Illegal Migration Update

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

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

Today’s statement is an admission of failure—perhaps that is why the Home Secretary has asked the Immigration Minister to make it instead. Four years ago, the Cabinet said that they would halve channel crossings; they have gone up twentyfold since then. A year ago, they said they would end hotel use; they have opened more than ever. They keep making new announcements, but it just keeps getting worse. People want to see strong border security, and properly managed asylum and refugee systems, so that the UK does its bit to help those fleeing persecution and conflict, alongside other countries, but we have got neither of those at the moment.

There is no point in the Government blaming everyone else, because they are in charge. The asylum system is broken because they broke it; they have let criminal gangs rip along the channel; people smuggler convictions have halved in the past four years, even though more boats and more gangs have been crossing—and yet Tory MPs yesterday voted against Labour’s plan for cross-border police units to go after the gangs; and they have let asylum decision making collapse—we have had a big increase in staff, but 40% fewer cases being decided. So they have failed to take basic decisions and they are still not doing Labour’s plan to fast-track last year’s arrivals from Albania and other safe countries.

As for today’s announcements, we need to end costly and inappropriate hotel use, but these plans do not do that. The Minister has had to admit that, contrary to all the briefing in the papers this morning, they will not end hotel use—instead, these sites are additional. Ministers should have been finding cheaper sites and properly managing costs years ago.

Today’s damning report from the Government’s own independent watchdog, which strangely the Minister did not mention today, says that there has been no cost control; that the Home Office contracts are highly inefficient; that there is no cross-Government transparency and oversight; and that officials did not have financial information on the contracts they were signing and did not compare costs. Most ludicrously of all, it says that

“different parts of the Home Office operating different schemes…at times, found themselves competing for the same hotel contracts, driving prices up.”

This is totally chaotic.

Basically, the Government have written a whole load of cheques in a panic. If they had put that money into clearing the backlog instead, we would not be in this mess now. They should have been working with councils to do that, but they did not. Yesterday, Tory MPs again voted against Labour’s plans for a legal requirement for councils to be consulted. Instead, the Minister has Conservative councils, backed by Conservative MPs, taking action against him. So can he confirm that the Foreign Secretary is backing legal action against the Home Secretary? Frankly, that is a first, even for this chaotic Government.

The Bill makes things worse. There are no returns agreements with France or Europe. The Prime Minister has just said that the Home Secretary was wrong: the Rwanda flights will not start this summer. The Government have nowhere to send people to and, instead of speeding up asylum decisions, they are just going to cancel them, which means more people in asylum accommodation and hotels and more flimflam headlines that just do not stack up. Today, it was barges and it turns out that there are not any. Desperate to distract everyone from the damage that they might want to do to the Dambusters heritage, they instead start talking about ferries and barges. Three years ago, they said the same thing. Last summer, the Prime Minister said that it would be cruise liners. The Home Office civil servant said that ferries would end up costing more than the hotels on which they are already spending so much money. So, instead, the Immigration Minister has been sent around the country with a copy of “Waterways Weekly”, trying to find barges, and he still has not found any.

Can the Minister tell us: are these sites going to be additional and not instead of hotel use? Will he still be using more hotels, or fewer for asylum seekers in six months’ time? On the 45,000 boat arrivals last year, can he confirm that more than 90% of decisions have not been taken because the backlog is still the Government’s failure?

Will the Minister apologise for the Government’s failure on cost control? They failed to support Labour’s plan to go after the gangs, to get a new agreement with France and to fast-track decisions and returns. They are flailing around in a panic, chasing headlines—barges, oil rigs, Rwanda flights, even wave machines—instead of doing the hard graft. They have lost control of our border security, lost control of the asylum system, lost control of their budget and lost control of themselves. Will he answer my questions and will he get a grip?

[Robert Jenrick]

Is it not abundantly clear that Labour does not have the faintest clue how to tackle this issue? It has absolutely no plan. What we have laid out today is three months of intense work, which is seeing the backlog coming down; productivity rising; more sustainable forms of accommodation; a harder approach to make it difficult to live and work in the UK illegally; illegal working raids and visits rising by 50%; and greater control over the channel—all improvements as a result of the 10-point plan that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary set out.

The right hon. Lady looks back to a mythical time when Labour was last in office— when the Home Office, according to their own Home Secretary, was deemed to be not fit for purpose. Labour calls for more safe and legal routes, even though we are second only to Sweden in Europe for resettlement schemes. It calls for more money for law enforcement, even though we have doubled the funding of the National Crime Agency, and our people are out there upstream tackling organised immigration criminals every day of the week.

Is it not extraordinary that the Home Secretary—[Interruption]—the shadow Home Secretary cannot bring herself to condemn those illegal immigrants who are breaking into our country in flagrant breach of our laws? That is weak. The truth is that the Labour party is too weak to take the kind of tough decisions that we are taking today. In its weakness, it would make the United Kingdom a magnet: there would be open doors, an open cheque book and open season for abuse. The British public know that the Conservative party understands their legitimate concerns. We do not sneer at people for wanting basic border controls. We are taking the tough decisions. We will stop the boats. We will secure the borders.

Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

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

This plan is too weak, too little, too late. The Home Secretary says people are sick and tired of antisocial behaviour. Too right they are—because people have seen serious problems getting worse and nothing has been done. But who does she think has been in power for the last 13 years?

It is a Tory Government who have decimated neighbourhood policing. There are 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police and police community support officers on our streets today than there were seven years ago. Half the population rarely ever see the police on the beat, and that proportion has doubled since 2010. This is a Conservative Government who weakened antisocial behaviour powers 10 years ago, brought in new powers that were so useless they were barely even used, including the community trigger and getting rid of powers of arrest, even though they were warned not to.

The Government abandoned the major drug intervention program that the last Labour Government had in place, slashed youth service budgets—the YMCA says by £1 billion—and have let charges for criminal damage halve. Community penalties have halved and there is a backlog of millions of hours of community payback schemes not completed because the Government cannot even run the existing system properly. Far from punishing perpetrators of antisocial behaviour, the Government are letting more and more of them off.

As a result, criminal damage affecting our town centres is up by 30% in the last year alone. It is a total disgrace that too many people, especially women, feel they cannot even go into their own town centres any more because this Government have failed them. They do not see the police on the beat and they do not feel safe.

So what are the Government proposing now? We support some of the measures, largely because we have long called for them. We called for hotspot policing; we called for faster community payback. We support stronger powers of arrest and a ban on nitrous oxide. But let us look at the gaps. There is nothing for antisocial behaviour victims, who are still excluded from the victims code and the draft victims law. On the failing community trigger, all the Government are going to do is rename and relaunch it. They are re-announcing plans on youth support that the Levelling Up Secretary announced more than a year ago. I notice one new thing in the document: an additional 500 young people will get one-to-one support. Well, there were 1.1 million incidents of antisocial behaviour last year, so good luck with that.

The Government are not introducing neighbour respect orders. Astonishingly, neighbourhood policing is not mentioned even once in the document. How on earth do the Government think they will tackle antisocial behaviour without bringing back neighbourhood policing teams? Their recent recruitment—to try to reverse their own cuts of 20,000 police officers—is not going into neighbourhood policing. There are 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs in our teams than there were seven years ago. Labour has set out a plan for 13,000 more neighbourhood police on the streets, paid for by savings that have been identified by the Police Foundation but which Ministers are refusing to make. Will the Home Secretary now agree to back Labour’s plans to get neighbourhood police back on the beat to start taking action?

Hotspot policing is not the same as neighbourhood policing. We support hotspot policing to target key areas, but that is not the same as having neighbourhood teams who are there all the time, embedded in the community, and know what is going wrong and why. There are plenty of things that are already crimes—that are already illegal—on which the police already have the powers to act but do not. No one comes because there are not enough neighbourhood police.

Will the Home Secretary apologise to people across the country for her cuts of 10,000 neighbourhood police and PCSOs, and for taking the police off the streets, meaning that people do not see them any more? If she does not realise that having fewer police in those neighbourhood teams is causing huge damage and undermining confidence, she just does not get it. Really, after 13 years, is this the best the Conservatives can come up with?

[Suella Braverman]

The more I listen to the right hon. Lady, the more confused I am about what Labour’s policy is. She criticises our plan while claiming that we have stolen Labour’s, so I am not sure which it is. In the light of the embarrassing efforts of the shadow Policing Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), to explain her own policy on television last week, I am not sure that any Labour Members really know what their antisocial behaviour policy is. Let me tell the House one big difference between the right hon. Lady’s plan and ours: unlike her, we call tell the public how much ours will cost and how we will pay for it—a big question that Labour is yet to answer.

The shadow Home Secretary talks about policing cuts. Never mind that we are recruiting 20,000 extra police officers—the highest number in history. Never mind that we have increased frontline policing, which leads to more visible and effective local policing. Never mind that by the end of this month, we are on course to have more officers nationally than we had in 2010 or in any year when Labour was in government.

The shadow Home Secretary wants to talk about safer streets. Well, let us compare our records. Since 2019, this Conservative Government have removed 90,000 knives and weapons from our streets. Since 2010, violence is down 38%, neighbourhood crime is down 48%, burglary is down 56%, and overall crime, excluding fraud, is down 50%. What does Labour’s record show? That where Labour leads, crime follows. [Interruption.] I know it hurts, but it is true. Under Labour police and crime commissioners, residents are almost twice as likely to be victims of robbery, and knife crime is over 44% higher. In London, Labour’s Sadiq Khan wants to legalise cannabis. In the west midlands, a Labour PCC wants to close police stations. Labour opposed plans to expand stop and search. Labour Members voted against tougher sentences for serious criminals. They voted against the increased powers for police in our Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. So we should not be surprised that, while this Conservative Government are working to get violent criminals off our streets, Labour is campaigning to release them. The Leader of the Opposition and some 70-odd Labour MPs signed letters—they love signing letters—to stop dangerous foreign criminals from being kicked out of Britain. One of those criminals went on to kill another man in the UK, and we learned this week that many others went on to commit further appalling crimes in the UK. Shameful! Outrageous! Labour Members should hang their heads in shame!

The truth about Labour is that they care more about the rights of criminals than about the rights of the law abiding majority. They are soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime. The Conservatives are the party of law and order. Our track record shows it, and the public know it.

Metropolitan Police: Casey Review

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

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

The report published today by Louise Casey, commissioned by the Mayor of London, into standards and culture in the Metropolitan police service is thorough, forensic and truly damning. It finds that consent is broken, management of the force has failed and frontline policing,—especially neighbourhood policing—has been deprioritised and degraded after a decade of austerity in which the Met has ended up with £0.7 billion less than at the beginning of the decade. It finds that the Met is failing women and children, and that predatory and unacceptable behaviour has been allowed to flourish. It finds institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia.

Baroness Casey pays tribute to the work that police officers do and the bravery that they show every day, as we all should, because across the country we depend on the work that police officers do to keep us all safe—catching criminals, protecting the vulnerable and saving lives. We support them in that vital work. But that is what makes it all the more important that the highest standards are maintained and the confidence of those the police serve is sustained, otherwise communities and the vital work that police officers do are let down. We support the work the new Met commissioner is doing now to start turning the Met around. He and his team must now go much further in response to the Casey review, but I am concerned that the Home Secretary’s statement is dangerously complacent. Astonishingly, there is no new action set out in her response, simply words saying that the Met must change. This is a continuation of the hands-off Home Office response that Baroness Casey criticises in her report. Some of the issues raised are particular to the Met because of its size, history and particular culture, where the Home Secretary and Mayor are jointly responsible for oversight and where the commissioner is responsible for delivering, but the report also raises serious wider issues for the Home Office.

The failure to root out officers who have been involved in domestic abuse or sexual assault also applies in other forces. The failure to tackle culture has gone wrong in other forces too, with problems in Gwent, Hampshire, Police Scotland, Sussex, Leicestershire and more. It is a disgrace that there are still not mandatory requirements on vetting and training, underpinned by law, and that misconduct systems are still too weak. I urge the Home Secretary to commit now that anyone under investigation for domestic abuse or sexual assault will be automatically suspended from their role as a police officer, and that anyone with any kind of history of domestic abuse or sexual assault will not be given any chance to become a police officer. We need an urgent overhaul, underpinned by law. Will she give us that commitment today?

The Home Office approach more widely to standards is also failing. Six police forces are in so-called special measures, but it is still too easy for forces to ignore the recommendations from the inspectorate and the intervention processes are too weak. Where is the Home Secretary’s plan to turn that around?

The report is damning about the decimation of frontline policing, but neighbourhood policing has been decimated everywhere, not just in the Met. There are 6,000 fewer police officers in neighbourhood teams and 8,000 fewer police community support officers than just in 2016, and it is worse than that because officers are routinely abstracted for other duties. So where is the plan to restore neighbourhood policing? Labour has set out a plan. We would work with the Government on this, but where is the Government’s plan?

The report is devastating on the lack of proper public protection arrangements for women and children who have been let down, but again we know that across the country prosecutions for rape and domestic abuse have plummeted and serious cases have too often been dismissed. Again, where is the national action plan to improve public protection? Where is the commitment to specialist rape investigation units in every force and specialist domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms? It is not happening.

The findings on institutional misogyny, racism and homophobia are based on evidence and clear criteria that Baroness Casey has set out for measuring change with recommendations. The Home Secretary rightly says she wants discrimination tackled in all its forms, but she has been telling police forces the opposite in telling them not to focus on those issues. Where is her plan now to turn that around? Where is the Home Office plan in response to this, on standards, on neighbourhood policing, on violence against women and girls, and on systemic or institutional discrimination? Where are those plans?

The British policing model is precious. The Peel principles, which started in London— policing by consent—said

“that the police are the public and that the public are the police”.

They are our guardians, not our guards, but that precious policing model is in peril. The Home Office and the Home Secretary are the custodians of that tradition, but the lack of any plan to restore trust, to stand up for policing or to turn things around is letting everyone down. It is not standing up for the police; it is letting both the police and communities down. It is because we believe in policing and because we believe in those Peel principles that we know standing up for the police also means working with the police to deliver change and to restore the trust, confidence and effective policing that all police officers and communities properly deserve.

[Suella Braverman]

I must say that I am disappointed by the right hon. Lady’s tone. Today is not a day for crass political point scoring; it is a day for serious and sober consideration of the Met’s shortcomings and how those shortcomings have a devastating impact on people’s lives. The victims have asked for actions, not words, and I, along with the Mayor of London, have every confidence that Sir Mark Rowley and his team will deliver their plan to turn around the Met. Accepting Baroness Casey’s findings is not incompatible with supporting the institution of policing and the vast majority of brave men and women who uphold the highest professional standards. I back the police; I trust them to put their safety before ours.

On the topic of national standards, I am working with chief constables on a programme to drive up standards and improve culture across police forces at a national level. On the topic of institutional racism, I agree with Sir Mark Rowley. It is not a helpful term to use; it is an ambiguous, contested and politically charged term that is much misused and risks making it harder for officers to win back the trust of communities. Sir Mark is committed to rooting out discrimination, in all forms, from the Met. I believe that it is how the Met police respond to the issues that is important, not whether they accept a label.

Trust in the police is fundamental, and I will work to support Sir Mark Rowley in his work to change culture and provide the leadership that the Met needs, but I would point out to the shadow Home Secretary that her crass political attacks really would be more accurately directed at the person with actual and political responsibility for overseeing the performance of the Met: that is the Mayor of London, Labour’s Sadiq Khan. The Labour Mayor has been in charge of the Met for the past seven years. Baroness Casey is unflinching and unequivocal about the dysfunctional relationship between the Mayor’s office and the Met, and her recommendation that the Mayor takes a more hands-on approach. It was frankly shocking to learn that the Labour Mayor does not already chair a quarterly board meeting to exercise accountability over the Met. I trust the shadow Home Secretary will agree that the Mayor accepts Baroness Casey’s recommendation that he do so.

Londoners have been let down by the Met. The shadow Home Secretary knows who is ultimately responsible for that. She should not be looking to score political points today: it is a disappointment, and frankly she should know better.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come now to the shadow Home Secretary.

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

We welcome the Home Secretary back from her expensive interior design tour.

The Louise Casey review will be published tomorrow and is expected to be damning, with far-reaching findings. The Home Secretary has known about failures on standards and vetting in policing for a long time, so why has she repeatedly refused to bring in mandatory vetting standards and automatic suspension for officers under investigation for domestic abuse and sexual assault?

[Suella Braverman]

I regret the tone that the shadow Home Secretary adopts when it comes to Rwanda. I encourage her to ditch her outdated and ignorant views on our friends in Rwanda.

When it comes to the Casey report, which I have read, it is clear that there have been failings within the Met. That is why the commissioner is right to accept those past failings, and that is why he has my total backing in moving forward to turn around performance and standards in the Met, so that every citizen in London has total confidence in those who wear the badge.

[Yvette Cooper]

The problem is that the Home Secretary’s response is too little and too late. We should all back the commissioner to take urgently needed action in the Met, but confidence in the Met has dropped sharply and confidence has also dropped nationally. The system for national standards that the Home Secretary presides over is far too weak, with no proper regulations or requirements and no proper intervention when things go wrong. Neighbourhood policing, which sustains confidence, is being hollowed out. That is damaging for communities and for the vital work that the police do. Will she now commit to urgent legislation and a full overhaul on standards? The proud British tradition of policing by consent is in peril unless the Government act urgently.

[Suella Braverman]

I am proud of this Government’s track record on reducing crime and increasing the number of police officers. Since 2010, violent crime is down, robbery is down, neighbourhood crime is down and burglary is down. When the right hon. Lady talks about the Met, what I would gently say is that London has a Labour Mayor—as well as a Labour police and crime commissioner—who has failed to hold the Met to account properly. I am afraid I must encourage her to speak to her Labour colleague and ask him to do a better job of holding the Met to account.

Illegal Migration Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I am going to make some progress. A lot of Members want to contribute to this debate.

The United Nations has confirmed that, globally, there are 100 million displaced people. Our critics simultaneously pretend that the United Kingdom does not have any safe and legal routes and that these routes should also be unlimited. The small boats crisis demonstrates that countless economic migrants are willing to take a chance to come here in search of a better life. How many of them do the Opposition think we have to take to stop the boats?

The Opposition have not been able to answer that question. Those arguing for open borders via unlimited safe and legal routes are, of course, entitled to do so, but they should do so honestly. They should not try to deceive the public by dressing up what is an extreme political argument in the fake garb of humanitarianism, nor should they pretend that the UK does not have safe and legal global routes. In recent years, our country-specific routes have provided refuge for 150,000 people leaving autocracy in Hong Kong, 160,000 Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s horrific war and 25,000 Afghans escaping the Taliban. Another 50,000 people have come to the UK via routes open to people from any country, including the UK resettlement scheme, which includes community sponsorship, the mandate resettlement scheme, and, crucially, the family reunion route for those with a qualifying family member in the UK.

We are proud of those safe and legal routes. When we stop the boats, we will look to expand those routes. The Bill introduces an annual cap, determined by Parliament, on the number of refugees that the UK will resettle via safe and legal routes. This will ensure an orderly system that considers local authority capacity for housing, public services and support.

The Bill enables the detention of illegal arrivals without bail or judicial review within the first 28 days of detention. We can maintain detention thereafter under current laws, so long as we have a reasonable prospect of removal. This reflects the existing common law position, consistent with article 5 of the ECHR. The Bill places a duty on the Home Secretary to remove illegal entrants and, significantly, narrows the number of challenges and appeals that can suspend removal.

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

The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), said:

“Anyone who arrives illegally will be deemed inadmissible and either returned to the country they arrived from or a safe third country.”

As a result, 18,000 people were considered inadmissible to the UK asylum system and just 21 people were returned. That is just 0.1%. What has changed with this Bill, and what percentage of those deemed inadmissible does the Home Secretary expect to be returned?

--- Later in debate ---

[Suella Braverman]

What we have seen is that a large and growing proportion of modern slavery claims have been made by people who have arrived here illegally. And, as I just mentioned, there are foreign national offenders, people who have served their criminal sentences, who have upon the point of removal put in a last-minute modern slavery claim precisely to thwart their deportation. We work very closely with local authorities and other bodies to ensure that referrals are made into the mechanism. This is why the Bill will disqualify illegal entrants from using modern slavery rules in this way.

Given the mischaracterisation of the Bill by Opposition Members, I would like to make a few things clear. The Home Secretary’s duty to remove will not be applied to detain and remove unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Consistent with current policy, only in limited circumstances, such as for the purposes of family reunion, will we remove unaccompanied asylum-seeking children from the UK. Otherwise, they will be provided with the necessary support in the UK until they reach 18.

With respect to the removal of families and pregnant women, it bears repeating that the overwhelming majority of illegal arrivals are adult men under the age of 40. Removing them will be our primary focus, but we must not create incentives for the smugglers to focus on people with particular characteristics by signposting exemptions for removal. It is right that we retain powers to adapt our policy so that we can respond to any change in tactics by the smuggling gangs.

Those critics who say that this Bill will be found to be unlawful said the same thing about our partnership with Rwanda—the High Court disagreed. Some of the nation’s finest legal minds have been and continue to be involved in the Bill’s development. The UK will always seek to uphold international law and we are confident that this Bill will deliver what is necessary, within those parameters. Section 19 of the Human Rights Act requires Ministers to give a view on the level of legal certainty on a Bill’s compliance with the European convention on human rights. That is a unique UK requirement, not part of the ECHR itself. A section 19(1)(b) statement simply means that we are unable to say decisively that this Bill is compatible with the ECHR. It is clear that there are good arguments for compatibility but that some of the Bill’s measures are novel and legally untested. Those on the Opposition Benches seem to forget that section 19(1)(b) statements were made by the Labour Government on the Communications Act 2003 and by the Lib Dems on the House of Lords Reform Bill in 2012. That did not mean that those Bills were unlawful and this statement does not mean that this one is either.

Claims that the Bill will breach our refugee convention obligations are simply fatuous. The convention obliges parties to provide protection to those seeking refuge. It does not require that this protection be in the UK. Illegal arrivals requiring protection will receive it in a safe third country such as Rwanda. Moreover, article 31 of the convention is clear that individuals may be removed if they do not come “directly” from the territory where their freedom is threatened. Denying those arriving illegally from France, or any other safe country in which they could have claimed asylum, access to the UK’s asylum system is, therefore, entirely consistent with the spirit and letter of the convention.

The Opposition say that this Bill cannot work because we lack the capacity to detain all small boat arrivals. We are expanding detention capacity, with two new immigration removal centres, but clearly we are not building capacity to detain 40,000 people, nor do we need to. The aim of the Bill is not to detain people but to swiftly remove them. Australia achieved success against a similar problem of illegal maritime migration. It reduced annual crossings from 20,000 to hundreds in a matter of months, in large part by operationalising swift third country removals. It did not need tens of thousands of detention places either. If we can demonstrate to people willing to pay thousands of pounds to illegally enter the UK that there is a reasonable prospect that they will be detained and removed, we are confident that crossings will reduce significantly.

In addition, arguments that our approach cannot work because Rwanda lacks capacity are wrong. Let me be clear: our partnership with Rwanda is uncapped. We stand ready to operationalise it at scale as soon as is legally practicable. It is understandable that Rwanda has not procured thousands of beds to accommodate arrivals while legal challenges are ongoing.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary has just admitted that Rwanda does not have thousands of places. She will know that the Rwandan Government have talked about taking a few hundred people and that the Rwanda High Court agreement says that cases need to be individualised, yet she is expecting to find locations for tens of thousands of people expected to arrive this year. She has no returns agreement with France or any other European country, so where is she expecting to send the tens of thousands of people expected to arrive in the UK this year?

[Suella Braverman]

The right hon. Member should read our agreement with Rwanda before she makes a comment such as that. If she did read it, and if she read the judgment from the High Court, she would see both that our agreement with Rwanda is lawful, proper and compliant with our international obligations, and that it is uncapped and potentially Rwanda could accommodate high numbers of people that we seek to relocate there. Rwanda has the capacity to resettle tens of thousands of people if necessary.

Critics of this Government’s plan to stop the boats would have more credibility if they offered up a plan of their own. Let us look at what the Opposition plan is. They would increase the funding to the National Crime Agency to disrupt trafficking upstream; never mind that the Government have already doubled the funding for the NCA precisely for that purpose. The Opposition say that they would go harder on the people smugglers; never mind that Labour voted against our Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which introduced life sentences for people smugglers. The Opposition speak about establishing a cross-channel taskforce; never mind that we have already set up a small boats operational command, with more than 700 new staff working hand in hand with the French.

The Opposition say that they would get a new agreement with the French; never mind that only last week our Prime Minister struck a historic multi-year deal with the French to increase the number of gendarmes patrolling the French beaches. The Opposition say that we should do more with partners around the world; never mind that the Government have returns agreements with Albania, Georgia, Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Serbia. As for our world-leading agreement with Rwanda, we all know what the Opposition would do about that—they would scrap it.

The Opposition say that the Government cannot be trusted with our borders, but the fact is that the Leader of the Opposition and some 70-odd Labour MPs—a third of the parliamentary party—signed letters to stop dangerous foreign criminals being kicked out of Britain. Tragically, one of those criminals went on to kill another person in the UK—a shameful day for the Labour party. How easy it is for the Opposition to say, “Never mind the British public”, believing that they know better, arrogantly, dismissively. The truth is that they do not have a plan. What is even worse, they do not care that they do not have a plan. If they listened, they would hear a clear, reasonable and resounding message from the British people: we like controlled immigration, we welcome genuine refugees, but we do not want uncontrolled or illegal migration—enough is enough, stop the boats. That is the call from the British people—that is their cry for action to all of us who serve them in this place. This is a Government who listen—they listen to the people and, aided by this Bill, we will stop the boats.

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

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House, while affirming support for securing the UK’s borders, reforming the broken asylum system and ending dangerous small boat crossings, declines to give a Second Reading to the Illegal Migration Bill because the Bill fails to meet its core objectives, lacks any effective measures to tackle the criminal activity of people smuggler gangs, fails to eliminate the backlog of outstanding asylum cases, will increase the number of people in indefinite accommodation in the absence of return agreements, leaves victims of modern day slavery without any protections while frustrating efforts to prosecute traffickers, fails to reform resettlement schemes to prevent dangerous journeys and undermines international co-operation to provide support for those fleeing persecution and conflict.”

Most people want to see strong border security and a properly managed and controlled, fair and firm asylum and refugee system, so that we have proper grip along our borders and so that we do our bit, alongside other countries, to help those fleeing persecution and conflict. That is what Labour believes in but, right now, after 13 years of Conservative Government, we have none of those things. Our border security has been undermined because they let the criminal, smuggler and trafficking gangs rip, and the asylum system is in chaos, letting everyone down. All that they can offer is this Bill, which makes all those problems worse.

Last year, 45,000 people travelled on dangerous small boats, up from just 280 four years ago. That is criminal gangs, making £180 million a year from putting lives at risk, yet over the same period convictions of people smugglers have halved. There has been a massive increase in the gangs who are operating along the channel, and a massive drop in the number of criminals caught. The Government are still refusing to go after the gangs, and the deputy chair of the Conservative party thinks that we should not even bother.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Member if he will now support our proposals for a cross-border police unit to go after the criminal gangs.

[Tom Hunt]

I actually have another question. Would the right hon. Member explain why the Leader of the Opposition, when he was a human rights lawyer, once said that there was an undertone of racism in all immigration law? Does he continue to believe that?

[Yvette Cooper]

Immigration law is important, but the problem is that, at the moment, a huge amount of immigration law is not even enforced. There has been an 80% drop in the number of people who have been unsuccessful in the asylum system and been returned—an 80% drop since the Conservatives came to office. At the same time, our asylum system, under the Tories, is in total chaos. Only 1% of last year’s cases have had even an initial decision. Home Office decision making has been cut by 40%, the backlog has trebled in the space of just a few years, and thousands of people are in costly and inappropriate hotels.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. I am also grateful for the kind comments that she made about me in an interview at the weekend regarding modern slavery work. She has just referred to the backlog in asylum cases. If she thinks that the current figure means that the system is in chaos, what is her description of the system under the Labour Government of which she was a member, which had a backlog in asylum cases of between 400,000 and 450,000?

[Yvette Cooper]

The former Prime Minister and former Home Secretary is experienced enough to know that that is not an accurate characterisation of what happened. By the time the Labour Government left office, the backlog of initial decisions was just a few thousand. Now it is 160,000, and in fact it has trebled in the past few years as a result of the complete failure of the Conservatives.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the former Prime Minister; she and I have asked each other questions for so many years that I have to let her do so again.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, but does she not accept that, between the late 1990s and the early 2000s, when Labour was in government, the number of asylum cases that were in the legacy—the backlog—rose to between 400,000 and 450,000?

[Yvette Cooper]

The important point that the former Prime Minister addresses is that in the late ’90s there was an issue about what had happened with the Bosnian refugee crisis and many others. In fact, it was the action that the last Labour Government took that got a grip of the system and addressed some of the challenges. We took action to make sure that we could have both border security and a system that provided for refugees and those in need of asylum. The former Home Secretary will also know, because she was responsible for introducing the modern slavery law, which I support, that the Bill rips up many of the provisions at the heart of that legislation. I hope that she and I would agree that it should be possible for our country to have strong border security, and to have strong, fast, and effective measures, which, at the moment, the Government do not have, to deal with asylum cases swiftly and speedily, but also to make provision for those who have fled persecution and conflict, and provide support for those who have been trafficked and those who are the victims of modern slavery. I hope that she agrees with me that the Bill does the total opposite.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend, like me, get really annoyed when she hears Government Members talk about a Labour Government 13 years ago? Does she, like me, wonder why the Government, having been in charge continuously for 13 years, like to look all the way back, rather than address their own failures?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that the Conservatives have to take responsibility for 13 years in government—13 years in which we have seen refugees left in limbo, even though they have fled persecution and conflict. Those who are not refugees and have no right to be here are never returned; there has been an 80% drop in returns of unsuccessful asylum seekers. At the same time, there has been a 40% drop in refugee family reunion visas, the Afghan resettlement scheme has been shamefully frozen and children are left with no way to rejoin family. Time and again, Ministers just want to blame someone else. All the Conservative Members just want to blame someone else, but they have been in charge for the last 13 years. They keep telling us the asylum system is broken—well, seriously, who broke it?

We need urgent action to stop the dangerous boat crossings that are putting lives at risk and undermining our border security. This Bill is a con that makes the chaos worse. It will not do the things the Prime Minister and Home Secretary have promised. It will not stop the criminal gangs or dangerous crossings; in fact, it makes it easier for those gangs. It will not return everyone; in fact, it makes it harder to get return agreements. It will not clear the asylum backlog; in fact, it will mean tens of thousands more people in asylum accommodation and hotels. It will not deliver controlled and managed safe alternatives; instead, it will cut them back.

The Bill will also rip up our long-standing commitment to international law. It will lock up children, remove support and safe refuges from women who have been trafficked, and deny citizenship to people like Mo Farah. The last law the Government passed on this subject, just nine months ago, made everything worse—dangerous crossings went up, delays went up—and now they seriously expect us to do all the same things again.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The UK was one of the instigators of the 1951 refugee convention, because before the war the UK Government failed to allow Jews fleeing the persecution of the Nazis into this country. The Board of Deputies of British Jews this week said:

“Today’s British Jewish community is descended from refugees… We have significant concerns at the potential for newly proposed migration legislation to breach…the Refugee Convention.”

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we could be in breach of the convention if we pass the Bill today—in breach of international law and our own legacy in this area?

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. Those are damning words that we have heard from the Board of Deputies and many other organisations on the impact this legislation will have.

At the heart of the Bill, there is a con. The Prime Minister has pledged that anyone who arrives in the UK without the right papers will be detained and swiftly removed, “no ifs, no buts”. But where to? Not to France, because the Prime Minister failed to get a returns agreement, and he has failed with other countries as well. The Bill makes it harder to get returns agreements, because it undermines compliance with the international laws and standards that those other countries are committed to upholding—standards that we used to be committed to upholding.

People will not be removed to Rwanda either; the Home Secretary has admitted already that that scheme is failing. The taxpayer has already written a £140 million cheque. The Home Office says it is unenforceable, with a high risk of fraud and no evidence of a deterrent effect. The Israel-Rwanda deal increased trafficking, rather than reducing it. At most, the Rwandan authorities say that they may take a couple of hundred people, but 45,000 people arrived last year.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

indicated dissent.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Immigration Minister shakes his head, but he said in a statement in December in this House that the initial promise was to receive 200 people and the further preparations had not been made.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Yvette Cooper]

I give way first to my hon. Friend.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am pleased with the moderate way in which my right hon. Friend is putting forward a very sound argument, in absolute contrast to the rhetoric that we got from the Home Secretary, and she hits an important nail on the head: on the front page of the Bill, we have the statement of the Home Secretary that she cannot certify that the provisions of the Bill

“are compatible with the Convention rights”,

yet in the schedule to the Bill, countries or territories to which a person may be removed include fellow signatories to the European convention on human rights. What legal advice has my right hon. Friend seen that we would be able to do that or that they will accept returns from the United Kingdom?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. In order to have co-operation on return agreements, on alternative arrangements for processing or on any of those things, there must be proper standards in place, and other countries must respect those standards if they are to make agreements with us. Therefore, pulling away from the European convention on human rights makes those agreements more difficult, despite the fact that having those international agreements in place is one of the most important steps to dealing with the challenges we face.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and then to the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes).

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the right hon. Lady share my deep concern about the placeholder clause 49, which seeks to legislate to ignore ECHR interim orders lodged against this Government’s inhumane, morally abhorrent plans, to get around the fact that what the Government are doing is not compatible with our convention obligations? Does she agree that that will undermine our global standing and make it harder to make returns agreements or anything else that she describes?

[Yvette Cooper]

I think it adds to the chaos within this piece of legislation that the Government have not worked out what they want to do. As a consequence, they are undermining our reputation as the kind of country that stands up for the rule of law and leads the way in expecting other countries to follow the law and to do their bit as well.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Yvette Cooper]

I give way to the hon. Member for Eastleigh, who has been patient. I will then make some progress before I take further interventions, because I am conscious of the time.

[Paul Holmes]

As is her right, the shadow Home Secretary is outlining her objection to this piece of legislation. She asked my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) whether he would back her proposals, so could she do the House a favour and outline her proposals—or is this another example of her consistently opposing and not coming up with any fresh ideas herself?

[Yvette Cooper]

Indeed, I am very happy to. I hope the hon. Member will support our proposal for a cross-border police unit to go after the criminal gangs and bring up those convictions, which have totally collapsed on the Conservatives’ watch. I hope too that he will support our proposals for a fast track for Albania and other safe countries, which Ministers are not doing. [Interruption.] This is interesting, because the Immigration Minister says, “Oh, we are already doing it,” except that they are not. Only 1% of the cases from Albania have been decided. The Home Office is not taking fast-track decisions on safe countries such as Albania, for all the promises the Government made. Even where they have the powers to take action, they are not doing it. I hope the hon. Member will also support our proposals to work on not just return agreements with France and other countries, but family reunion arrangements and reforms to resettlement schemes to make those work.

Instead, we have a Bill that is a con and that will make things worse. We have been clear that the Home Secretary has nowhere that she can say she is going to return people to. Last year, the Government made exactly the same promises when they said that 18,000 people would be inadmissible because they had travelled through safe countries, yet just 21 people were returned. Of those the Home Secretary said were inadmissible, just 21 were returned. Now she wants to say that everyone is inadmissible, but if she still manages to return just 0.1% of them, the reality is that she will have tens of thousands of people left. She is simply creating misinformation and conning those on her Back Benches, who have been cheering for the things she says but will see them unravel in practice.

The Home Secretary says this legislation means that she can return people to designated safe countries such as Albania, but she can do that already. She does not need this law to do that. She already has the power to fast-track Albanian and other cases. We have been calling for it for months, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees proposed it two years ago and the Prime Minister even promised it before Christmas, but it is not happening and 99% of those cases are still in limbo.

Just 15 people who had arrived in small boats were returned last month. That is the equivalent of 180 a year, when over 10,000 people came from the designated safe country of Albania. The real problem is that Conservative Home Office Ministers just do not have any grip on the system that they are supposed to be in charge of.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

My focus goes back to clause 49, which looks specifically at interim measures of the Strasbourg court. We know that those measures have no actual effect in UK law, but UK courts may take them into account when passing their own judgments. Do the shadow Home Secretary and the Labour party support me in wanting to see that clause beefed up to make sure that the Home Secretary is under a statutory duty to remove unlawful migrants?

[Yvette Cooper]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should have put that question to the Home Secretary, because he appears to disagree with his own Conservative Government’s policy and to be off on another bit of freelancing for himself, further undermining any possibility of getting international agreements, whether on returns or on anything else. He is planning to make it even harder to get the kinds of returns agreements we need and to get the kind of international co-operation we need as well.

Ministers say that they plan to lock everyone up before they are returned, and the Bill says that everyone is included. Children, unaccompanied teenagers, pregnant women, torture victims, trafficking victims, and people such as the Afghan interpreters and young Hongkongers we promised to help—all locked up because they arrive without the right papers. The Home Secretary has not said where, or how long for. It might possibly be at RAF Scampton, but the Tory right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) does not want that. It might possibly be at MDP Wethersfield, but the Tory right hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly)—the Home Secretary’s Cabinet colleague, the Foreign Secretary —does not want that either. In other circumstances, there might be pressure on the Home Secretary to put the site in her own constituency, except for the fact that she does not actually have one right now.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

A responsible Opposition must have a plan. We all agree that we have to stop these boats, but the Opposition’s plan appears to be to process asylum applications even more quickly, so that more people will come; to process them in France, where an unlimited number will want to come; or to have this ridiculous idea of a cross-border police force. Everybody knows that on average, people get caught once on the beaches by the French police, they are not detained and they come back the very next night—they all get there. The right hon. Lady knows perfectly well that the only way that we are going to stop these boats is the Government plan: to detain them and deport them to Rwanda.

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Member is just kidding himself if he thinks that any of the Government’s plan is actually going to happen, or if he thinks it is actually going to work.

Clause 9 deals with what happens to all of the people who cannot be returned—the tens of thousands of people who, according to the Government, are expected to arrive after 7 March. It says that the Home Office will provide those people with accommodation and support: in other words, they will go back into asylum accommodation and hotels, but they will never get an asylum decision. Tens of thousands of people will be added to the Home Office backlog every year, only it is going to be a permanent backlog that the Home Office is never even going to try to clear. Those who would have been returned after their asylum claim was refused now will not be, and those who would have been granted sanctuary will be stuck in limbo instead. That is tens of thousands of people just added to the asylum backlog, costing billions of pounds more—up to £25 billion over the next five years.

As for the backlog the Prime Minister promised to clear, it is going to get worse, not better. Effectively, the Government have concluded that the Tory Home Office is so rubbish at taking any asylum decisions on time that they have decided to just stop doing them altogether, and they are hoping that no one will notice. Last week, I said that the Government might have decided not to call this an asylum system any more, but everyone is still going to be in the system nevertheless. Well, I got that wrong, because I have read the Bill’s explanatory notes again, and they say that:

“Subsection (2) amends section 94 of the 1999 Act…so that the term ‘asylum-seeker’ covers those whose asylum claims are inadmissible by virtue of Clause 4 of the Bill.”

In other words, the Government are amending the law so that all the people who they are going to exclude from the asylum system are still going to be called asylum seekers after all, and are still going to be in the asylum system.

You could not make it up: more chaos, more people in the asylum system, even fewer decisions taken, more people detained with nowhere to detain them and more people stuck in limbo, with no one credibly believing that anything in the Bill is going to act as any kind of deterrent to any of the criminal gangs. The Government are chasing headlines, but it is all a huge con.

What is the price of that con? What is the price of those empty headlines—of cancelling asylum decisions, rather than getting a grip? The Government are damaging our international standing, our chance of getting new co-operation agreements to tackle the problems, and our commitments to the rule of law. They are saying that Britain, uniquely, will not take asylum decisions, yet are expecting other countries to keep doing so. They are saying that Britain, uniquely, will not follow the refugee convention, the trafficking convention or the European convention on human rights, yet are urging other countries to follow those conventions. Think, too, of the price for the people we promised to help—for the Afghan interpreters who worked for our armed forces but who missed the last flight out of Kabul, and who the Government told to find an alternative route. If those people arrive in the UK now, the Conservatives plan to lock them up, keep them in limbo, and treat them as forever illegal in the country they made huge sacrifices to help.

Think of the Ukrainian family who travelled here via Ireland, as I know some people did in the early days of the conflict, without the right papers. They could have been the family staying with me, or the family staying with the Immigration Minister. I have listened to teenagers talking about how they had 20 minutes to pack before they fled their homes, not knowing whether they would ever return or see friends and family again. Under this law, those teenagers who arrived with the wrong papers would be locked up, denied any chance to ever live or work here lawfully in the future. That is the Tories’ position: in the interests of a plan that is actually a con and will not even work. It will not work to deter the criminal gangs; it will not work to remove people, because the Government do not have the returns agreements in place, and it will make it harder to get those returns agreements. In exchange for that con that makes nothing any better, they believe that no one who arrives in Britain without the right papers in their hands should ever be able to seek protection here or live here, no matter their personal circumstances.

[Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. Which parts of France are such that people need to flee from there to seek refuge in this country?

[Yvette Cooper]

As the hon. Member knows, the majority of people who are seeking asylum and arrive in France stay in France, rather than seeking to travel to the UK. However, we believe that we should be seeking to get a returns agreement with France, alongside new arrangements on issues such as family reunion, but at the moment, the Government have so undermined their relationship with France and other European countries that they have totally failed to get any of those agreements in place, and they are making it harder to do so with this Bill. If the hon. Member believes that returns agreements are needed, or if he believes that new, alternative arrangements around family reunion or other issues are needed, he should oppose the Bill, because it will make it harder to get any of those agreements in place. The Bill is undermining the international co-operation and international law that all of those other countries depend on.

Consider what the Bill means for the young Vietnamese woman who has been trafficked into sexual exploitation, repeatedly raped and beaten by the criminal gangs who brought her here and who control and dictate her life. Under the Bill, if the police find her when they bust the brothel, she will not be able to get modern slavery support any more: she will not be able to go to a safe house or get help from the Salvation Army. Instead, she will just be locked up in one of the Home Office detention centres. If she co-operates with the police for a bit, she might get some temporary support, but if that police investigation is closed, her world comes crashing down again. Here is what the Prime Minister tweeted about all of that:

“If you come to the UK illegally…You can’t benefit from our modern slavery protections…you will be…DENIED access to the UK’s modern slavery system”.

Think on that. Bringing people into the UK illegally in order to control and exploit them is exactly what trafficking is. Cross-border trafficking is, by definition, a major form of modern slavery, yet this Government are proposing to just wish it away—to exclude it entirely from the modern slavery system, as if the very fact of crossing borders somehow stops it from being slavery at all. The message from the UK Government to the criminal trafficking and slavery gangs is this: “Don’t worry, so long as you bring people into the country illegally, we won’t help them. In fact, we will help you: we will threaten those people with immediate detention and deportation, so that you can increase your control over those trafficking victims.” This Bill is a traffickers’ charter.

The previous Prime Minister but three, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) promised to end modern slavery, and I respect the work that she did, but this one—the current one—wants to enable it. How low has the Tory party fallen? It is even worse for children. This Bill allows the Home Secretary to lock them up indefinitely, with all safeguards removed. It allows her to remove unaccompanied children without even considering the details of their case and whether they have fled from persecution. Once they hit 18, the Bill requires her to remove them, even if the only family or support they have in the entire world is here in the UK, and even if they have been exploited and abused by criminal gangs. The Bill denies them any protection from modern slavery and makes them forever illegal in the UK.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Does the shadow Home Secretary share my concern that there was not pre-legislative consultation with the Children’s Commissioner? Why does she think that was the case?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right, and the Children’s Commissioner is appalled by some of the measures in the Bill and the lack of consultation, too. Remember those hundreds of children missing from asylum hotels, who have almost certainly been picked up by the smuggler and trafficking gangs? This Bill makes it even harder to get those kids back, and it makes it even easier for those gangs to increase their control. It means no sanctuary, or just temporary support at most for Eritrean girls, who will most likely have been raped or exploited, or for the 12 and 13-year-olds I met a few years ago, brought here by gangs from Afghanistan, or for children who endure what happened to Mo Farah. They would be denied refuge; they would be denied citizenship; they would be locked up and threatened with return. The Home Secretary may not want to admit it, but that is what this Bill does. It denies citizenship forever for people like Mo Farah.

The Tory party once voted to introduce safeguards on the detention of children, and it was right to do so. The Tory party once voted to introduce the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and it was right to do so, but what has happened to the Tories now? How low have they fallen and how far down are they trying to drag our proud country? That is what this Bill is: an attempt to drag our whole country down. They know that the Bill will not work to stop boat crossings or the gangs. They know it will not clear the backlog and that it will make the chaos worse. They know it will stop children and trafficked people getting help and will play into the hands of criminal gangs, and they know it will undermine our reputation in the eyes of the world as a country that believes in the rule of law, but they do not care, because this is about political games. This is about a lame Prime Minister making promises that he has no intention of keeping. All he wants is a dividing line, all he wants is to pick a fight, and all he wants is someone else to blame. He does not care if our international reputation or some very vulnerable people pay the price.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady accept that many on the Government side of the House—me included—will vote for this Bill this evening, but with the clear understanding that we wish to see amendments to it as it progresses through Parliament, particularly in relation to women who are trafficked and to children? Our votes are being given in good faith tonight, in the expectation that the Bill can be amended. Does she accept that?

[Yvette Cooper]

I do recognise that there are Members on the Government Benches who are deeply troubled by many of the measures in this Bill. I recognise that, and I think that reflects quite how far the Conservative party has fallen, and I am sorry that that has happened. This is an area where we should be able to build consensus, not division. In past eras, there has been consensus, for example on support for Syrian refugees. If we go back generations, there was consensus on support for the Kindertransport. There has been that support in place. We have also had past consensus about practical, sensible measures around border security, too.

It should be possible to build that consensus, and we would work with the Government to do that, but that is not what we are getting from the Conservative party, the Conservative Government, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. Instead, we have a Home Secretary who is happy to ramp up the rhetoric, rather than ever to build a calm consensus around a practical plan that sorts things out. How desperate have things become if what they are doing is ramping up hostility and hatred towards the victims of trafficking and slavery? That is not leadership. Britain is better than this.

Labour will vote for action to stop the gangs and to prevent these dangerous boat crossings. We will vote for a new cross-border police unit, for fast-track decisions and returns to clear the backlog and end hotel use, and for new agreements with France and other countries on returns, on family reunions and on reforming resettlement. We will vote for action that rebuilds border security and restores a properly functioning, credible asylum and refugee system that is properly controlled. We will not vote, however, for more chaos. We will not vote for a traffickers’ charter that lets criminal gangs off the hook, that fails to tackle dangerous boat crossings and that locks up children and leaves some of the most vulnerable people undermined. We will not vote for this Bill tonight.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Illegal Migration Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

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

A record 45,000 people crossed the channel on dangerous small boats last year, up from just 280 four years ago. In that short time, the Government have allowed criminal gangs to take hold along the channel and along our border. At the same time, convictions of people smugglers have halved; Home Office asylum decisions have collapsed, down 40%; the backlog and costly, inappropriate hotel use have soared; removals of unsuccessful asylum seekers are down 80% on the last Labour Government; and legal family reunion visas for refugees are down 40%. That is deeply damaging chaos, and there is no point in Ministers trying to blame anyone else for it. They have been in power for 13 years. The asylum system is broken, and they broke it.

We need serious action to stop dangerous boat crossings, which are putting lives at risk and undermining border security. That is why Labour has put forward plans for a cross-border police unit, for fast-track decisions and returns to clear the backlog and end hotel use, and for a new agreement with France and other countries. Instead, today’s statement is groundhog day. The Home Secretary has said:

“Anyone who arrives illegally will be deemed inadmissible and either returned to the country they arrived from or a safe third country.”

[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Only that was not this Home Secretary: it was the last one. And that was not about this Bill: it was about the last one, passed only a year ago and which did not work. As part of last year’s Bill, the Home Office considered 18,000 people as inadmissible for the asylum system because they had travelled through safe third countries, but because it had no return agreements in place, just 21 of them were returned. That is 0.1%. The other 99.9% just carried on, often in hotels, at an extra cost of £500 million, and it did not deter anyone. Even more boats arrived.

What is different this time? The Government still do not have any return agreements in place. The Home Secretary has admitted that Rwanda is “failing”, and even if it gets going it will take only a few hundred people. What will happen to the other 99% under the Bill? She says that she will detain them all, perhaps for 28 days. Can she tell us how many detention centres the Government will need in total and how much they will cost? Even if she does that, what will happen when people leave 28-day detention? Will she make people destitute, so that they just wander the streets in total chaos? They will include torture victims, Afghan interpreters and families with children. Or will she put them into indefinite taxpayer-funded accommodation? Never returned anywhere because the Government do not have agreements with Europe in place, never given sanctuary, never having their case resolved—just forever in asylum accommodation and hotels. She may not call it the asylum system, but thousands of people are still going to be in it.

What will the Bill mean for the promises we made to the Afghan interpreters who served our country but who were too late to make the last flight out of Kabul as the tyranny was closing in upon them? The Government told them to flee and find another way here, and they told us to tell people that as well. But the resettlement scheme is not helping them and, if they finally arrive in this country this afternoon, perhaps by travelling through Ireland to get here, they will only ever be illegal in the eyes of a Government who relied on the sacrifices they made for us.

If the Government were serious, they would be working internationally to get a proper new agreement in place with France and Europe, including return agreements, properly controlled and managed legal routes such as family reunion, and reform of resettlement. Instead, this Bill makes that harder, unilaterally choosing to decide no asylum cases at all, but expecting every other country to carry on.

If the Government were serious, they would be working with Labour on our plan for a major new cross-border policing unit to go after the criminal gangs. Instead, the deputy chairman of the Conservative party, the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) said yesterday that we should not go after the gangs because they have existed for “thousands of years”. That is the disgraceful Tory attitude that has let the gangs off of the hook and let them take hold. One smuggler told Sky News yesterday that three quarters of the smugglers live in Britain, but barely any of them are being prosecuted and the Government still have not found the hundreds of children missing from asylum hotels who have been picked up by criminal gangs.

The Government could be setting out a serious plan today. We would work with them on it, and so would everyone across the country. Instead, it is just more chaos. The Government say “no ifs, no buts”, but we all know that they will spend the next year if-ing and but-ing and looking for someone else to blame when it all goes wrong. Enough is enough. We cannot afford any more of this—slogans and not solutions, government by gimmick, ramping up the rhetoric on refugees and picking fights simply to have someone else to blame when things go wrong. This Bill is not a solution. It is a con that risks making the chaos worse. Britain deserves better than this chaos. Britain is better than this.

[Suella Braverman]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her remarks, but—forgive me—after five minutes of hysteria, histrionics and criticism, I am still not clear: I have no idea what Labour’s plan is. I will assume that the shadow Home Secretary is still committed to scrapping our Rwanda partnership, as she said last year, and I will assume that the Leader of the Opposition still wants to close immigration removal centres, as he promised during his leadership campaign. The shadow Home Secretary talks about safe and legal routes; I wonder what number Labour would cap that at. Would it be 500,000? A million? Five million? She should be honest with the House and with the British people: what she really means is unlimited safe and legal routes—open borders by the back door.

The right hon. Lady says get serious, so let us look at the facts. The British people want to stop the boats. It is one of the five promises the Prime Minister made to the British people, but stopping the boats did not even feature in the Leader of the Opposition’s five big missions. Is it because he does not care or because he does not know what to do? We all know why, and I think the British people know why: it is because, deep down, the Leader of the Opposition does not want to stop the boats and he thinks it is bigoted to say we have got too much illegal migration abusing our system. It is because Labour MPs would prefer to write letters stopping the removal of foreign national offenders. It is because the Labour party would prefer to vote against our measures to penalise foreign national offenders and to streamline our asylum system.

Those are the facts. Labour is against deterring people who would come here illegally, against detaining people who come here illegally and against deporting people who are here illegally. That means that Labour is for this situation getting worse and worse. Perhaps that is fine for the Leader of the Opposition and most of those on the Labour Front Bench, but it is not their schools, their GPs or their public services, housing and hotels filling up with illegal migrants.

Perhaps that is why, even before seeing the Bill and engaging on the substance, Labour has already said it will not support its passage through Parliament. Is the Leader of the Opposition committing that the Labour Lords will block it? The British people want to stop the boats. The Conservative Government have a plan to stop the boats. This Prime Minister will stop the boats. If the people want closed minds and open borders, they can rely on Labour.

Manchester Arena Inquiry: Volume 3 Report

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

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

On 22 May 2017, thousands of people, including children and their parents, went to watch a pop concert. Instead, they were faced with the most unimaginable horror, and 22 people lost their lives, including children, the youngest being just eight years old. Hundreds more were injured. Those families have endured the unimaginable. All our thoughts are with them today, and with the people of Manchester, who have stood and supported each other through the most difficult of times. I join the Home Secretary in thanking Sir John Saunders for his far-reaching inquiry, and for his vital work in seeking answers for the victims and their families.

The responsibility for this vile attack lies with the bomber and his brother, and with those who may have radicalised and enabled them, and we—all of us—condemn their actions in the strongest possible terms. It is right that the brother has been brought to justice. Rightly too, however, this report has looked at why it happened and at what might have prevented it, to seek the truth for families and their loved ones and to identify changes needed for the future. These are important and serious conclusions which are hard to hear: that there was, in Sir John’s words, a

“significant missed opportunity to take action that might have prevented the attack”;

that there was a failure to act swiftly enough on information; that there were failures in the sharing of information; and that the bomber should have been referred to the Prevent programme in 2015 or 2016, although Sir John says it is unclear whether that would have led to action. These are hard conclusions to hear, especially for those who have lost loved ones.

The Home Secretary has rightly said that agencies and counter-terror police work immensely hard to keep us safe every day. Sir John also says in his report that they have disrupted 27 major Islamist extremist terror plots in recent years, in addition to five right-wing and left-wing terror plots. That is a result of their immense efforts night and day. It is because they are dedicated to keeping us safe that they also recognise the importance of facing up to things going wrong, and they too have expressed their profound sorrow and apologies.

Sir John has rightly made recommendations, and everyone is rightly seeking to take them forward. We should support them in doing so, but I want to press the Home Secretary on some of the details of those measures. First, all of us support the work of Figen Murray and many of the Manchester survivors to introduce Martyn’s law, but can the right hon. Lady tell me the timetable? Will the Bill have its Second Reading before the summer recess? On the closed recommendations, which are clearly important, will the entire report be shared with the Intelligence and Security Committee so that it can oversee the changes that need to be made?

On the issues around prisons and the Prevent programme, the bomber repeatedly visited someone who was in prison for terrorist offences, but that did not trigger a further assessment despite some of the wider things that were known about the bomber and his family. That raises serious concerns. Will the Home Secretary look again at the process for monitoring prison visits, and will she accept Sir John’s recommendations about the changes in approach to visits to terrorist and extremist prisoners that need to be taken and also his recommendations on changes to the law?

Sir John also concludes that it is highly likely that the bombers used a video online to help them to make the device in 2016. It is appalling that that video was not taken down. It is also troubling that, seven years on, we do not have the Online Safety Bill on the statute. This also raises concerns about the lack of a proper strategy on online radicalisation. Can I urge the Home Secretary to urgently revise the countering extremism strategy, which is now eight years out of date despite her predecessors having received recommendations from the countering extremism commissioner in 2018 that it was already out of date then? Will she urgently revise it to address online radicalisation?

Sir John also warns about a potential indicator of extremism being violent misogyny in this case. There are patterns here affecting different kinds of extremism—Islamist extremism, far right extremism and incel extremism —so will the Home Secretary commission a review to look at what role violent misogyny may be playing and how far it should be understood as a potential indicator of extremism and radicalisation? Sir John also raises workforce pressures, particularly in the north-west. Given the new threats from hostile states, can the Home Secretary comment on what her assessment is of resources?

Finally, concerns were raised that the security services did not understand the threats from Libya sufficiently, and that that was a wake-up call. Does the Home Secretary recognise that that shows the importance for them to continually reassess different threats and not to have a hierarchy of threats or extremism but to pursue the evidence wherever it takes them? The Home Secretary mentioned the survivors, and we think of them. However, many of them still feel that they lack the support and help they need, even many years after the truly terrible things that happened. Will she meet Survivors Against Terror and look again at what further support can be provided for those who lost loved ones and those who were hurt in that terrible event?

[Suella Braverman]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her questions, which I will address in due course. I agree entirely with her assessment that we must now all come together—the Government, the security services and the emergency services—to learn the lessons of this awful tragedy and work to reduce the likelihood of future attacks. It was a truly sad and terrible incident, but I want to reassure the public that our priority is to keep them safe. We must root out extremism wherever we find it, and we must give no quarter to political correctness as we do so. We must respond quickly to all criticisms, but we must also recognise the serious work that has taken place since the attack.

On Martyn’s law, the Government will publish draft legislation for scrutiny in the spring. After that, we will introduce a Bill as soon as parliamentary time allows. Its progress will depend on Parliament passing it and agreeing a date for commencement. There will be a lead-in time to allow for those captured by the Bill to prepare.

Martyn’s law is one part of our extensive efforts across Government, including by the police and security services, to combat the threat of terrorism. There remains an intensive programme of guidance, developed by security experts, counter-terrorism policing and other partners, to provide high-quality advice to stakeholders and others with responsibility for public places. I look forward to moving forward with the solution and to presenting the Bill on Martyn’s law.

We have published a new policy framework allowing for greater scrutiny of the contact between terrorist prisoners and the public. Our new approved contacts scheme, to be implemented this year, will allow greater checks on the visitors and phone contacts of those convicted of terrorism and terrorism-connected offences, regardless of the category of prison in which they are held.

A large amount of work has been done since 2017 to support and improve the consistency of local authority Prevent delivery, and to manage the risk posed by subjects of interest. This includes additional funding and support for the highest-priority areas, the publication of the Prevent duty toolkit and the development of the multi-agency centre programme. We are working across Government to mitigate the risk posed by those about whom we have concerns.

Finally, the right hon. Lady asked about support for families who are going through this unimaginable process, which is why I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s announcement last week on the Government’s commitment to legislating, as soon as possible, to establish an independent public advocate to support victims following a major incident. The IPA will help victims to navigate the systems and processes that may follow a major incident, such as the police investigation, the inquests and inquiries. I hope it does not have to be used, but in the event of a tragedy, we will have the resources, expertise and structures in place to support families in this unimaginable situation.

I know the whole House will agree that we must now move forward with a solution to ensure our frameworks and processes are as robust as possible so that we never again see anything like this.

Knowsley Incident

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

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

The scenes outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley 10 days ago—violence, intimidation and a police van smashed up and set on fire—were appalling and shameful, and all of us should support Merseyside police in its response to keep people safe. It comes just a few months after the appalling terrorist attack at Dover, when someone who had been engaging with far-right and extremist groups online attempted to use a petrol bomb on a centre. In the last year, the number of so-called migrant hunts organised by far-right groups has doubled, and there has been an increase in far-right groups organising protests and intimidation and attempting to increase and inflame community tensions.

All of us have a responsibility to take this issue seriously, and there is an important debate about asylum accommodation and asylum policy. We have disagreements, and we have criticised the Home Office for the collapse in decision making on asylum, which has led to an increase in delays and in the backlog. People should not be spending a long time in hotels—they should not be put in hotels in the first place—and we should be targeting the criminal gangs, seeking new agreements with France to prevent dangerous boat crossings, and ensuring that the UK does its bit to help those who have fled persecution. We can have that debate, but we all—Government and Opposition—have a responsibility to do so calmly, with common sense, and in a way that does not inflame tensions or divide communities. The Minister will regret the fact that some of the Home Secretary’s language has appeared on some of the placards. On all sides, we need to have a calm debate.

Let me ask the Minister some specific questions. What is being done to co-ordinate the monitoring of far-right activity around asylum accommodation? What is being done about the hateful extremism that has grown and that can radicalise people into violence? The former commissioner for countering extremism has said that the Government have actually reversed some of their action on this. Will he now revisit the downgrading of the response to far-right extremism as part of the Prevent strategy? Serious concerns have been raised about the links between some far-right extremist groups and people who have been exploiting these issues, as well as some links between them and National Action, which has been proscribed because it was so serious.

Does the Minister agree that, nationally, the responsibility is on all of us to be calm and to promote community cohesion and a sensible response to all the challenges we face, rather than divide and inflame tensions that the police and local communities then have to deal with?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her closing remarks. It is absolutely incumbent on all of us to treat this in a respectful and serious manner, and ensure that we do nothing to inflame tensions within our communities. I hope she will appreciate that that is the way in which I have always conducted myself in this role.

The Home Secretary has condemned unequivocally the violence we saw in Knowsley, and that is absolutely right, because there is never any excuse for violence, intimidation or attacks on the police. That does not mean that we should not seek to understand the level of public frustration that lies behind wider concerns about our asylum and immigration system. To understand is not to condone, and there are those who treat those frustrations as a phenomenon to be managed, rather than as a warning to be heeded. We in Government take the approach that this is a serious concern for the British public, and that is why we need to take all appropriate steps to stop the illegal channel crossings as quickly as possible.

On the right hon. Lady’s specific questions, we are co-ordinating with police colleagues to ensure that all police forces have the correct and up-to-date advice on how they can support asylum accommodation and manage protests should they happen in the future. The National Police Co-ordination Centre is assisting us in monitoring the activities of relevant groups, including on social media, and we will take such steps as are required if there is content that constitutes a criminal offence. We have also worked with our asylum accommodation providers to ensure that they put in place enhanced security where appropriate, and have the best possible advice from the police as to how they can protect the people working in the hotels and other centres, and, of course, the residents.

With respect to the right hon. Lady’s question about the review of Prevent conducted by William Shawcross, the findings of that report were not that there were no far-right activities in this country, but that we must follow the facts and take a balanced view as to where to deploy our resources. That is exactly what we will do: we will tackle Islamist extremism with all the robustness it deserves, but we will also address far-right activity, including by the groups concerned in this protest.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

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

The whole House’s thoughts will be with Turkey and Syria after the terrible earthquake.

Sentencing is under way today for David Carrick’s truly appalling crimes. It is shocking that he was able to serve as an officer for so long, and we think of his victims. After Sarah Everard’s murder, Ministers said “Never again”, but barely anything changed. Can the Home Secretary confirm that, if a police officer is under investigation for rape or domestic abuse, there is still no requirement for them even to be suspended, and that many, like Carrick, are not?

[Suella Braverman]

We are going through an overhaul of our processes when it comes to disciplinary procedures applying to those officers who are under investigation. That is why I have announced a review and am looking into measures over the disciplinary process, so that we make it easier for chief constables to exclude those officers who have fallen short, whether that is criminal behaviour or other professional misconduct. It is right that we change the system and, if necessary, I will act.

[Yvette Cooper]

But nothing has changed in two years. Everything the Home Secretary has said is too little and too late, and far, far too weak. I have been contacted by a woman whose police officer partner was actually charged by his force with domestic abuse, but he still was not suspended and he is still a serving officer. This kind of thing is too unfair on victims and on police officers working hard. Labour will change the law to bring in compulsory standards for policing and to tackle abuse. Why won’t the Home Secretary change the law?

Hillsborough Families Report: National Police Response

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

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

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), and all the other Merseyside MPs, for pursuing this matter, and I thank my hon. Friend for securing this urgent question.

Ninety-seven people lost their lives as a result of what happened at Hillsborough on that terrible day 34 years ago. We remember the football fans who never came home, and we must also never forget the shameful cover-up that followed. The Hillsborough families have fought for decades against obfuscation and lies to get to the truth. Everyone hoped that the report from the Right Rev. James Jones would be a turning point, and I welcome the work that the former Home Secretary did in commissioning that report, but it is five years on. The police have rightly said:

“Police failures were the main cause of the tragedy and have continued to blight the lives of family members ever since.”

Nevertheless, five years is too long, and what makes this even more shameful is the fact that there is still no Government response to what has happened. The Home Secretary said yesterday that it was because of active criminal proceedings, but those finished 18 months ago, and the work could have taken place even while those proceedings were ongoing.

In September 2021 the Government announced that the response would be published by the end of the year, and we are still waiting. The Home Secretary also said yesterday that the Government were engaging with families, but what engagement has taken place? Has the Home Secretary met the families? Has she met the bishop? And I have to ask, where is she today? Previous Home Secretaries have shown respect to the families and acknowledgement of the appalling ways in which they have been wronged by being here to respond, and it is a devastating failure of responsibility and respect to them for her not to be here to respond.

The key measures on which we need a Government response are well known: the duty of candour, the public advocate and the elements of the Hillsborough law. The Labour party stands ready to support that law and get it into statute. Will the Government now commit themselves to supporting it, and recognise what the bishop has said about its being “intolerable”, given the pain of those families, not to have a response? The report is entitled “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”. Does the Minister accept that that is exactly what this continued delay will feel like to so many families and survivors now?

[Chris Philp]

I entirely agree with the shadow Home Secretary’s opening comments—and, indeed, with what has been said by other Members—about the appalling impact that this has had on the families of those who so tragically lost their lives. When I took my own son to a Crystal Palace football game a few weeks ago, I thought about how awful it must have been to be trapped in those circumstances, which is a terrible thing to contemplate.

As the shadow Home Secretary said, the police have apologised for the terrible failings that took place on the day and in the years subsequently. It is right that they have apologised to the families, and to the country as well. In relation to the timing, I have already said that there were legal proceedings ongoing. It has been 18 to 21 months since those concluded, which is why since I was appointed I have asked for the work to be sped up, and it will be concluded rapidly and it will respond to all the points in full.

I repeat the point I made earlier that a number of things have happened already. The right hon. Lady mentioned the independent public advocate. As she will know from her own time in government, where a public consultation has taken place, it is generally speaking a prelude to action. On the question of co-operating with inquiries, the 2020 statutory professional standards for policing did introduce that requirement, but the response needs to cover all the points, and that will happen soon.