Southport Attack
Debate between Yvette Cooper and Richard Tice(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member’s question gets to the heart of the problem. He is right that the responsibility for this appalling and barbaric attack lies with the attacker, and he needs to face the consequences. He has committed the most heinous crime. However, we have to ask questions on behalf of the families. There should have been a network of responsible agencies, and the inquiry needs to look at why, ultimately, so many agencies together failed to identify the scale of risk, and to take the action that was needed. Part of the challenge is that it can be too easy for each agency to think that somebody else is addressing a particular bit of the problem. There needs to be a much stronger approach to what happens between agencies. That is what the inquiry must look at.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
I think the vast majority of the British people agree with the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, who has said repeatedly that when these horrific crimes take place, more information needs to be put out sooner to avoid an information vacuum. However, that is in conflict with the need to avoid prejudicing a fair trial. Does the Home Secretary agree that it is incumbent on this House to find a way to overcome or reduce that conflict, so that we get more information sooner?
Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
Debate between Yvette Cooper and Richard Tice(2 weeks ago)
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Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. The inquiry identified that half a million children are victims of sexual abuse every year. The majority of cases are, sadly, within the family—a betrayal by those from whom children should be able to expect protection. However, as he said, there have also been huge betrayals in residential homes and other institutions, including faith institutions—the Church of England and the Catholic Church—as well as wider grooming online and on the streets as part of these terrible crimes. So yes, we will change the law, strengthen sentencing and make grooming an aggravating factor, because the punishment should fit this terrible crime.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
There is much to welcome in the Home Secretary’s statement, but she has resisted six invitations from hon. Members to confirm that the Government-supported local inquiries will have statutory powers. Instead, she is relying on the duty of candour, responsibility and accountability, so let me try it a different way. Is the Home Secretary 100% certain that the duty of candour, responsibility and accountability is equivalent to statutory powers?
Yvette Cooper
What we need to do is to ensure that the crimes are investigated and that there is proper follow-up in those areas where things have gone badly wrong—and we know that there are some areas where things have gone badly wrong. The first stage has to be for the police to have full powers to pursue these crimes and to follow wherever the evidence takes them in order to put perpetrators behind bars. Frankly, that is where they should be to protect children and keep them safe.
We also need to ensure that where things have gone wrong, there are sufficient powers to be able to get to the truth and sufficient ability for local organisations to do that, so that no one can hide from accountability, run away or obfuscate, or use bureaucracy to get away with providing the answers, the justice and the accountability that victims need. That is why we have set up a new programme of work to look at how we can strengthen the powers available and the accountability available. Part of that has to be the duty of candour. It also has to include the duty to report, because there have to be stronger responsibilities on people to report child abuse in the first place and we have to make it a criminal offence to cover it up. If the law is not strong enough, we will not get the accountability or the action.
Migration and Border Security
Debate between Yvette Cooper and Richard Tice(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Yvette Cooper
The last Government had 14 years—or at least four years, since the EU settlement scheme was introduced—to deal with some of these issues. We take very seriously the need to speed up and improve enforcement of returns for those who have no right to be here. The immigration system and the asylum system can only work and command public confidence if the rules are respected and enforced. That means that if someone does not have a right to be here, there should be proper enforcement. We are working to speed up enforcement, which is why there was a significant increase in returns over the summer, but we will continue to do so, and we will continue to consider what further amendments can be made to improve matters.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
The Home Secretary has quite rightly lambasted the absolute failures of the last Government on mass immigration, but could she comment on whether people in the Home Office will be held accountable for allowing systems and controls to crumble in the last five years, and on whether people in the Office for National Statistics will be held accountable for getting their numbers wrong by almost a quarter of a million people in just one year?
Yvette Cooper
Conservative Ministers made policy decisions that they asked Home Office officials to implement. Fundamentally, the Conservative Government need to take responsibility for policy decisions that they made in 2021, which led to a big increase in migration for work, for example, and a big increase in the net migration numbers, at the same time as training was being cut in the UK. That has had damaging consequences for confidence and trust, but also for the functioning of the UK economy and labour market, because we should be doing far more to train people in everything from engineering to construction. There are a whole series of different areas where we should increase training here in the UK.
Police Accountability
Debate between Yvette Cooper and Richard Tice(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Yvette Cooper
I agree. Families often face some of the most challenging burdens and pressures, and we hear from police officers that their concern about the impact on their families often affects them strongly. That is why the presumption of anonymity to the point of conviction is really important to support families, as well as officers.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
First, I put on the record my support and gratitude to all our frontline police officers in the firearms departments for the difficult, challenging and high-pressure work that they do, including Sergeant Blake and his family. There is much to commend in your statement, Home Secretary, so I welcome it, particularly the anonymity for officers facing investigation and the timeline for the review, which is really important.
Two critical words came up in your statement: “confidence” and “accountability”. There is a lot of concern that confidence in the Independent Office for Police Conduct and in the Crown Prosecution Service is falling. In fact, among police officers, particularly those in the firearms departments, confidence is frankly collapsing, and that is not a good place to be. Even the jury in the Chris Kaba case wrote a letter to the judge—they wanted it to be read out, but he decided not to—in which they expressed astonishment and a lack of confidence in the IOPC and the CPS. The point about accountability relates not just to police officers, but to the IOPC and the CPS. Does the Home Secretary still have confidence in the leadership of the IOPC and the CPS, or should that be changed?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Yvette Cooper and Richard Tice(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Does the Home Secretary share my deep concerns about two-tier justice, given that some people who say some bad, stupid things on social media can be arrested, charged and jailed within a matter of weeks, but some people who brutally and violently assault police officers have not even been charged many months later?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member will know that in this country we have operational independence for the police, and independence for the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts. I strongly support police officers, who have faced cases of the most disgraceful violence and attacks. It is important that we support our police in the face of those attacks and ensure that they have the whole community behind them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Yvette Cooper and Richard Tice(6 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member may know that a review on pornography was established under the Conservative Government. That is due to report in the autumn, and we look forward to its conclusions. Let me take the opportunity to say that we will work with anyone on tackling violence against women and girls. Far too little has been done for too long, and we have inherited a legacy of far too much damage, but we want to pull everyone together to tackle this terrible crime.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Does the Home Secretary agree that it is shocking when there is violence against female emergency workers? How committed is she to ensuring that perpetrators face the full weight of the law?
Yvette Cooper
Women must have the protection of the law wherever they face violence. That includes women emergency service workers, women police officers, and women shop workers who face violence in their job. That is one of the reasons why we are strengthening the law on assaults against shop workers, which particularly affect women at work, and why we need stronger action in policing. Too often, violence against women and girls has been seen as an inevitability, rather than a national emergency on which we need much stronger action.
Border Security and Asylum
Debate between Yvette Cooper and Richard Tice(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right; it is really important that we try to clear the backlog as rapidly as possible. It includes some people who are very vulnerable and may be in need of support. It also includes people who should not be in the UK, and the system should operate fairly so that they are swiftly returned. But we actually have to get back to decision making. I thought I would be coming to this Dispatch Box and saying, “Well, what we want to do is to speed up or accelerate decision making.” I did not think I would be standing at this Dispatch Box saying, “No, no, we actually have to restart asylum decision making in the first place, because the Conservatives just stopped it.” I really had not expected that. It really is far more shocking than I had imagined, and I really thought I had a good imagination.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
When you take a drug dealer off the street corner, guess what: another one appears, because of the vile drugs trade and the amount of money involved. My constituents in Boston and Skegness believe it is exactly the same with trying the Home Secretary’s policy of smashing the gangs. If she smashes one gang, it is like a game of whack-a-mole: another one will appear and then another one, because there is so much money involved. Here is the point: how long will the Home Secretary give her policy before realising that the only policy that will work is the one she actually started last week, which is to pick people up and take them back to France, which we are entitled to do under international maritime law? It will help British citizens, help British taxpayers and help the French, and it will reduce the magnet factor.
Yvette Cooper
I say to the hon. Member that no one should be making these dangerous journeys, and the criminal gangs are making massive profits from organising these boats. I just do not think they should be able to get away with it, and they are at the moment. We should be taking action against those criminal gangs, and I simply do not accept that it is impossible to go after them. We must ensure that we take action not just on the gangs themselves, but on their supply chains, the routes the boats are taking and their finances, and that we properly and substantially increase law enforcement resources. As hon. Members will know, we have had cases where journalists have identified smugglers and those responsible for being involved in some of the smuggler gangs, and I think those gang members should be facing law enforcement. It is essential that we do this. This is about properly standing up for the rule of law, as well as making sure that we do everything we can to prevent these dangerous small boat crossings.