Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy)

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Charlie Elphicke

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

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

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

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

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

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

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

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

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

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

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

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

Another said:

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

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

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Charlie Elphicke

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Again, that would certainly be one option. My understanding is that if the European Parliament voted down the deal, it would get the opportunity to say that the negotiations should be extended, but the UK Parliament would currently not get that opportunity. The purpose of the new clause is not to extend the negotiations—we should be trying implement the referendum decision—but if Parliament judges that there is a better offer on the table that would give us a better Brexit deal, we need safeguards to prevent the Government from running hell for leather towards an option that is bad for Britain.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The right hon. Lady is passionate on this subject. If at the end of the article 50 process—the two-year, winding-down clock—Parliament rejected the deal and nothing happened, we would leave. That would be an undesirable result, so my concern is that binding the Government’s hands with these new clauses is not in the country’s interests.

[Yvette Cooper]

I do not think that the new clauses would bind the Government’s hands. I agree that there is a concern that we could end up toppling off the edge of the negotiations without having a deal in place, which means that there is an incentive for all of us in Parliament to want a deal to be in place for Brexit, for future trade arrangements and for the transitional arrangements. Given how the Government have set out the arrangements, however, my concern is that there is no incentive for the Executive to try to get a deal that Parliament can support. If the Executive can simply go down the WTO route and reject alternatives without Parliament having any say, they will not have the right incentives to get the best possible deal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

Were that the case, it would be Parliament’s responsibility to behave with the common sense that the right hon. and learned Gentleman advocated earlier. I would trust Parliament to have common sense and not push Britain towards an unnecessary cliff edge in those circumstances. That is not what Parliament wants to do. It has already shown that it wants to respect the decision that was made in the referendum, which is important, but it also wants to get the best deal for Britain and will be pragmatic about the options at that time.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman suggests that there might be an alternative way for Parliament to exercise its sovereignty, but what might that be in practice? We could have a Backbench Business Committee motion or an Opposition day motion that the Government could then ignore. We could have a no confidence motion, but that would not be the appropriate response when we should be considering the alternatives in order to get a better deal out of the negotiations.

If the right hon. and learned Gentleman were to come up with an alternative way for Parliament to exercise its sovereignty that I have not thought of, there might be an alternative to a vote today. If we want legislation that ensures that there is recourse to Parliament on these important issues, which will affect us for so many years to come, the right thing to do is to get something in the Bill.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will make some progress, because other Members want to speak.

There are many ways in which the Government could provide recourse to Parliament. They could table a manuscript amendment that simply puts into practice what they have said today, which would be immensely helpful and might provide the reassurance that many hon. Members need.

New clause 99 would mean that withdrawal would have to be through an Act of Parliament. On such a serious matter, there is a strong case for decisions to be made through Acts of Parliament—that would happen on other similarly weighty matters. To be honest, much of what new clause 110 would do would simply be to include in the Bill what the Minister has already said he will do. However, it would provide reassurance, with the added benefit of clarity that there will be a vote if there is no deal and we go down the WTO route. Also, the vote would be earlier in the process, which would give Parliament the opportunity to have a say before we get to the final crunch at the end of the negotiations.

The honest truth is that new clause 110 is not that radical. It would simply put into practice and embed in legislation the things that some Government Members have said they would like to achieve, so why do we not simply include it in the Bill so that we have that reassurance? Ultimately, there is a reason why all of this is important. Both sides in the referendum debate talked about parliamentary sovereignty, and with that comes parliamentary responsibility. We have already shown that responsibility by deciding to respect the result of the referendum on Second Reading, but with that comes the responsibility to recognise that we have to get the best possible Brexit deal for our whole country, rather than just walking away from the process of debating the deal. If we end up walking away, power will be concentrated in the hands of the Executive. I have never supported such concentrations of power, and every one of us should be part of making sure that we get the best possible Brexit deal.