Yvette Cooper MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is right that we need to boost training and skills here in the UK alongside these stronger controls. On social care, we will introduce a fair pay agreement. It is important that the vital jobs of those who look after our loved ones in social care are properly respected. On the timetable, some of these measures will require primary legislation and further consultation, while others will be brought in more swiftly—including, for example, some of the changes to the skilled worker thresholds. To give her an example of the approach we want to take, construction workers will be on the temporary shortage list because they are clearly crucial to growth in our economy. However, that has to happen alongside respect for the workforce strategy, which is why the Education Secretary has set out proposals to train 60,000 more construction workers here in the UK.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  No one should be making these dangerous boat crossings: they undermine our border security and put lives at risk. Criminal gangs are making a fortune, profiting from organising these dangerous boat crossings. That is why we need counter terrorism-style powers to be able to go after the gangs. There is the opportunity for the hon. Gentleman and his party to vote for those counter-terrorism powers tonight, so that we can strengthen our border security. Previously, he and his party voted against those counter-terrorism powers. I think we need counter terrorism-style powers to strengthen our border security in order to be able to go after those criminal gangs. Does he?

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend may be aware that the biggest increases in the number of student visas were often for lower-ranking universities in the league tables, and people often did not do graduate jobs afterwards. We hugely support international students, and he is right to refer to Edinburgh University and other universities across the country. We want to work with universities to ensure that high standards of compliance are met, and that when international students stay in the UK they are doing graduate jobs.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  I welcome what my hon. Friend has said. There have been shameful examples of exploitation, which all of us have probably come across in our constituencies, involving the social care visa and the way in which it was introduced. People have come here to work incredibly hard in our care homes, which is why it is so important for us to tackle that exploitation and ensure that standards are met. We must ensure that we have a fair pay agreement, and, certainly, that we maintain the standards relating to tackling trafficking and modern slavery.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  One of the most important aspects of the White Paper will be the increase in the immigration skills charge, meaning that where employers are recruiting from abroad and there are shortage occupations, they will be contributing more to support skills and training here in the UK, including support for our young people to get the apprenticeships and jobs they need.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  As I pointed out in my statement, the number of care workers recruited from abroad has fallen since the initial big increase, and it is important to prevent such an increase taking place again, because we have seen significant exploitation. As a result of introducing higher standards, 39,000 care workers were displaced: they came here to do jobs that either did not exist or did not meet the right standards. We urge care providers to recruit from the pool of people who are already here.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  I must have missed a bit of the shadow Home Secretary’s response—the bit, maybe at the beginning, when he apologised to the House and the country for his party’s policies, which quadrupled net migration in just four years. He tells us his concerns about the level of migration; his party is responsible for that huge increase in net migration. I must have also missed the bit when the shadow Home Secretary confessed that from the point at which he became an immigration Minister in 2020—when all these policies were introduced—to the point at which the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), finished being immigration Minister in 2023, net migration rose from 170,000 a year to 870,000 a year. I must have missed that confession, and that apology, which the shadow Home Secretary should have made. Until he admits his failure and apologises for the damage and chaos that he and his party caused, no one will take seriously a single word that he says. The shadow Home Secretary referred to visa changes that were made before the election. We supported changes made by the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), but he had to reverse some of the changes that the shadow Home Secretary made when he was an immigration Minister. As for a cap, the White Paper provides for caps on low-skilled migration on the temporary shortage list. The right hon. Gentleman’s targets and caps are as meaningless as all the other ones that his party introduced when they were in government. Indeed, let me quote from the time of the Conservative Government’s reforms that caused a lot of these problems: “I especially thank the Home Secretary for removing the annual limits on work visas and on international students: I lobbied for both”. —[ Official Report , 19 December 2018; Vol. 651, c. 815.] That was the current Leader of the Opposition, so the idea that that lot have anything to offer is like people who burgle your house and then turn up the next day and offer to sell you a dog. If the Conservatives are serious about making the changes and serious about tackling small boats, they should vote for our counter-terrorism powers to tackle the smuggler gangs that the right hon. Gentleman and the other right-wing parties have repeatedly voted against. That is not serious. This Government are.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. British citizens have heritage from all over the world, and people came here as part of the Windrush generation. We will shortly appoint the Windrush commissioner to ensure that Home Office standards are upheld and that that contribution, through generations, is properly recognised and respected in our country. The White Paper sets out that we will explore the international student levy. That work, which is being led by the Education Secretary, will consider how we can ensure that investment goes into supporting skills in the UK.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to say that we have supported people from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan who have fled persecution or conflict—or, in the case of Afghans, those who supported and worked with our armed forces. That will continue to be important. We want refugees to be able to apply for the skilled worker visa in the way that other people are able to do. As she rightly says, there are people who will be in this country when the circumstances in their home country change. In those circumstances, there needs to be provision either through the asylum system or through their being able to reapply for their visas.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  In the White Paper, we highlight the importance of tackling exploitation, which is deeply damaging for those who have come to the UK in good faith, as well as for other employers. We want to explore how we can make it easier for people to not be held to a single employer when there are problems with the sponsorship arrangements. We want to make that system more effective so that it can tackle exploitation.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes an important point about the contribution made by those who saved lives and cared for our loved ones during the pandemic—one of our most difficult periods. We need to respect and recognise those contributions. There will be plenty of opportunity for everyone to contribute to the consultation on changes to the earned settlement and citizenship rules.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  We do need to increase apprenticeships and training, which is why we are supporting 60,000 more construction workers to go through training to support our economy, alongside, as my hon. Friend rightly says, plans to make sure we end asylum hotels.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  I gently say to the hon. Member that a series of labour market issues needs to be addressed. As he will know, Scotland’s labour market faced challenges when net migration was at 900,000—that level of net migration did not solve the issues across Scotland’s labour market. There is a serious issue about what should happen about skills, training and different workforce strategies across Scotland. We have been clear that the skills’ bodies and the devolved Governments from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland need to be part of the labour market evidence group, so that we can have a broad strategy that will properly deal with the labour market challenges that we face.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  As I said in my statement, people have come here from abroad through many generations, contributing to our economy, being part of our community and making our country what it is. That is who we are as a country because of that history, and it will continue to be important to our future. We want people to be able to integrate and share with neighbours, and that is why some of the provisions to ensure that we support integration and the use of the English language are also important.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  We inherited an asylum system that was in complete chaos. That is why we are reducing the backlog, and why we have taken action to tackle instances of visa misuse. In a number of countries there has been an increase in asylum applications, although people have come here lawfully on visas as well. We will continue to tackle that, and we will introduce new reforms alongside the White Paper on legal migration.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  The approach that we set out in our manifesto, and that we have set out in this White Paper, is about how we properly control and manage the migration system so that it benefits the UK and supports community cohesion by supporting integration, ensuring that people can speak English and, as a result, challenging exploitation. The approach that we are taking is about embedding fairness and community cohesion at the heart of our immigration system. Too often, integration and community cohesion have not been part of the immigration system, and this White Paper makes sure that they are.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the words in my statement: in recent years and through many generations, people have come to the UK, contributed to and built our communities, and they are part of the country that we are today. That is who we are and it is important. It is important that we ensure that when people come to the UK, they can speak English so that they can talk to each other and be part of a community, because in areas where people have not been able to speak English, we have often seen some of the worst exploitation. This is about recognising the importance of migration, but ensuring that the system is fair.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  We need to support social care and recognise the importance of that job. That means tackling the long-term recruitment issues here in the UK, not simply always thinking that we can ignore those problems and turn to migration instead. The hon. Gentleman will know that there have been huge problems, including abuse and exploitation, as a result of that route. Some 39,000 people who came here on a care worker visa, often in good faith, ended up being displaced when checks were finally introduced. That is why regional hubs have been introduced to ensure that employers can still recruit from those displaced workers, rather than continuing to recruit from abroad.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  I strongly value international students’ contribution to our economy. My hon. Friend is completely right to say how important international students are, but we also need to make sure that universities uphold standards by ensuring that systems are not misused, so that we can continue to support international students. It will benefit our economy if students who stay on afterwards are also doing graduate jobs.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right: we need proper training and skills. A system in which the number of engineering visas could rise while the number of engineering apprenticeships fell does not make any sense to anyone, which is why we must ensure that we not only have the training and skills but link them with the shortages and with the immigration system as well.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  This evening, Members will be able to vote for a border security Bill that includes counter-terrorism powers to tackle criminal smuggler gangs. When we hosted the Interpol conference before Christmas, the Prime Minister said that border security is a national security issue, and needs to be taken seriously as such. That is why we need those counter-terrorism powers—it is why we need our police, the National Crime Agency, Border Force and border authorities to be able to intervene much earlier to take action against this dangerous trade in people that undermines our national security as well as our border security. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will vote for the Bill tonight.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  International students have brought huge benefits. They contribute by bringing investment, as well as skills and talent, and universities are important parts of local economies right across the country. However, it is important that all universities meet the proper standards of visa compliance. The vast majority do, but some have not met the compliance standards, and we urge them to do so. We will work with them, including by setting out action plans. We also want students who stay in this country after they finish their course to get graduate jobs, so that they can properly contribute to our economy.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  I am not sure the right hon. Lady’s Front-Bench team can answer that question. We have made clear that net migration needs to reduce substantially. We had years of targets from the previous Government which all failed and were all over the place, which undermines confidence. We should address the issue of confidence by taking a different approach: step by step, we will make progress and deliver, rather than just adding to the talk and the rhetoric.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  I agree with the right hon. Member that we must do more upstream to tackle some of the causes of dangerous journeys. We clearly need to act on the criminal smuggler gangs who are exploiting people and undermining our border security—that is why the legislation on counter-terrorism powers that we will debate tonight is so important—but we also need to do much more work with European partners. We have been working with France, for example, to get it to agree to change its rules so that, for the first time, it will start to intervene in French waters to prevent dangerous boat crossings. I agree with him about the importance of the Sahel and working upstream. We have established a new joint unit between the Home Office and the Foreign Office in order to do some of the work to which he refers.

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to say that the kind of exploitation that we have seen has been deeply damaging for people who have come to this country in good faith. Like him, I have spoken to people who travelled from far overseas, only to discover that there was no job for them when they arrived. They had sometimes been charged money and were at a huge risk of exploitation. As well as taking action with the Fair Work Agency and others to tackle exploitation more widely, we think it is right to end the overseas recruitment of care workers, and to support the care sector through the fair pay agreement and through improving support here in the UK.