Yvette Cooper MP: speeches

Speeches

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member refers to an incident in the channel where there was co-operation between Border Force and the French authorities that also involved returning people to the French coast. That operational co-operation is important, but I would just say to him that “co-operation” is the really important word. If we want to prevent gangs operating and organising, and prevent boats from reaching the French coast in the first place, we have to work closely not just with France but with Germany and other European countries, and with the countries through which some of the supply chains are operating. It is that co-operation that he and some others in his party have quite often refused, but it will be important and is our best way to stop the criminal gangs.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman obviously does not understand the system that his party and his Government put in place. All the people who are in the asylum system are staying there. Under his policies for those individuals, they are now being sent all around the country into asylum hotels. That is the system the Conservatives have left us with. We do not think that is the right thing to do. We think that asylum decisions should be taken on a case-by-case basis. That is the right thing to do. We also think we should have proper returns agreements and do what his party should have been doing, under his own policies, for the 60% of people who continued to be entitled to asylum decisions but were not getting them under his Illegal Migration Act. What we will do is run the asylum system effectively, which his system should have been doing.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  I welcome the shadow Home Secretary’s words about the dedication of Home Office officials and about the importance of work on national security. As he knows, when I was shadow Secretary of State, I always worked with him and supported him around national security issues. I know he will do the same and I welcome him to his shadow post. I presume what we heard was the first of the Conservative leadership contest speeches. I will respond to some of the things the shadow Home Secretary said. We need to be clear about what we have inherited from him and his party. Under his party, we have had the highest level of spring crossings ever. Gangs have been left to wreak havoc, not just along the French coast but across our border, through our country and back through Europe. Asylum support costs are set to rise to £30 billion to £40 billion over the next four years as a result of his and his party’s decisions. As for the idea of deterrence, I am sorry but four volunteers being sent to Rwanda is not a deterrent to anyone for anything at all. The idea that he would spend £10 billion on this fantasy, this fiction, this gimmick rather than ever do the hard graft—£700 million has already been spent on sending just four volunteers in two and a half years. We have often warned that, frankly, it would be cheaper to put them up in the Paris Ritz. As it turns out, it would have been cheaper to buy the Paris Ritz. As for the amnesty, I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman has ever understood the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which he voted for and he inherited from his predecessors. He asks if people who arrive illegally can claim asylum—that is exactly what happens under section 9 of that Act. They can all claim asylum, enter the asylum system and be entitled to asylum support. That is what happens in the system, which we have inherited, that he has presided over and run since he became Home Secretary. The problem is that people enter the asylum system but never leave. He did not bring in operational arrangements to try to take decisions properly. His Home Office effectively stopped taking the majority of asylum decisions in May. Perhaps he did not know that, but that is what happened in his Home Office. This party and this Government do not believe in amnesties. We think that the rules need to be respected and enforced. His party is the one that has given an effective amnesty to people who can end up staying in the asylum system forever. We believe that the rules should be enforced. The problem is that that is what the shadow Home Secretary believes too. He does not believe any of the stuff that he has just said. He is only saying it for his Tory leadership contest; he is just too weak to tell his party the truth. He thought that the whole policy on Rwanda was “batshit” and then he went out to bat for it. It is just not serious.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  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.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Member makes an important point about what is happening in the Mediterranean, and about the pressures we have seen and the fact that, as the Prime Minister said in his statement, we have seen not just conflicts, wars and persecution, but the impact of climate change, making people travel and sometimes leading them to make dangerous journeys. We should be working to prevent the need for those dangerous journeys in the first place. That is why the Prime Minister announced last week at the European Political Community summit that we will invest over £80 million, alongside work with other European countries, also as part of the Rome process, both to tackle some of the wider criminal gang networks that still operate in the Mediterranean and to ensure that we address the injustices and serious crises that lead to people making such dangerous journeys in the first place.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We need to clear the backlog—not just let it grow and grow, which is what the Conservatives were doing, but clear the backlog so that we can end asylum hotels, which are inappropriate and extremely costly. Having discovered that the Home Office had effectively stopped taking the majority of asylum decisions under the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Cleverly)—who does not seem to know what his own Department was doing as a result of his own policies—I am extremely concerned that that will now take longer to do, but it remains an immensely important thing that we have to do. The other thing we will have to do is tackle the backlog in the appeals process that the Conservatives had allowed to grow, which is also slowing down the system.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  No, I do not believe that is the right approach, because we need to make swift decisions and ensure that the rules are properly respected and enforced. I am concerned about employers who exploit those who have sometimes arrived as a result of criminal gangs, trafficking or smuggling. I do not believe that employers should be able to exploit those kinds of routes and journeys. If people who have fled persecution are granted asylum in this country, of course they should be able to work and to do so swiftly, but if they are not entitled to be here—if they have not fled persecution—and should be turned down and returned to their home country, they should not be able to work in the UK.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I welcome him to his seat in Parliament. He is right that removals of failed asylum seekers have fallen by a third since 2010. Removals of foreign national offenders have fallen by a quarter. That is not good enough. It means that the rules are not being respected or enforced, and it is why we will set up a new returns and enforcement programme. We have committed to 1,000 additional staff to work on returns and enforcement, to ensure that the rules are respected, not only where we have returns agreements in place but looking at individual cases as well. We must ensure that we have a system that people have confidence in. There is a lot of chaos to tackle, but we are determined to do it.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. We must tackle the illegal working and also the exploitation that can often drive a lot of what happens. That is why we are intensifying the immigration enforcement, which is part of our new, huge expansion to the returns and enforcements unit. He is right that the process, which has become too complicated and too bureaucratic, needs to be simplified to make sure that the rules are being enforced. We have set out the high-risk sectors on which we wish to focus this summer, but we need a more systematic approach. We have talked about a single enforcement approach, and we will be setting out more details about those plans.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. There is a real challenge from the chaotic way the asylum system has been run, which has led to the last-minute procurement of hotels and has ended up being extremely costly. Everybody loses out from spending billions of pounds on this system, but also from local authorities often not having time to work with communities or accommodation providers to ensure that things are managed in the right way. Because asylum decisions stopped being taken, there will now be some challenges in getting the system working again, which means that bringing down the backlog will take longer than we initially anticipated. But we are determined to do this; it is the only way to get back to having a functional system that everybody across the country should be able to support.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right, and I welcome her to her place in this House. I think what people in this country have always wanted is that combination of strong border security and a proper, fair system, so that we do our bit alongside other countries to help those who have fled persecution, but also so that the rules are enforced and those who do not have a right to be here are returned. She will know that there is a series of different resettlement routes or different forms of support—for example, the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which continues, and some of the Afghan resettlement schemes. We are concerned about the operation of some of the Afghan schemes, and we are looking further at that to ensure they are functioning properly.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for standing up for the Opposition Front Benchers, as I know you have often done for me in the past? I apologise to the shadow Home Secretary for the delay in the arrival of the statement. Most people in the United Kingdom want to see strong border security, with a properly controlled and managed asylum system where our country does its bit, alongside others, to help those who have fled persecution, but where rules are properly respected and enforced so that those with no right to be here are swiftly removed. At the moment, we have none of those things. Border security is being undermined by criminal smuggler gangs, and the asylum system is in chaos. Tragically, 19 lives have been lost in the channel so far this year, including children. No one should be making these perilous small boat journeys. Criminal gangs have been allowed to take hold along our border, and they are making huge profit from undermining our border security and putting lives at risk. They should not be able to get away with it. Crossings in the first half of 2024 are up by 10% on last year—the number is going up, instead of coming down. At the same time, the asylum backlog is getting worse, as decision making in the Home Office has dropped. Home Office spending on asylum support has increased sevenfold in the space of just three years. This cannot go on. Since my appointment two weeks ago, I have reviewed the policies, programmes and legislation that we have inherited from our predecessors, and I have been shocked by what I have found. Not only are there already serious problems; on current policies, the chaos and costs are likely to get worse. On our border security, it is clear that the security and enforcement arrangements we have inherited are too weak. Criminal gang networks are operating with impunity along our border, across the continent and beyond, and across the UK too. Action between Britain and France in the channel has improved, and is preventing some boat crossings. The work of the small boats operational command in the channel is important and will continue, but we need to go much further. We should be taking far more action upstream, long before the boats ever reach the French coast. Co-operation with Europol and other European police forces and prosecutors is far too limited, and enforcement against exploitation and trafficking in the UK is far too weak. Information sharing with our European neighbours has reduced, rather than increased. As a result of these weak arrangements, I am extremely concerned that the high levels of dangerous crossings that we have inherited are likely to persist throughout the summer. Let me turn to the Rwanda migration and economic development partnership. Two and a half years after the previous Government launched it, I can report that it has already cost the British taxpayer £700 million—in order to send just four volunteers. That includes £290 million on payments to Rwanda and the costs of chartering flights that never took off, detaining hundreds of people and then releasing them, and paying for more than 1,000 civil servants to work on the scheme—for a scheme to send four people. It is the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen. Looking forward, the costs are set to get worse. Even if the scheme had ever got going, it is clear that it would have covered only a minority of arrivals, yet a substantial portion of future costs were fixed costs—for example, the annual direct payments to Rwanda, the contracts for escorts, the staffing in the Home Office, the detention and reception centres, and more. The taxpayer would have still had to pay out, no matter how few people were relocated. Most shockingly of all, over the six years of the migration and economic development partnership forecast, the previous Government had planned to spend over £10 billion of taxpayers’ money on the scheme. They did not tell Parliament that. I thank the Rwandan Government for working with the UK in good faith, because the failure of this policy lies with the previous UK Government. It has been a costly con, and the taxpayer has had to pay the price. I turn to the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which has been in place for a year. We were told that it would stop the boats, but it has clearly failed. The legal contradictions in the Act are so great that they make it unworkable; indeed, 12 months on, the central duty has not even been enacted. It is also costing the taxpayer billions of pounds. Under section 9 of the Act, people who arrive in the UK can claim asylum and get asylum accommodation. However, under section 30, if they arrived after March 2023 and meet key conditions in the Act, no decision can be taken on their case; they just stay in the asylum system. Even if they have come here unlawfully for economic reasons and should be returned to their home country, they will not be, because the law does not work. Only a small minority might ever have been sent to Rwanda; everyone else stays indefinitely in taxpayer-funded accommodation and support. The Home Office estimates that around 40% of asylum cases since March 2023 should be covered by those Illegal Migration Act conditions. The remaining 60%, under the previous Government’s policy, should still have been processed and cleared in the normal way. However, even though previous Ministers introduced this new law 12 months ago, they did not ever introduce an effective operational way for the Home Office to distinguish between the cases covered by the Illegal Migration Act and the other cases where decisions should continue—that is, between the 40% and the 60%. As a result, decisions cannot be taken on any of them. I have been shocked to discover that the Home Office has effectively stopped making the majority of asylum decisions. Thousands of asylum caseworkers cannot do their proper job. As a result, the backlog of asylum cases is now going up. This is the most extraordinary policy I have ever seen. We have inherited asylum “Hotel California”—people arrive in the asylum system and they never leave. The previous Government’s policy was effectively an amnesty, and that is the wrong thing to do. It is not just bad policy, it is also completely unaffordable. The cost of this indefinitely rising asylum backlog in hotel and accommodation support bills is astronomical. The potential costs of asylum support over the next four years if we continue down this track could be an eye-watering £30 billion to £40 billion. That is double the annual police budget for England and Wales. This newly elected Government are not prepared to let this chaos continue, so let me turn to the action we are urgently taking to restore some grip to the system, to tackle the chaos and to get costs down. First, I have informed the Rwandan Government that we will be ending the migration and economic development partnership. We will save £220 million on further direct payments to Rwanda over the next few years and we will immediately save up to £750 million that had been put aside by the previous Government to cover the MEDP this year. Secondly, we will invest some of the saved money from the migration partnership into a new border security command instead. It will bring together the work of the Border Force, the National Crime Agency, the small boats operational command and intelligence and security officers. The recruitment has begun for a new commander and we will put in place additional cross-border officers, investigators, prosecutors, and intelligence and security officers with the new counter-terror-style powers against organised immigration crime announced in the King’s Speech last week. We are immediately increasing UK officers’ involvement in Europol and the European Migrant Smuggling Centre. Thirdly, we will replace the Rwanda migration partnership with a serious returns and enforcement programme. We have immediately replaced the flight planning for Rwanda with actual flights to return people who have no right to stay to their home countries instead. We are immediately redeploying Home Office staff away from the failed Rwanda partnership and into returns and enforcement, to reverse the collapse in removals that has taken place since 2010. I have tasked the immigration enforcement team with intensifying enforcement activity this summer, targeting illegal working across high-risk sectors. Fourthly, we will end the asylum chaos and start taking asylum decisions again so that we can clear the backlog and end asylum hotels. The new border security, asylum and immigration Bill announced in the King’s Speech will bring in new replacement arrangements, including fast-track decisions and returns to safe countries. In the meantime, I am laying a statutory instrument that ends the retrospective nature of the Illegal Migration Act provisions, so that the Home Office can immediately start clearing cases from after March 2023. Making this one simple change will save the taxpayer an estimated £7 billion over the next 10 years. Fifthly, as the Prime Minister has just set out, we will work closely with our European neighbours to tackle the upstream causes of migration, including through the Rome process. This country will always do our bit alongside others to help those fleeing war and persecution, but we need a proper system where rules are enforced. There are no quick fixes to the chaos created over the last 14 years. It will take time to clear the asylum backlog, to bring costs down and to get new enforcement in place to strengthen our borders and prevent dangerous boat crossings, but there is no alternative to serious hard graft. We cannot waste any more time or money on gimmicks. The country voted for change, and that means it is time for a sensible, serious plan. I commend this statement to the House.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to raise the importance of working closely with local authorities. We are determined to do that. The Immigration Minister already has work in chain looking at how we can have better working co-operation between the Home Office and local authorities. It is also important to recognise that, through many generations, refugees have come to this country and contributed to our economy and society and been a hugely important part of that. It is partly because we have that important history that it is crucial to get the whole system functioning again, instead of the chaos we have at the moment, which undermines everyone’s confidence.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend will know that there are long-standing arrangements for family reunion and for refugees. There are also different concerns that have been raised around Gaza, because there is a real importance to people’s being able to return to their homes in the middle east too. If she has an individual case that she would like to raise with my hon. Friend the Immigration Minister, she is very welcome to do so.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Border Security and Asylum · Hansard source

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  If people have a right to be in the UK—if they have fled persecution and been granted refugee status, or they have come to be here on a visa through the normal processes—we will of course have them contributing to our country. That has been the case for generations, but if people are not here lawfully— if they have not fled persecution, and should fail the asylum process and be returned—they should not be working in the UK. This is simply about having a swift system so that we can make decisions quickly and ensure that the rules are enforced.