Crime and Neighbourhood Policing

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House condemns the Government’s destruction of neighbourhood policing, noting a drop in the number of neighbourhood police officers by 6,000 and of Police Community Support Officers by 8,500; notes with concern the collapse in charges and prosecutions across all types of crime and an overall charge rate of just 5.5 per cent; is extremely concerned by the record levels of recorded rapes and knife-enabled threats to kill and that more than twenty million people witnessed or experienced antisocial behaviour last year; and calls on the Government to protect communities across the UK by increasing neighbourhood policing, including by ringfencing a proportion of the Police Uplift Programme to deliver neighbourhood officers for every local authority in England and Wales.

The motion is to restore and renew neighbourhood policing, which has been decimated by 13 years of Conservative Government. Before I talk about what is happening in our towns on policing and crime, may I first briefly say something about today’s publication of the police response to the Hillsborough inquiry? Ninety seven people lost their lives as a result of what happened at Hillsborough 34 years ago. Families had to fight for decades against smears, lies and obfuscation to get to the truth, but they still do not have justice 34 years on.

The fulsome apology from the police today is welcome, and so too is their acceptance of some of the bishop’s recommendations about a duty of candour—something the Government have previously voted against—as well as support for families at inquests. But this comes five years after the bishop’s report, and 34 years after Hillsborough. Where is the Government’s response? They promised nearly 18 months ago that we would have a response by the end of 2021, but the months and years keep rolling by. We need a commitment to a Hillsborough law to address this.

The Home Secretary’s predecessor but four, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), took this matter seriously and we welcomed that. To have no response right now shows a lack of respect for the families who have endured so much and the communities who have supported and fought for them. I will happily give way to the Home Secretary if she wants to tell us when the Government response to the Hillsborough report will be published.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Suella Braverman)]

I will address that in my response to the right hon. Lady.

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank the Home Secretary and look forward to her response. She will know how important that is.

I turn to neighbourhood policing. The number of people who say that they never see the police on patrol on the streets has almost doubled since the Conservatives took office, from around a quarter of the population to half. Half the country say that they never or hardly ever see a police officer patrolling the streets, according to the national crime survey. That is what 13 years of the Conservatives have done.

At the same time, the number of criminals being caught or punished has plummeted. Since 2010, arrests have halved; prosecutions have almost halved; community penalties have halved; and crimes solved have halved. The proportion of cases that collapse because victims give up and drop out has trebled. More crimes are reported and recorded, but hundreds of thousands fewer crimes are solved, hundreds of thousands fewer victims are getting justice, and more criminals are getting away with it.

Every one of us will have these cases in their surgeries: the residents who have complained about drug dealers on the corner, and nothing is done; the street drinkers who make them feel unsafe, and nothing is done; the broken windows and shop break-ins that go ignored; the antisocial behaviour that escalates; the kids who have been expelled from school who just wander the streets and get drawn into gang violence instead, and nothing is done; the repeat offender back out of prison who nobody is following up on; and the domestic abuse victim who has no one to turn to because the police are overstretched and the court delays are so long. More victims are giving up on the whole thing and walking away.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I understand that the right hon. Lady’s mission today is to paint a dystopian picture of crime, but before she elaborates, will she take the opportunity to congratulate the police on the significant falls we have seen not just in specific crimes such as burglary, robbery and knife crime, but in overall crime? She will know that the recently published crime survey of England and Wales shows that, in the year to September, overall crime was down 10% on pre-pandemic levels. Surely she wants to congratulate the police on that before enumerating their sometimes obvious but none the less difficult failings.

[Yvette Cooper]

Let me be very clear. I welcome the huge amount of work that police officers do every single day of the week to keep our communities safe—the police officers and police community support officers who are overstretched; and the detectives juggling huge caseloads, which they struggle to keep up with because of huge shortages of detectives, because there has been no workforce planning by the Government year after year.

I welcome some the long-term trends in crime that started 25 years ago, but the Government’s amendment eliminates online crime, despite it having soared over the past few years. That is where we have seen some of the big increases in crime. Government Ministers may want to dismiss the huge fraud against pensioners who have lost their savings, the online scams or the grooming of children online, but we should take those sorts of online crimes and fraud immensely seriously, because they devastate and ruin people’s lives.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, and I wholeheartedly agree with what she says about uninvestigated non-violent crime causing people to lose hope. I keep hearing of people who do not bother reporting crime at all any more. Will she elaborate on Labour’s plans for online crime and, in particular, ID theft? A constituent of mine recently had her ID stolen, and it has cost thousands of pounds and caused consternation for her and her family. The police want to investigate but just do not have the resources.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is completely right. We have seen changing patterns of crime as criminals make the most of new technology, and the problem is that the police have not been equipped to keep up. That, ultimately, is the responsibility of the Government, so it is no use Ministers or Conservative Back Benchers blaming the police for the situation that the Home Office has put our police forces in and the fact that they have been unable to keep up with changing crime and the changing pressures on them.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

We know that crime varies across the country. My right hon. Friend will share my horror that knife crime in north-east England has increased by 104%, from 1,077 incidents in 2015 to 2,203 last year. That is hundreds more lives impacted by the Government’s failure to get on top of serious crime in our region. We had some so-called extra money in Cleveland but still have hundreds fewer police officers than we did in 2010. Does she agree that a long-term, sustainable plan—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. A lot of Members want to take part in this debate. Using an intervention to make a speech when you have not indicated your intention to make a speech is, frankly, not in order.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that what has happened on serious violent crime is among the most troubling. Since 2015 there has been a huge increase in knife crime and serious violence, and we have seen some criminal gangs change their model to be able to groom more children and draw young people into crime and, as a result, into violence. It is our young people who we see paying the price for the way in which criminal gangs have been operating. That is why we put forward proposals to strengthen the law by outlawing child criminal exploitation, to make it easier to crack down on criminal gangs. I urge Ministers who voted against that proposal to accept it and to take a much tougher line on the criminal gangs who are exploiting our children.

The problem is that from policing to courts, our NHS, social care, our trains and our economy, after 13 years of the Tories it just feels like nothing in Britain is working any more—that is the damage they have done.

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

The Welsh Labour Government’s Commission on Justice in Wales recommended that policing and crime policy be devolved to Wales, to be aligned with social and health policy, but some Labour MPs resist that, even though it is Mark Drakeford’s policy. Policing is devolved to Scotland, to Northern Ireland and even to Manchester. Could the right hon. Lady tell me whether it is likely that a Labour Government or Labour in Westminster would ever recommend the devolution of policing to Wales?

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[Yvette Cooper]

The Welsh Government already do take a different approach in a significant way: the Welsh Government have worked with police and crime commissioners in Wales to support and fund additional PCSOs, and that has made a difference in terms of neighbourhood policing on Welsh streets.

The Government have tabled an amendment to our motion so that they can vote against Labour’s plan to increase neighbourhood policing. That is what Government Members are voting for tonight—they are voting against Labour’s plan to increase neighbourhood policing. Instead, they want us to welcome their efforts to increase police numbers, but who cut them in the first place? It was Tory MPs and Tory Ministers who voted to cut 20,000 police officers from forces right across the country—from our neighbourhoods, from detective work and from response teams—and now they expect everyone to be grateful because they are trying to put some of them back. Twenty thousand experienced police officers gone. The Tories claim that they are on track to reverse the cuts. Actually, they are not, because the number of officers leaving policing has been increasing. For example, North Yorkshire police have said today that they are leaving 120 vacancies unfilled so that they can make their budget add up.

The police are not ending up on the streets, either. More of them are now behind desks because police staff have been cut and bureaucracy has gone up. More of them are dealing with mental health crises and missing persons. After 13 years of Tory government, the NHS and social care cannot cope, and the police are having to pick up the pieces, and there is a huge shortage of detectives, because there has been no national workforce plan, and everyone is having to try to plug the gaps.

There are 6,000 fewer neighbourhood officers and 8,000 fewer PCSOs, with the number of PCSOs having halved since 2010. Neighbourhood teams have been decimated. People say they do not see the police on the street any more—that is because, across the country, they are not on the street any more. No wonder it feels like Britain is not working. Communities are being let down.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Ind)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. There are 3,500 fewer PCSOs now than in 2010, but it is not just the numbers; the estate is vanishing as well. She talked about people behind desks. In Ealing we used to have four police stations: Greenford, Hanwell, Ealing and Acton. Now there is only one. Does she agree that police need places to do their paperwork as well?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Right across the country, over the last 13 years, police forces have closed police stations. Some of them are now houses in multiple occupation with problems with antisocial behaviour—you could not make it up! That is a result of decisions that Conservative Ministers have made.

It is good to see the Home Secretary here today, because we do not see her that much. If I am honest, I do not really know what she does. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has been put in charge of dealing with antisocial behaviour. The Prime Minister has taken charge on small boats. The Navy has been in charge of patrolling the channel.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

Not any more.

[Yvette Cooper]

It did not work, did it? No. That much-vaunted policy that they announced a year ago has ended up with record high levels of dangerous boat crossings.

The DLUHC Secretary is also deciding on the Prevent review and running Homes for Ukraine, while the Education Secretary, the Work and Pensions Secretary and the Treasury have taken over deciding legal migration policy and have cancelled the Home Secretary’s plan to bring back the net migration target and cut student numbers. The Immigration Minister has taken over asylum accommodation, because when the Home Secretary was in charge, she broke the law. The Security Minister has taken over security policy because she cannot be trusted not to leak. She is not charging criminals, because that has got worse. In fact, the number of prosecutions fell by 20% when the Home Secretary was the Attorney General. She is not sorting out the Windrush scandal because she has cancelled all that. She is not doing work on police standards or tackling misogyny, racism or violence against women and girls because she thinks all of that is woke.

There was all that fuss about the sacking this week of the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) as the Tory party chair and Minister without Portfolio. The real Minister without Portfolio is still in office! But she does not get let out much. She does not even do TV or radio interviews. I do not think we have heard her in the morning or on a Sunday for months. She is the shadow of a Home Secretary. She is a shadow shadow Home Secretary, so why does she not just get out of the way and let somebody else do the job?

An absentee Tory Home Secretary is not new: successive Tory Home Secretaries have walked away from taking action to get justice for victims, to catch criminals or to keep communities safe. Knife crime is therefore 71% higher than seven years ago, stabbings are up 63%, and knife-enabled rape is at a record high.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

The charge rate for rape is just 1.6%. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is down to the large-scale cuts to policing and the Crown Prosecution Service budget that conviction rates are so low and the overwhelming majority of victims are not getting the justice they deserve? After 13 years of Conservative Governments, they are allowing rapists to get off scot-free while victims suffer.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point because more criminals are getting off under the Tories. As a result of 13 years of Conservative Governments, criminals are not paying the price. About 7,000 people will be the victim of theft today. Of those thefts, just over 4,000 will be reported to the police, but only 180 will face court. For thousands more victims, there will be no justice.

The worst figures of all are on rape. The Conservatives’ amendment to the motion shows how low they have fallen and how out of touch they are. The proportion of rape cases reaching charge is still two thirds lower than six or seven years ago, and it was too low then, but their amendment effectively boasts about an increase of a third in the number of adult rape convictions in the last year. The number of convictions in a year that they are talking about is 532, which is the equivalent of about one and a half convictions a day. That figure may be up from just over one conviction a day during the covid crisis the year before, but let us think about the estimated 300 women who are raped every day. Are we supposed to be grateful and applaud the fact that there might be a conviction in perhaps one and a half rather than one of those cases? What kind of justice does it provide for the other 298 women if just one or two of those rapists are locked up? What kind of shameless, failing Government think that they should boast about that appalling failure in justice for women and girls? I say to Government Members, “That is the motion that you will be voting for this afternoon.” They will vote against an increase in neighbourhood policing and vote to boast about a truly dismal record in tackling violence against women and girls.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

Despite unprecedented levels of recorded rape and sexual offences, local authorities and charities are having to fight to keep open victim support services, such as women’s centres. Meanwhile, the long-promised victims Bill is nowhere to be seen. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, alongside ending violence against women and girls, we must prioritise supporting the victims of crime?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: where is the victims Bill? Where is the opportunity to provide proper support for victims of crime, not just of domestic abuse and sexual violence, but more widely? They need support but, too often, the Government have turned their back on them and they have been badly let down.

Where, too, is the action to get specialist rape investigation units in all our police forces? Again, too often, the Government have turned their back. For all their talk about powers and sentencing, the reality is that they voted against Labour’s policy for new powers to clamp down on the criminal gangs that are exploiting and grooming children; they voted against Labour’s policy to increase sentences for rape and set minimum sentences; and they voted against Labour’s policy for increased monitoring and powers on repeat domestic abuse perpetrators.

[Chris Philp]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the Minister, if he can defend his Government’s decision not to make specialist rape investigation units mandatory and not to vote for minimum sentences in rape cases.

[Chris Philp]

The right hon. Lady asks about sentencing in rape cases. I point out that the average rape sentence is now nearly two years higher than after the last Labour Government. She talks about voting on rape sentencing. Extraordinarily, in Committee of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in 2022, the Opposition voted against a specific clause that saw people convicted of rape spending two thirds of their sentence in prison, rather than one third.

[Yvette Cooper]

indicated dissent.

[Chris Philp]

Yes, they did—I was extremely surprised. Perhaps she can explain to the House why Labour voted against keeping rapists in prison for longer.

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[Yvette Cooper]

The Labour party voted for minimum sentences for rape—to increase sentencing for rape. It does not matter what the sentencing powers are, however, if nobody is being prosecuted and sentenced in the first place; the number of people who are being prosecuted and sentenced has plummeted. Victims are not getting justice and record numbers of victims are giving up on the criminal justice system, because they have been so badly let down after 13 years of Conservative Governments. How can a prosecution rate of 1.6% be anything other than a total shame and dereliction of duty by the Conservative Government, Conservative Home Office and Conservative Ministers?

Let us remember, too, that the Conservatives voted to cut Labour’s counter-terror powers and ended control orders so that the terrorism prevention and investigation measures that replaced them are barely used. They also voted to cut Labour’s antisocial behaviour powers, so what is left is barely used. We hear that they now want to do something more on antisocial behaviour, because they are fed up with nuisance neighbours holding loud parties or with risky behaviour in the streets or in our cars, and they are thinking about bringing in more fixed penalty notices.

Well, the Prime Minister certainly knows all about fixed penalty notices. He is the first ever Prime Minister to ratchet up not just one but two penalties for law breaking in the space of 12 months. He is surrounded at the Cabinet table by multiple rule breakers and other repeat offenders, and he chose to ignore warnings about rule breaking by four of the Cabinet Ministers he appointed. As his Home Secretary and Justice Secretary—the two jobs most responsible for establishing respect for the rules and enforcing the law—he has chosen two people who he was warned in the autumn were under suspicion for breaking Ministers’ rules.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. What has this got to do with the matter that we are debating?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

If I believed that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) was out of order, I would have said so.

[Yvette Cooper]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

If the hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) does not see a connection between establishing respect in our communities for the rule of law and the rules and a sense of enforcement, and the behaviour of Government Ministers, including fixed penalty notices and law breaking by the Prime Minister, then she reflects the same problem. There is a culture across those in the Conservative party that there is one rule for them and another for everyone else. It is no wonder that no one takes them seriously on law and order any more.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I said that I would decide when the line has been crossed; the right hon. Lady is in grave danger of crossing it.

[Yvette Cooper]

With respect for the rules and the rule of law, Mr Deputy Speaker, I turn to the need for a new approach, because this situation is not fair for our communities. The collapse in neighbourhood policing and in justice for victims is not just making people feel less safe, but undermining our town centres and local economies, as well as undermining respect for the rule of law and the crucial trust that lies at the heart of the British policing model of policing by consent.

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

The right hon. Member is talking about respect and we are also talking about trust, and I think we have to acknowledge that trust in the police has been significantly eroded of late. Does she agree with me that neighbourhood policing is actually critical to rebuilding that trust? It is much better to see a police officer on the street who knows their local community and is known by the community, as opposed to one at a distance.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is exactly right. It is having police officers and PCSOs rooted in communities, who know their communities and can also respond to communities and community concerns, that helps to gather intelligence about offenders and perpetrators, helps to prevent crime in the first place and helps to build trust so that people feel more confident about reporting to the police. I agree with her that it is crucial, alongside the other reforms I was about to mention.

We would also introduce a new law on police standards, making vetting compulsory and being clear on mandatory standards on training and misconduct, with the very basic idea that, if a police officer faces allegations of rape or domestic abuse, they should be suspended, not just put behind a desk. Raising standards and increasing the community connections of the police is a really important way to support policing as well as to support communities.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the shadow Home Secretary for her discussion of what she is proposing. I very much support community policing. Just Monday—yesterday—we had a meeting with the chief inspector back in Northern Ireland on the cutbacks in the police, and one thing he told us was that community policing will be central to any policing going forward. That is what we are doing in Northern Ireland. Does the right hon. Lady agree that that is what should happen here?

[Yvette Cooper]

I do agree that that is what should happen here, and at the moment it is not happening. At the moment, we still have 6,000 fewer police officers and 8,000 fewer PCSOs, with rumours that PCSOs may face further cuts over the next 12 months, just at a time when we should be supporting and working with communities, instead of fearing that things may actually be going further backwards.

That is why Labour has set out plans for 13,000 additional police officers and PCSOs, funded by requiring forces to sign up for joint procurement and ringfencing some of the new recruits, to go alongside the new law on police standards. Police officers across the country are doing some phenomenal work, such as those remaining police officers who are based in our communities, the PCSOs who work very hard every single day of the week, and the officers who are attempting to solve crimes with huge case loads and facing real pressure and trouble. However, those officers need our support, and they need the additional neighbourhood policing teams in place to rebuild such connections.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Clearly, increasing numbers is very important, but does the right hon. Lady agree that, in addition, we need to give police officers the power they need to take a zero-tolerance approach where they need to, in being robust in tackling people who blight our town centres and make life a misery for so many?

[Yvette Cooper]

I do agree that the police need to have the powers to tackle serious abuse, antisocial behaviour and problems in our town centres. At the moment, there are not police officers there; too often, they are not on patrol and they are not there. I would just gently remind the hon. Member that it was his Government and Conservative MPs who all voted to cut antisocial behaviour powers, leaving powers that just are not being used at all. Nobody is using even the antisocial behaviour powers they have, and it was Ministers and Tory MPs who voted to cut those powers in the first place.

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

My right hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. I just want to refer to hate crime. We have seen a massive increase in hate crime over the last 10 years from about 40,000 cases up to about 155,000 cases last year. Although we are seeing improvements in prosecutions, the figure is still less than 10% of cases. This makes a huge difference to our communities and to making sure that everybody feels safe. What are her comments on that?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right, and these are also the kinds of crimes—for example, homophobic assaults or racist threats—that can be hugely damaging, and these serious crimes also undermine community cohesion. It is really important that the police are able to respond and have the neighbourhood officers to do so, and also that they do the work on prevention—including, frankly, in our national health service and in our social services—to ease the pressures that the police currently face in dealing with missing persons or mental health crises.

We are calling on the Government to make a proper commitment to neighbourhood policing. What Labour would do and what a Labour Government will do is to have additional police officers and PCSOs back in our neighbourhood teams, supported to work with the communities. That goes back to the core Peel principle that the police are the public and the public are the police. The police are part of our communities in standing up for communities, but also in getting justice for them—getting the prosecutions and the justice that victims need and that they have been denied for too long. That is what Labour believes in. The Tories have shown that they are weak on crime, weak on justice and weak on law and order, and that is why we need a Labour Government now.

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[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Gentleman is just not right. As of 31 December, our police uplift programme has recruited an additional 16,000 new officers, bringing us to a total of over 145,000 nationwide, with more—in a welcome sense—female and ethnic minority officers than ever before. That is no accident. That all took planning and funding by this Government. What did Labour Members do? They voted against it.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary is just sort of inventing things there. The police workforce statistics—her own workforce statistics—show that there are 6,000 fewer neighbourhood police officers, and 8,000 fewer PCSOs. Half the country say that they do not see police officers on patrol. How does she explain that shocking decimation of neighbourhood police?

[Suella Braverman]

I disagree with the right hon. Lady’s characterisation, but it is obviously helpful for her to play with the figures. If we look at how we are classifying roles in policing, we see that when it comes to incident and response management, numbers are up. On local policing, the 2022 figures were greater than those from 2015. She can move around the deckchairs and play with the figures all she likes, but the reality is that we are on track to have a record number of police officers.

Let me get back to the facts. Achievement No. 2: crime is down. Despite the naysayers on the Opposition Benches, since 2010, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales—the most authoritative evidence about crime complied by the Office for National Statistics—burglary is down by 50%, robbery is down by 45%, and violence is down by 46%. That is 500,000 fewer burglaries, 180,000 fewer robberies, and 700,000 fewer victims of violence than in 2010. Crucially, overall crime, excluding fraud and online crime, is down by 48% compared with 2010. I hope that Labour Members take this chance to reflect and apologise to the British people for the disgraceful state in which they left this country, and for objecting to our measures to fix the mess that they left.

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[Suella Braverman]

When we speak to frontline police officers and those who are affected because family members have been victims of knife crime or violent crime, we understand that stop and search is a vital tool not only in reducing violent crime, but in saving lives. The proportionate and targeted use of stop and search is an essential tool that I support the police using.

Let us not forget London. Knife crime is a problem in London and, under Labour’s Sadiq Khan, rates are up by 11%. So, instead of carping from the sidelines, Labour MPs would be far better off using their time by encouraging their Labour man in London to demand that the police get back to getting weapons off our streets. On serious violence, the Government have backed the police with investment and support to reduce violence.

[Yvette Cooper]

On that point, in London, knife crime is down by 16% over the last four years, whereas on average over the rest of the country it has gone up. Will the Home Secretary withdraw the point she just made?

[Suella Braverman]

The data I have is that knife crime has gone up in London, and there are really serious challenges when it comes to Labour’s management of policing in London.

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[Suella Braverman]

I will just get back to the point I was making: the shadow Home Secretary does not have any legitimacy on fighting for the safety of women when she cannot even define one.

Rape and sexual violence are devastating crimes that can have a long-lasting impact on victims.

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank the Home Secretary for giving way, but she has not answered the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) asked. We have been very clear: women are adult females, and when they are abused, and when they are raped, they are not getting justice. Hundreds of women every day are being denied justice and denied the protection of the courts because no rapists are being prosecuted. The Home Secretary is refusing to commit to having police officers go to the homes of those adult females, those women, who are being abused every single day. Will she now commit to saying that the police will go to every single domestic abuse case—yes or no?

[Suella Braverman]

Let me get on to what we are doing on rape and serious sexual offences, and on domestic abuse. I am very glad that more victims and survivors are coming forward and reporting these crimes to the police. More needs to be done by the whole of the criminal justice system. Through the rape review, the Government took a hard and honest look at how the entire criminal justice system dealt with rape. In too many instances, it simply had not been good enough. In December we published a rape review progress report, setting out the progress made in the 18 months since the publication of the action plan. The number of cases referred by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service was up by 95, the volume of cases charged was up by two thirds, and the number of cases reaching the Crown court was up 91% compared to 2019 averages.

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[Chris Philp]

Of course I will. My right hon. Friend, as always, speaks with great authority and wisdom. I can tell the House that we will shortly be consulting on a new police funding formula.

I welcome the debate that the Opposition have chosen today, which has highlighted the fact that we will very shortly have a record number of police officers. In fact, in 19 of our 43 forces, we already do. I was particularly surprised that two Cheshire Opposition Members chose to mention police officer numbers, because in Cheshire we already have record numbers of officers, as we do in 19 forces.

[Yvette Cooper]

Can the Minister explain why there are 6,000 fewer neighbourhood police on our streets and 8,000 fewer PCSOs in neighbourhood teams? That is what communities can see, right across the country. That is why, compared with 13 years ago, twice as many people now say that they never see the police on patrol.

[Chris Philp]

I do not recognise that calculation around neighbourhood numbers. What I do recognise is the police statistics published last week, which show that we are on the cusp of setting a record number of police officers in this country’s history. I expect that to be confirmed in April, so I look forward to the shadow Home Secretary congratulating the Home Secretary on her accomplishments. By the way, I was rather struck by the amount of time the shadow Home Secretary spent personally and unjustifiably attacking a Home Secretary who has been working so hard to deliver these numbers.

Time is short, but I will respond to one or two points that have been raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) made some very good points about knives, such as zombie knives and machetes, which are extremely dangerous. We will shortly to be consulting on banning more of those dangerous weapons to keep our constituents safe.

Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State, Yvette Cooper.

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

The report from Sussex police is that one in four unaccompanied children in a Home Office hotel have gone missing—one in four—and that around half of them are still missing. It would appear from the figures the Minister has given that that means one hotel accounts for 40% of the missing children.

A whistleblower is reported as saying:

“Children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found. They’re being taken from the street by traffickers”.

Greater Manchester police warned that asylum hotels and children’s homes are being targeted by organised criminals. There is a pattern here. The gangs know where to come to get the children—often, likely because they trafficked them here in the first place. There is a criminal network involved and the Government are completely failing to stop it. They are letting gangs run amok. Last year, there was only one—just one—conviction for child trafficking, even though it is now believed to involve potentially thousands of British children, as well as the children targeted here.

Where is the single co-ordinated unit involving the National Crime Agency, the Border Force, the south-east regional organised crime unit and local police forces to hit the gang networks operating around this hotel and across the channel? Why are the Government still refusing to boost the National Crime Agency? Why have they repeatedly ignored the warnings about this hotel and unregulated accommodation for 16 and 17-year-olds being targeted by criminal gangs?

It is unbelievable that there is still no clarity on whether the Home Office or the council is legally responsible for these children. Will the Home Office now agree to immediately end the contract with this hotel and move the children out to safer accommodation? Will it set up a proper inquiry and team to pursue the links between organised crime, trafficking and the children in these hotels? This is a total dereliction of duty that is putting children at risk. We need urgent and serious action to crack down on these gangs, and to keep children and young people safe.

[Robert Jenrick]

I gave the figures the Home Office has at the start of this urgent question. Of the 4,600 unaccompanied children who have been accommodated in hotels since July 2021, 440 have gone missing at one point and 200 remain missing, so I am afraid the statistics the right hon. Lady quotes are not those that I have been given by the Home Office.

On press reports that individuals have been abducted outside the hotel, those are very serious allegations. I specifically asked the officials who run the hotel whether they have seen evidence of that, and I also asked the senior leadership of Brighton and Hove Council. I have not been presented with evidence that that has happened, but I will continue to make inquiries. Senior officials from my Department are meeting the Mitie security team in the coming days to ask them whether they have seen any occurrences, whether the individual quoted in the press as a whistleblower raised issues with Mitie, and, if they did, why those issues were not subsequently passed on to the Home Office. The right hon. Lady has my assurance that I will not let the matter drop. I am also going to meet a number of staff who work at the site in the coming days to take their opinions and reflections.

On the broader point the right hon. Lady makes about our policy, she is incorrect when she says the NCA is insufficiently financed. The Prime Minister announced at the end of last year that we would step up NCA funding. In fact, I visited the NCA just last week to be briefed on the work it is doing upstream throughout Europe and into Turkey, Iraq and a number of other countries. There is very significant activity happening to tackle the evil people-smuggling gangs.

The problem the right hon. Lady has is that she does not support any of the measures the Government bring forward to stop the trade. She votes against every Bill we bring forward to try to address this challenge. There is nothing compassionate about allowing unsecure borders and allowing growing numbers of people, including young people, to cross the channel. She will have an opportunity to put her money where mouth is when we bring forward further legislation in the weeks ahead.

Police Conduct and David Carrick

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

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

This is a truly shocking and appalling case, and I welcome the statement today. A serving police officer has admitted to some of the most serious and devastating crimes. I join the Home Secretary in paying tribute to the bravery of the victims who have come forward, but we must face up to the further evidence that this case has brought up of appalling failures in the police’s vetting and misconduct processes, which are still not being addressed by the Government and are not addressed in this statement. Given the scale of the problems not just in this case but in previous cases, the Home Secretary’s statement is very weak and shows a serious lack of leadership on something that is so grave and that affects confidence in policing as well as serious crimes.

We have seen repeated failures by serving police officers to respond to or take seriously allegations of violence against women by a serving police officer. Allegations of domestic abuse have not been taken seriously in the vetting processes. In this case, there was a failure to suspend David Carrick when rape allegations were made in July 2021, even though the Met police knew there had been domestic abuse allegations two years previously. A misconduct process concluded that there was no case to answer, despite the repeated alarms raised. A full vetting check was not triggered, and David Carrick’s permission to carry firearms was restored.

Most shocking of all is that this happened at the height of the alarm about Wayne Couzens and the deeply disturbing murder of Sarah Everard. This undermines confidence for women and for victims but also for police officers who are working so hard—especially women police officers, who may themselves have reported misogynistic abuse, and officers who are doing excellent work every day to tackle violence against women and girls and know that confidence in that work is being undermined.

We support the new Met Commissioner’s determination to take action, but this is not just about the Met. Concerns about misogyny and culture have been raised in Sussex, Hampshire, Derbyshire, Gwent, Police Scotland and other forces. There has been a lack of leadership from the Government on police standards for years. After the truly appalling murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer, Home Office Ministers promised change. The then Home Secretary promised to set up processes that would prevent this from happening again, and that has badly failed.

There are still no legal requirements on vetting. Forces can effectively do what they want. They do not even have to check employment history and character references, and some do not. They do not even have to interview people beforehand. When the inspectorate came up with the damning conclusion that hundreds, if not thousands, of police officers who should have failed vetting are still in the job, including corrupt and predatory officers and officers who have committed offences of indecent exposure and domestic abuse, the Policing Minister refused to even make it a requirement for police forces to follow the recommendations of the inspectorate. They just shrugged and said that it was a matter for police forces to follow. There has been no response to make it compulsory to follow vetting guidance or to follow the reforms.

All we have in this statement is a continuation of the existing Angiolini review and a new review on dismissals. I welcome that new review, because there are concerns that the dismissals process has become more difficult and worse since well-intended reforms were introduced that have not worked as intended, but it was announced in October, and it still has not started. All the Home Secretary has done is re-announce it today. The Home Secretary has dismissed as “woke” some of the things that police forces have been doing to tackle misogyny, increase diversity and improve their response to communities and to crime, even though they are about tackling some of the most serious crimes.

It is also about how seriously Ministers take tackling violence against women and girls more broadly. We know that the charge rate for rape has dropped to a shameful 1.5%—it has dropped by two thirds over the last seven years. Again, Home Office Ministers promised that tackling violence against women and girls would become part of the compulsory strategic policing requirement. It has been reported that that has not happened. Can the Home Secretary confirm that, nine months after Ministers announced it, she has not made it a strategic policing requirement to prioritise violence against women and girls?

After the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer, Labour called for change. After the horrific murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, Labour called for leadership. After the shameful case of Child Q, Labour called for reform. After the shocking Charing Cross station report, Labour demanded action. After the Stephen Port inquiry, Labour called for reform. After the cases right across the country of abuse and misogyny, Labour has demanded change. Conservative Ministers promised that action would be taken, but they have failed to do so.

Labour will change the law. Labour will overhaul the vetting, misconduct and standards system, because it is time for change. We are letting down police officers across the country who do excellent work and are being let down by these failures in the system. Most of all, women are being let down. It is too late for all the warm words in the Home Secretary’s statement. What is she actually going to do to make sure that standards are raised?

[Suella Braverman]

It is disappointing that the shadow Home Secretary has resorted to cheap political lines; I do not think that today is a day for political attacks. There is a human tragedy at the heart of this case, and ultimately, politics should be set aside. I am willing to work with anybody—the inspectorate; the politician with overriding responsibility for the Met police, who is a Labour politician, Sadiq Khan; all the chief constables; and everybody in the Chamber—to bring about change and safety, and to improve standards in our police forces around the country.

That is why I support the Met Commissioner’s statement yesterday, in which he accepted that there were failings. There is no question about that: there were failings in the system when it came to vetting and checking, and there were failures by the Met police. It is clear that culture and standards in the police need to change, which is why I will not shy away from challenging chief constables around the country on the standards that they uphold and instil in their individual forces.

Police constables and police leaders have all accepted the recommendations set out in the inspectorate’s comprehensive report, which was commissioned by the Government in response to Sarah Everard’s murder to look more closely at the procedures that have been put in place and how well they have been working when it comes to vetting, checking, monitoring and disciplinary processes related to policing. That report clearly identified several concerns and failings in policing, and made recommendations, the bulk of which were aimed at police constables, the College of Policing, and the National Policing Board.

All those recommendations have been accepted and we are closely monitoring the delivery of those improvements in rigour and standards when it comes to the entry processes, vetting and checking for new recruits to policing. We have also ensured that Lady Angiolini will look more closely into the culture of policing so that we can better implement and deliver systems that will root out misogyny, predatory behaviour, sexual assault or any other offensive behaviour that might lead to criminal activity within policing.

Let me be clear, however, that I am proud of the Government’s track record on supporting women and girls in the criminal justice system. We put in place the groundbreaking Operation Soteria around the country to improve practices when it comes to the police investigation of rape and serious sexual offences in the prosecution and court resolution phases. We are already seeing signs of improvement when it comes to supporting victims of those heinous crimes through our criminal justice system. We also introduced a raft of new offences, such as on upskirting, stalking, female genital mutilation and forced marriage, to better protect women and girls in society, and our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which expanded the definition and protections available to victims of domestic abuse. I am proud of the leadership and initiative that we have demonstrated when it comes to standing up for women and girls.

We will not be complacent, however, because of course we can go further and do more. I am keen to focus on the solutions and move forward, so that we do not see repeated incidents and tragedies, such as the one that we are talking about today.

Migration and Economic Development

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

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

The Government have failed to stop criminal gangs putting lives at risk and proliferating along our borders; they have failed to prosecute or convict the gang members; and they have failed to take basic asylum decisions, which are down by 40% in the last six years. Instead of sorting out those problems, however, they have put forward an unworkable, unethical and extremely expensive Rwanda plan that risks making trafficking worse.

The Home Secretary describes today’s court judgment as a vindication, but I wonder whether she has read it, because it sets out evidence of serious problems in Home Office decision making. It also identifies the significant financial costs of the scheme and the very limited number of people who will be covered, and certainly identifies no evidence that it will act as a deterrent or address the serious problems that we face.

The court concluded that the Home Office’s decision making in each of the eight cases considered was so flawed and chaotic that those individual decisions have had to be quashed. There were cases of literally mixing up evidence and the names of individuals, so the Home Office was making decisions on the wrong people; there was confusion between teams in Glasgow and Croydon about who was deciding what and which information should be shared; and evidence of torture and trafficking was not considered. We also know that the Home Office attempted to send heavily pregnant women to Rwanda.

That is a damning indictment of the decision-making process in the Home Office, which we know is not working because no decision has been made on 98% of the small boat arrivals in the last 12 months. Ministers seem to have decided that they are so incapable of getting a grip on the asylum system and of taking asylum decisions effectively here in the UK that they want to pay a country halfway across the world to take those decisions for us.

On the lawfulness of the decision, the Court accepted that Rwanda does not have the processing capacity, including interpreters and legal support, needed to take asylum decisions, but it concluded that the agreement was still lawful because of two key points: the number of people Rwanda takes will be very limited; and lots more money will be provided by the UK Government. The Home Secretary did not tell us about any of those things. Will she now tell us, first, how many people she expects to send to Rwanda next year? Rwanda has said that it can accommodate 200 people. That is the people from 0.5% of this year’s channel crossings. The Home Office itself has said that there is no evidence that the scheme will act as a deterrent, and that the scheme is unenforceable and has a high risk of fraud.

Secondly, can the Home Secretary tell us the full cost? The Court said that significant additional funding would be provided. The Government have already written Rwanda two cheques this year: one for £120 million, and another this summer for £20 million. Millions more are promised—but how much more? How much will the scheme end up costing per person? It looks as though it will be more than £1 million per person.

Thirdly, the Court judgment says that there is no evidence that the UK Government sought to investigate either the terms of the Rwanda-Israel agreement or the way it had worked in practice. Why on earth not? That agreement was abandoned, and there is evidence that it increased trafficking and the activity of criminal gangs. Convictions for people smuggling have already dropped by 75% in two years; convictions for people trafficking are already pitifully low; and a former chief constable has warned that the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 will make that worse. Time and again, the Government have failed to tackle the criminal gangs driving the problem, and to make them pay the price. Instead of pursuing this unworkable, unethical, extortionately expensive and deeply damaging policy, the Government should use the money that they are investing in it to go after the gangs that are putting lives at risk. All that they are doing, time and again, is chasing headlines, which is a damaging distraction from the serious hard work that is needed to tackle the gangs and sort out the asylum system.

The Home Secretary has said that the Conservatives are in the last chance saloon. Their policies put them there, and have let the country down. They are always ramping up the rhetoric, and never doing the serious, hard work, or using common sense. Britain deserves better than this. Britain is better than this.

[Suella Braverman]

I am very disappointed by the response from the shadow Home Secretary, and I am concerned that she is seeking to go against a legitimate, rigorous decision set out exhaustively by our independent judiciary, and is still suggesting that this is an illegitimate scheme. We see in the judgment that the scheme is lawful on several grounds. The judgment looked at the legislative authority for the scheme. It looked very closely at the claims that it breached articles 3 and 14 of the European convention on human rights, and article 31 of the refugee convention. It looked closely at whether it was fair, and at whether the right of access to justice was respected. It looked very closely at other public law grounds. On all those claims, the Home Office won. The Court concluded that it was and is lawful for the Government to make arrangements to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda, and for asylum claims to be determined in Rwanda, rather than in the UK. The judgment is a comprehensive analysis of the reasons why.

The right hon. Lady asks about the eight individual cases. We accept the Court’s judgment on those cases. We have already taken steps to strengthen the caseworking process, including revising the information and guidance given to individuals during their assessment for relocation, but we have been clear throughout that no one will be relocated if that is unsafe for them, and support is offered to individuals throughout the process to ensure that it is fair and robust.

The simple truth is that Labour Members have opposed every one of our efforts to deter illegal migration. They opposed the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, life sentences for people smugglers, and the removal of foreign national offenders, including drug dealers and rapists. All they offer is obstruction, criticism, the performative politics of opposition, and magical thinking. What do they actually offer? They say that we should return to the failed Dublin scheme—no matter that it was ineffective, and no matter that the EU does not want it. Labour Members want safe and legal routes as the answer, no matter that this Government have done more than any other in recent history, offering sanctuary to more than 450,000 people by safe and legal routes. No matter that Labour Members cannot define what routes they would stand up themselves, or that our capacity is not unlimited, and that there are more than 100 million people displaced globally. Would Labour give them all a safe and legal route to the UK?

We cannot indulge in fictions. A fundamental reason why Labour Members cannot articulate a plan is that they cannot be honest with the British public about what they really want. The shadow Home Secretary could not even decide whether she would repeal illegal entry, even though she voted against it. Labour’s solution would be to turn our crisis of illegal migration into a crisis of legal migration, with open borders by the back door. Unlimited safe and legal routes are simply open borders masquerading as humanitarianism. Last week the Prime Minister and I announced our plan to tackle small boats. Today the Court affirmed the legality of a central piece of that plan, and tomorrow Labour still will not have a plan.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

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

In 2020, the Home Office secured just 12 convictions a month for people smuggling into the UK. In 2021, that fell to eight a month and, in the first half of 2022, it fell to just three a month. The smuggler gangs have proliferated, and the dangerous boat crossings that put lives at risk are up twentyfold, yet the number of criminals paying the price for their crime has collapsed. Why has the Home Secretary totally failed to take action against the criminal gangs?

[Suella Braverman]

Let me point out who has totally failed to take any action against the criminal gangs: the right hon. Lady and the Labour party. I am really enjoying the shadow Home Secretary’s reinvention over the past weeks and months, but despite her trying to sound tough on illegal migration and people smugglers, Labour voted against our new offences for prosecuting the people smugglers who are causing the problem on the channel. Labour voted against tougher sentences that enable us to deport foreign rapists and foreign drug dealers. Labour would scrap our Rwanda scheme. Yesterday, the right hon. Lady did not even know whether illegal entry was an offence. The reality is that Labour has no plan whatever on illegal migration; it is against our plan, and all it wants is open borders.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Home Secretary had no response on the total collapse in prosecutions, and she has had 12 years in charge. She says that the asylum system is broken; well, who broke it? Minsters have been running the system for the last 12 years, in which they have made things worse. Since the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 came into force, the number of people arriving by dangerous boat has reached a record high, so their legislation has not worked. The Prime Minister promised extra money for the National Crime Agency, but two days after he made that announcement, the Home Office does not know how much that money is, and the Treasury has not agreed anything. Can the Home Secretary tell us how much additional funding there will be for the National Crime Agency, and where it is coming from? On the Conservatives’ watch, a multimillion-pound criminal industry has grown along our border, and while Ministers faff around, gangs are making profit and people are drowning.

[Suella Braverman]

I am proud of the announcement that the Prime Minister made last week, setting out a comprehensive, methodical and compassionate approach to dealing with illegal migration and stopping the boats crossing the channel, dealing with the asylum backlog, responding to the cohort of people who have come here illegally from Albania, operationalising our Rwanda agreement and ensuring that ultimately we crack down on the people smugglers through better operational command on the channel. The right hon. Lady needs to get with the programme. I invite her to reverse her opposition to our plan, come up with a methodical plan and then let us have a proper conversation.

Manston Update

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for your words about the difficulty of responding to a statement with just 10 minutes’ notice.

I thank the Minister for the information he has given us, but why is the Home Secretary not here? This is supposed to be her top priority. In the past few weeks we have had two urgent questions, a debate and this statement on the chaos, and she has not done any of them. I have to ask: what is she for? She obviously does not have a grip, and she has made this chaos worse.

The Government have failed to stop the proliferation of criminal gangs in the channel, are still refusing to adopt Labour’s proposal for a new National Crime Agency unit to target the gangs, and have failed to sort out the chaos in asylum decision making. They are taking only half as many as they were six years ago, even though they have more staff. Just 2% of last year’s small boats cases have been decided, creating a backlog of nearly 100,000 people waiting more than six months for a decision, compared with just 4,000 when they took office. All of this has led to a completely inappropriate use of hotels, at the last minute, with no proper information for local councils or public health officials.

Then, of course, there is the chaotic handling of the situation at Manston. The Minister has just said that there are 50 diphtheria cases. Can he confirm that that compares with just three cases last year? Can he tell us when Ministers were first told of diphtheria cases at Manston? When were they warned? By mid-October, the Home Office admitted publicly that there were cases at Manston, but Home Office officials told the Home Affairs Committee on 26 October that they had sufficient health arrangements in place to address diphtheria. Clearly they did not.

The Government still kept thousands of people in overcrowded conditions, described by one person as “huddled around fan heaters, thousands of people in overcrowded conditions trying to stay warm.” These conditions clearly make it easy for infectious diseases to spread. The processes described by the Minister are important, but why on earth were they not put in place many weeks ago? It took until 11 November, after thousands of people had been held there for weeks, for diphtheria screening and vaccinations to be recommended for everyone passing through Manston. What on earth were they doing in the meantime?

Even then, on that same day, the Home Office was moving people who had been in Manston into hotels across the country, without even telling councils or public health officials. In one case, the council was specifically told that people were not transfers from Manston even though they were. In other cases, councils were told nothing at all, and there was no information for public health officials about whether people needed further diphtheria screening and vaccinations; this included leaving people to seek treatment for themselves for diphtheria symptoms at local accident and emergency departments.

The Health Secretary has said that 500 people have now been screened and vaccinated, but what about the other several thousand people who have been in Manston? Wherever they now are in the country, have they been screened or vaccinated for diphtheria as well? If not, why on earth not, because that was the public health recommendation nearly three weeks ago and that was already late? Have all those with possible symptoms now been given precautionary antibiotics? Again, if not, why not? We are told that diphtheria is an easy infection to treat and to vaccinate against, which is why we have a universal vaccination policy in the UK. But that needs proper information for health officials to be able to use and the Home Office to get a grip.

Clearly, the Government have ignored health advice and legal advice. The Business Secretary said publicly that when he was a Home Office Minister he was advised that he had to act as he was breaking the law. The permanent secretary has now said that the Home Secretary was given the same legal advice, so why did she not act, either on the legal advice or on the health advice?

I am sure that the Immigration Minister is working really hard to try to sort this out. The problem is that everyone else is struggling to clear up the Home Secretary’s chaos and she is not even here. It is chaotic. This issue is too important not to have a grip in place, and if the Home Secretary is too frit to attend this House and take responsibility for her decisions, she should get out the way and let someone else do the job.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for those questions. She asked how long we have been aware of diphtheria cases. When I addressed the House for the first time, on 1 November, I reported that there had been four cases. I am able now to say that that has increased to 50 cases, and I will continue to update the House as this issue develops.

The right hon. Lady asked whether Ministers have followed the advice of the UK Health Security Agency throughout. To the best of my knowledge, they have. We have always sought and followed the advice of Dame Jenny Harries and her colleagues. In fact, the measures I have announced today go beyond the UKHSA’s baseline advice, because we want to take a precautionary approach. For that reason, we will be ensuring that further individuals who have any symptoms are not transported around the country; they will either remain at Manston or go to specialist accommodation. That accommodation is readily available, because we made good use of it during the height of the covid pandemic and we will be making sure it is brought into use in the coming days.

The right hon. Lady asked about screening arrangements. Those have been in place for some time. All individuals arriving at Western Jet Foil are screened. That is, by necessity, a relatively simple screening, because on occasion thousands of illegal migrants arrive in the course of a single day, but screening is followed up at Manston and we have asked the UKHSA to advise us on whether further measures are required to ensure that that screening is more sophisticated. Dame Jenny and her colleagues will advise on that.

We have had the vaccination programme in operation for a number of weeks. It is a voluntary programme; we do not compel migrants to take it up. It began at a relatively low level of acceptance—about 45%—but that is now increasing; as I said, I am pleased to say that we have reached 100% for those who came over the weekend. We will do everything we can to maintain it at or around that level, because that clearly is a very important line of defence.

For those individuals who have already left Manston and have flowed into asylum accommodation elsewhere in the country, we and the UKHSA are now going to work closely with local directors of public health to ensure that they have the right guidance to protect those individuals. Those local public health directors will work with local NHS partners to ensure that the individuals have treatment under the NHS and that they isolate in their rooms within those hotels or other forms of accommodation. The outsourced partners will ensure that the people have food and laundry brought to the door, so that there is no reason whatsoever that they should leave their room until they are well again and can re-enter broader society.

If there are further measures that we need to take, we will do so. Dame Jenny and her colleagues are meeting directors of public health this week, as they have been doing repeatedly in recent months, to hear their concerns and ensure that these procedures are progressively improved as required.

National Security Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

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

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you might be able to advise me on a slightly more sombre subject. In a question earlier today, the Immigration Minister responded to a concern raised by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith)—I have been trying to find him to say that I was going to raise this issue—regarding the absconsion of a gentleman who it subsequently transpires from press reports has been accused of a very serious assault of a young refugee child in my constituency. The Minister said he would investigate the matter and come back to the hon. Member. Can you advise me, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how I can ensure that, given that the matter took place in my constituency—we were not aware at the time—I get an update on the issue as well?

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

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The reports of the case are very serious and raise some questions about how the Home Office has handled this case. We do not know the full circumstances at the moment, but could you use your good offices to ensure that the Immigration Minister updates us and fully investigates this case?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady and the right hon. Lady for their points of order. Obviously I do not know the background to this case, but I can see that it is a very serious issue. Government Ministers are present and I think the Minister for Security may wish to intervene.

Migration

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on migration.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

The continued rise of dangerous channel crossings is completely unacceptable. This phenomenon is not only a clear abuse of our immigration laws and deeply unfair on the British people, but puts the lives of those who attempt these journeys in grave danger. This Government are determined to put the people smugglers out of business and to make this route unviable.

This week, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary met her counterpart, Minister Darmanin, to agree a new multi-year strategic and operational plan with France. That will be supported by UK investment of up to €72 million in 2022-23. It includes a 40% uplift, with UK-funded officers patrolling the French coast over the coming months, improved security at ports, cutting-edge surveillance technology, drones, detection dog teams and CCTV, to help detect and prevent those crossings. For the first time, reciprocal teams of embedded officers will be deployed on the ground in control rooms, to increase joint understanding of this issue. This renewed partnership will enable us to build on our joint partnership with France, which so far has seen good progress, with more than 30,000 illegal crossings prevented since the start of the year, hundreds of arrests made and 21 organised crime gangs dismantled.

Beyond our ever closer collaboration with France, we will also work closely with other international partners, including further upstream, to help address issues closer to their source. The UK will be joining near neighbours and other countries, to agree collective action to tackle illegal migration. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is today discussing those issues at the G7 Interior Ministers meeting in Germany.

These are issues of the utmost seriousness, and they have been discussed at prime ministerial level. We are taking action to deter those intent on exploiting the UK’s generosity, by implementing the Nationality and Borders Act 2002, pursuing migration partnerships with safe countries such as Rwanda, cracking down on those here illegally, and expediting returns agreements. There should be no doubt whatsoever about the Government’s determination to grip this problem and deliver the strong and secure borders that the British people desperately want and deserve.

[Yvette Cooper]

Twenty-seven lives were lost in the channel a year ago, and a criminal gang profited from sending people to their deaths. Will the Minister tell the House whether anyone has been prosecuted or convicted for that awful event? We have long called for a stronger agreement with France to stop these dangerous boat crossings. That is why it is important that there is scrutiny on this issue. Additional beach patrols are welcome, and intelligence sharing is vital—it is unfathomable that it was not happening already.

The level of convictions is pitiful: just four a month, on average. The Minister said that 21 gangs had been dismantled, but on Monday the Home Secretary said that it was 55. Which is it?

Journalists report 100 gang members operating in one small corner of Calais alone. The scale of response to the criminal gangs is tiny compared with the scale of the challenge, and the Government are simply not doing enough. This multimillion-pound criminal industry is putting lives at risk. The Minister referred to a joint intelligence cell. How many national crime agencies are currently involved in that, how many are deployed in Europe, and what will that number increase by? We need to know.

This agreement does not include anything on safe returns or safe family reunion. The number of children safely reuniting with family has plummeted since the end of the Dublin agreement, and charities warn that they are trying to go by boat instead. Asylum returns have plummeted from 1,000 people returned to the EU in 2010 to a tiny handful today. Of the 16,000 referred to the third country unit, just 21 returned. Did Ministers even try to get an agreement on returns and family reunion, and if not, why not? What is the Minister’s timescale for getting a grip on the total collapse in Home Office decisions on asylum, and at what point will they double so that we get a faster pace? The way the Home Office is handling local authorities has been disgraceful, with many of them not being told what is happening.

Finally, what is the £140 million from the Rwanda agreement actually being spent on? Too often, the Home Office talks about things but is not delivering—this is too important.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am pleased that the right hon. Lady welcomes our agreement with France. She is right to raise the anniversary of the tragic and abhorrent deaths that occurred in the channel one year ago. I am pleased that a concerted effort with partners across Europe has led to arrests and the disruption of gangs, and to the capture and destruction of boats, directly as a result of that. The good work that our intelligence services did with respect to that incident is now being rolled out with respect to other criminal gangs right across Europe.

The agreement that we have reached with France will enable our world-class intelligence services to be directly in the room with their French counterparts, ensuring that the intelligence they are gathering, which is rich—I observed it myself on visiting the clandestine command in Dover—can now be passed on in real time to their French counterparts, ensuring that more crossings are stopped, more arrests are made and more criminal gangs are disrupted. That will make a positive impact in the months to come.

I politely point out to the right hon. Lady that she is becoming like a broken record on immigration. She opposes everything helpful that the Government have done and suggests nothing useful. She voted against the Nationality and Borders Act that created deterrents for people crossing the channel. She voted against measures that would have increased sentences for people smugglers. She would scrap our world-leading migration partnership with Rwanda. She voted against our plans to remove dangerous foreign national offenders. One of the key policy platforms on which her leader, the Leader of the Opposition, stood for the leadership of the Labour party was to close down our immigration removal centres—the very centres where we house people like foreign national offenders, murderers and rapists as we are trying to get them out of the country.

The truth is that Labour is the party of uncontrolled migration and the party of mass migration. We understand the instincts of the British people, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and I will do everything to ensure that their will is implemented and we secure our borders.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come now to the shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper.

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

It is astonishing that the Home Secretary has not made an oral statement on this subject, given the number of people who want to ask questions. She is preventing full scrutiny of this deal. Could that be because her written statement admits that there have been only 140 smuggling-related convictions across all of Britain and France in 35 months? Can she confirm that that means there have been on average just four convictions a month for those dangerous crimes, even though last month alone nearly 7,000 people arrived in the UK as a result of organised criminals profiting from putting lives at risk? Why is the Government’s action against criminal smuggler gangs so pitifully weak?

[Suella Braverman]

Why is the Government’s action so pitifully weak? We introduced legislation—an extensive Bill designed specifically to deal with the problem occurring on our shores—and on every occasion, what did Labour Members do? They voted against it. If they were really serious about solving this problem, they would be supporting our proposals, not carping from the sidelines.

[Yvette Cooper]

That is a totally nonsense answer. The Home Secretary obviously is not aware that former chief constables have warned that her Nationality and Borders Act 2022 makes it harder to prosecute people traffickers, and that in fact it is adding six-month delays to the asylum system and pushing up the costs.

Patrols and intelligence sharing are welcome but long overdue, but will the Home Secretary match Labour’s funded policy for a major expansion of additional specialist officers in the National Crime Agency as part of a proper plan to work with other countries to investigate and crack down on those gangs? Or is she actually preparing for cuts in policing and security operations on Thursday because her party’s disastrous management of the economy has let everyone down?

[Suella Braverman]

Of course we need to go further and faster in the fight against illegal migration. I am very disappointed and concerned by the unprecedented numbers of people arriving here illegally. We are taking steps to fix it. The reality is, as I said, that this year alone more than 30,000 attempts have been prevented by the French. I have come back today from securing a deal that will increase the number of French patrols on the French coastline, which will reinforce our collaboration and intelligence work and strengthen our joint fight, but what do Labour Members do? They criticise. They criticise because the simple truth is that this is not about the French deal or our response, but about their abject failure to speak on behalf of the British people. They do not care about illegal migration; they want an open-doors migration policy, as they always have.

National Security

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I welcome the statement from the Minister for Security. I know this is an issue that he personally takes very seriously. It is the first job of every Government to defend our national security from hostile states who wish to do our country harm and who strain every sinew to do so with the most sophisticated technology and resources, and from malign actors and extremists, both here and abroad, who want to do us harm and undermine both our democracy and everything we stand for. We pay tribute to the remarkable work of our intelligence and security services who work so hard to keep us safe.

I welcome the Minister’s announcement. We will support the taskforce and its work to defend democracy against a wide range of threats. I welcome the work on physical threats. We remember with great sadness our lost friends Jo Cox and David Amess. Can the Minister clarify that the taskforce will work on how to protect all our democratic institutions against foreign interference? Will it look at cyber-security and, in particular, the way the Government have been operating? While I welcome the seriousness of the statement and the seriousness with which the Minister has delivered it, he will know that it is a far cry from the way successive Cabinet Ministers have responded, and from the lack of seriousness and the carelessness and complacency that we have seen on some of these cyber-security issues.

Conservative Ministers were all warned in guidance after the 2019 election:

“You should not use your personal devices, email and communications applications for Government business at any classification”.

Yet many of them at the highest level ignored it. If we take the last Prime Minister but one, who left office just a few months ago, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) took a trip without officials at the height of the Skripal crisis to a villa in Italy described by locals as the “Russian mountain” where he met ex-KGB agent Alexander Lebedev. He did not declare it to Foreign Office officials on his return and says he does not remember what was discussed. He had a guest with him, but he travelled home alone and has never said who the guest was. He reportedly took his phone with the same number that he still did not change even when he became Prime Minister and sent private messages on it. If this is a new era of defending democracy and security, can the Minister tell us whether the former Prime Minister took his personal phone with him on his Italy party weekend? Who was his guest and what action is now being taken to prevent that kind of thing ever happening again?

Can the Minister tell us, too, whether that Prime Minister’s successor, the next Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) used her private phone for Government business, including contacting other international leaders? If she did, what is being done to prevent that ever happening again?

There are now questions about the current Prime Minister: he reappointed to the Cabinet as the Minister without Portfolio the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson), who was sacked after a leak investigation over Huawei; and he reappointed the Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), just six days after she was sacked over a security lapse and who yesterday admitted she had used her personal email not just once but six times in the space of 43 days, all apparently because she could not make her Government IT work properly or did not have it with her. That is not adequate. And we still do not have any answer to the serious allegations about potential leaks when the Home Secretary was Attorney General, which include a briefing to The Daily Telegraph in January about an injunction that the Attorney General was seeking against the BBC in a security service case, which was then used in court to argue against the injunction. Again, if this is a new era, can the Security Minister give us a categoric response as to whether the Home Secretary when she was Attorney General—or her adviser—was involved in that leak?

The Minister will know, too, that there have been briefings and stories around with national security implications. Does he agree how incredibly unhelpful it is to our security services to have national security issues briefed in a way that appears to be about putting party interest before the national interest, and that it does not serve democracy if all these issues are not taken seriously by the person most in charge of defending our national security—the Prime Minister, followed by the Home Secretary he appoints?

Yes, we will support the Minister’s taskforce, but he will need to show us that there is some kind of grip at the heart of this Government on attitudes towards security. When we have one Prime Minister who puts security at risk to go to Italy for a party, another who allegedly used a personal phone for contacting Government Ministers, and a third who is defending his predecessors and reappointing as Home Secretary someone described on the Government’s own Back Benches as “leaky”, that undermines our national security. Our national security is too important for this kind of chaos, so what will the Minister do to ensure that the Government get a grip?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I thank the shadow Home Secretary for her very kind comments on joining the taskforce and assisting with it, because this is clearly not just a matter for the Government. As she correctly set forward, all of us in this House have responsibilities and the potential to be influenced in different ways. That is why so much of the legislation going through, on which the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) is being incredibly co-operative, such as the foreign influence registration scheme legislation, will help us to address many of those challenges. The right hon. Lady will also be aware that the National Security Bill, of which the Opposition have been so supportive in so many areas, will be important in enabling us to challenge some of these different issues.

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the fact that we all have such responsibility. Sadly, this is not just a UK matter. Sadly, it is not even a single Government or a single party matter. The reality is that we have seen the intrusion or attempted intrusion into different aspects of all our communications at different points over many, many years. This issue has grown in importance.

I am not going to comment on individual cases, because as the right hon. Lady rightly said, that would be absolutely unhelpful. It would be completely wrong of me to use, for any private party advantage, comments on anything that the agencies have told me in private. She herself has been extremely gracious in accepting briefings on Privy Council terms, and she has, completely correctly, guarded the privacy of them. I know that she has responded to those in exactly the appropriate way, so I place on record my enormous thanks to her for her extreme co-operation in what is fundamentally a matter of national security.

I will bring forward further proposals on the taskforce and would welcome the right hon. Lady’s thoughts, because there is an awful lot that we must do together. Sadly, the next few years are likely to be more challenging than the last. The indications are not great, as she knows. We need to work together. This is not about one party or one Government; it is about defending the British people’s right to choose their future democratically and freely, without the influence of foreign states.