democracy, we need to achieve consent for and understanding of the law and it is not just those who are concerned about surveillance who value greater clarity. It is also an essential mission of our intelligence agencies as part of defending democracy and protecting liberty and security.
The Home Secretary has been clear that there is no doubt that investigatory powers are vital in confronting terrorism, child abuse and other serious and organised crime. During the Home Secretary’s statement two weeks ago, I mentioned the awful case cited in David Anderson’s report in which communications data were used, rightly, to stop the abuse of three children who were all less than four years old. There are other cases. For example, Operation Overt dealt with the largest and most serious terrorist plot we have ever faced. Between 2008 and 2010, 10 individuals were convicted of plotting to blow up multiple transatlantic airliners. A key part of the evidence that brought the plotters to justice was coded conversations by email between the conspirators and extremists abroad in which they discussed the preparation for their attacks and the selection of targets.
It is clear from the review and other evidence that the powers passed through the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 last summer are essential and must be renewed, and will need to be renewed in good time before the sunset clause at the end of next year. It is also right, however, that we ensure that the legal framework that governs them is updated so that it properly reflects the needs of security and the need for safeguards.
In 2012, the Home Secretary made proposals in the draft Communications Data Bill that would have gone much further than the current legislation. I argued at the time that there were serious problems with the Bill, because it put too much power in the hands of the Home Secretary. The Joint Committee set up to scrutinise the draft Bill also, rightly, raised substantial concerns. David Anderson’s report makes it clear that he does not think that the draft Bill was the right approach. He noted that the first clause was “excessively broad”. The important question of IP addresses, which was encompassed in the draft Bill, has now been dealt with in other legislation. On weblogs, which the Home Office said at the time it wanted to pursue, David Anderson concluded that he
“was not presented with a detailed or unified case”
on the viability, practicalities or legal considerations.
On perhaps the most significant and the most controversial measure in the draft Bill—requiring internet service providers to hold huge amounts of third-party data—he commented:
“I did not get the sense that this was judged to be the priority that it once was, even within law enforcement”,
and he concluded:
“Accordingly…there should be no question of progressing this element of the old draft Bill until such time as a compelling operational case has been made, there has been full consultation with CSPs and the various legal and technical issues have been fully bottomed out. None of those conditions appears to me to be currently satisfied.”
Experts have also expressed substantial concerns about encryption and the cost and proportionality of the proposals.
Where David Anderson and the agencies confirm that there is a problem is in ensuring that companies whose headquarters are overseas comply with UK law, particularly for data and communications that involve those who are living and operating in the UK and those who pose threats to the UK. The Home Secretary referred to the report by Nigel Sheinwald, whose work is vital because, as the agencies and the Home Secretary recognise, UK law is only part of the answer; legal and diplomatic arrangements with other countries are immensely important. In fact, there is a growing range of views that the proposals in the draft Communications Data Bill were not the right way to deal with that genuine and significant problem in relation to companies based overseas.
On that basis, I ask the Home Secretary to confirm that she has dropped the original draft Communications Data Bill and is starting with a fresh approach. I think it would help our debate in this place and the development of future proposals that should balance the appropriate powers and the appropriate safeguards. Will she confirm that that draft Bill has been dropped and a new approach will be taken?
Mrs May
After the Joint Committee that scrutinised that draft Bill had done its work, we made it clear that we would take on board in principle the various recommendations the Committee made. Obviously, David Anderson’s report refers to some of the issues in the draft Communications Data Bill, so we will have to look at that in the context of subsequent proposals. We were clear that we would accept all the principles that that Committee set out, including that the original draft Communications Data Bill, which was an attempt to future-proof our legislation, was too wide ranging.
Yvette Cooper
I thank the Home Secretary for that reassurance that the Government agree that the old draft Bill was too wide ranging. We look forward to the replacement proposals and hope they will meet the assessment test set out by David Anderson, whose report is pretty comprehensive and well judged on these matters.
I also warmly welcome David Anderson’s recommendations for a fundamental overhaul of the commissioner system and the establishment of a new body, the independent surveillance and intelligence commission. The current commissioner system, although undoubtedly staffed by excellent people who have taken their roles forward, is too low profile and not substantial enough in performing a vital oversight role. It is hard for the public to assess where oversight properly lies. When one considers that we regulate our TV channels in a more high-profile and systematic way than our intelligence agencies, it is clear that reform is needed.
The new body would have supervisory responsibility and aim to build public trust. I would like it also to have a role in working with the Home Secretary on a suitable process for transparency, where that is possible in line with operational requirements, about both the law and our country’s capability. David Anderson’s report calls for greater public avowal and transparency about capabilities and legal powers. While everyone understands that many national security operations need to be secret to be effective, I know the Home Secretary will consider that recommendation closely, because sufficient transparency is of course needed if we in Parliament are to be able to take responsible decisions and get the legislation right.
The report recommends transforming the system of authorisation for interception warrants. The proposals on judicial authorisation are among the most significant reforms to the framework that David Anderson proposes. There is precedent: a system of judicial approval by commissioners exists for the police in relation to property interference, intrusive surveillance and long-term undercover operations. Also, as the report notes, the UK is an outlier among the “Five Eyes” states—the others are Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA—in not having prior judicial authorisation of interceptions of communications.
Importantly for the safety and security of our country, such a provision could go some way to solving one of the most significant challenges our agencies face: getting co-operation from communications companies based in the United States. In his report, David Anderson states:
“One major company went so far as to suggest that if the UK introduced judicial authorisation, more cooperation would be forthcoming, though I was not left with the impression that this was a universal view.”
He adds that
“US companies…find it difficult to understand why they should honour a warrant signed by the Secretary of State”
when the US has a system of judicial authorisation of warrants. So there are pragmatic considerations as well as constitutional considerations for us in determining what impact increasing judicial authorisation might have on that greater co-operation involving overseas companies.
Of course the detail must be right and reforms should not adversely affect the relationship between the Executive and the judiciary in relation to other aspects of Government powers. They should also recognise the importance of the Home Secretary’s role in determining what the threats are to national security, rather than leave such an important task to the judiciary. However, it should be possible to make those reforms, and I believe that now is the right time to introduce judicial authorisation into the process. Clearly, there are different ways of doing it—for example, it would be possible to have different frameworks for different kinds of warrant. David Anderson recognises that there would be differences in relation to sensitive missions that affect other countries and our relationships with them. Clearly, rather than leave such cases to a purely judicial process, such cases would require decisions to be made by the Foreign Secretary, who is accountable to Parliament for those sensitive relationships with other Governments.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
How does the right hon. Lady reconcile the need to take account of the wider political construct with the duty of the judiciary to act according to the law? Surely she is making a powerful argument for the status quo.
Yvette Cooper
No, I am not. I am part way through an argument that there are different kinds of warrant and different circumstances. In cases involving foreign affairs, where sensitive relationships with other Governments may be at stake, the Executive clearly have an important role to play; they cannot be seen simply as judicial matters. However, there are other kinds of warrant—for example, intercept warrants for the purposes of tackling serious and organised crime, where if the action was not intercept, but was instead knocking down someone’s door and breaking into their home, authorisation would be an entirely judicial process. There are significant questions about why intercept in the interests of pursuing serious and organised crime should have no judicial authorisation, whereas knocking down somebody’s door should have judicial authorisation.
That is why I think there is a strong case for introducing judicial authorisation to provide a clearer system of separation of Executive and judiciary and to introduce clearer checks and balances into the process. It does have to be done in the right way and there will be different considerations around crime and national security and foreign affairs, but I believe it is possible because other countries manage it. If we were the only country in the “Five Eyes” that did not have a process of judicial authorisation, even though we have similar intercept arrangements, that would pose a big question for us. Those who simply defend the status quo need to explain why they think the arrangements in all those other countries are inadequate and worse than ours, given the added legitimacy that some judicial authorisation processes should bring.
I recognise the complexity here; that is why it is wise that we hold this debate now, in advance of the Government making their final decisions on the issue and setting out their proposals. It is also wise that we have a period of consultation on the draft legislation, so that people can table amendments and have these debates. However, I do not see why judicial authorisation need threaten or jeopardise the work of the agencies—quite the reverse. If it is a way to provide greater legitimacy, and support from overseas, for this work, it could add strongly to the process, and to agencies’ work.
On the legislative process, I welcome the Home Secretary’s proposal for a period of proper reflection and discussion on the detail before final votes are taken in Parliament. That is the right approach. We are keen to continue discussions with her on this subject, and I welcome the briefing that she provided for me to enable us to do that. When the Snowden leaks first appeared in the media, there was a sense that Parliament was not debating these issues, that the Government were not responding, and that other countries were having a more informed and up-to-date debate about the response and the processes.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
On the subject of having a more informed debate, does the right hon. Lady agree that the Sheinwald report, redacted if necessary, should be published? Many believe that its proposals, including on international treaties, would do away with the need for some of what is proposed for any investigatory powers Bill.
Yvette Cooper
I have not seen the Sheinwald report or had prior briefing on it, so I could not say how much redaction would be needed, but the right hon. Gentleman is right that the more transparency we can have in this debate, the better, so I urge the Government to consider allowing maximum transparency in this regard, to the extent possible, given the operational sensitivities and our relationship with the US Government on this. Clearly, the more we can look at the detail of alternative ways of providing the powers, safeguards and legitimacy needed, the better, and the better informed the parliamentary debate will be.
The initial debates and the response from the Government were not sufficient. However, we have since had reports from the Intelligence and Security Committee and David Anderson, and we have another forthcoming external report from the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies. This is the opportunity for Parliament to make sure that we have a proper updated response on the complexities of the digital age and how we maintain our security and liberty in it. More safeguards and checks and balances are needed, but it is also important that our intelligence agencies can deal with the serious and growing threats that the Home Secretary talked about. We need to make sure that our talented men and women in the agencies can face those real and serious threats, but also have legitimacy for the work that they do, and the continued confidence of the public. That is in all our interests.
In a democracy, our liberty and security are the targets of terrorists who seek to harm and divide us. Liberal democracy will triumph over extremism and tyranny, but for it to do so, we need to strengthen ourselves by renewing our security and our liberty. The Anderson report helps us to have a debate about how best we do that to protect our democracy.