Yvette Cooper MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  The principle behind the France pilot, which we want to build and grow, is that people can apply through a legal process and go through proper security checks but that we will return people who come on these dangerous small boats facilitated by criminal gangs. That principle is really important. We want a system that can better return those who are being exploited by criminal gangs and using illegal entry, and we will do that by undermining their business model. Alongside that, we will do what our country has always done throughout history: provide a legal process—controlled and managed—to support those who have fled persecution and conflict. That is what happened as part of the Ukraine scheme, and it is what we now seek to do as part of a refugee approach to students. We need a proper system across the board that both brings control to a chaotic system and is true to our historic values.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  Obviously, we do not want asylum accommodation in inappropriate places. We must reduce the overall size of the asylum system, while ensuring that we can move people, when possible, from hotels to alternative and better sites. Any arrangement that is aimed simply at expanding the asylum system, as happens if there is a freeze on asylum decisions—and some of the policies that Reform is unfortunately pursuing risk increasing the number of people stuck in the asylum system, because Reform has no plans for practical returns—will make the problem worse. We need practical changes to bring the numbers down.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to point out the dangers of divisive, dehumanising language towards other human beings and to point to our shared humanity. We can have disagreements with people; we can have different views about the way in which systems should work and rules should be enforced and we can recognise that there will be people who have to be returned because they have no right to be in the UK. However, we can also avoid the kind of demonising language that ends up escalating tensions or promoting hatred and violence—something that we in this country should never do.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  That is not my understanding of what those on the Opposition Front Bench were arguing for; that was about the Human Rights Act risking there being more issues with the domestic courts being unable to take decisions before things go to the European courts, but I will leave the hon. Gentleman to wrangle with his party about what its position is. We think there needs to be reform of the way article 8 is interpreted. Too many cases around family rules have been treated as exceptions, and that higher level of decision making cannot be exceptional if so many cases are being treated as exceptions. This means that we need to look at the rules themselves, and we also need much greater clarity about the way we believe those rules should be interpreted, and the way family migration should be interpreted in the courts.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  I can tell my hon. Friend that we will end the use of asylum hotels. We will close the asylum hotels that the previous Government opened, including in his constituency; it is hugely important that we do. He is right to talk about our long history of people from across the country supporting refugees. They include the more than 100,000 families who came forward to offer homes to Ukrainians at the beginning of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. That spirit and those values are immensely important, but people need to know that the system is being properly controlled and managed, and that misuse is being tackled. That is why it is so important to end the use of asylum hotels.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  Unfortunately, the Conservative Front Benchers want us to go back to the position that we inherited from the previous Government. Their freeze on asylum decisions would have left us with tens of thousands more people in asylum hotels. We will end asylum hotels over the course of this Parliament, not simply by moving people to different kinds of accommodation—that is an important point—but by reducing the overall size of the asylum system. The previous Government’s policies were doing the opposite and increasing it. If we do not reduce the overall size of the asylum system, we will never solve the problem, or rebuild the confidence of people across the UK.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to change the law. First, obviously, we have the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which will bring in a whole series of changes including counter-terrorism powers, banning sex offenders from the asylum system and a new offence of endangerment. We also believe that new legal changes to the asylum system are going to be needed, and we will bring forward further legislation in order to make those changes. Later this year, we will set out detailed reforms —not just on appeals, but more widely around the asylum system—to enable us to tackle some of both the historic chaos and the delays in the system, and to get that system back under control.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  There is a big problem with the small boats, as we have seen the criminal gangs change their tactics, particularly to exploit the French rules meaning that, up until now, France has not been intervening in French waters. Not just that, but people who have come to the UK lawfully, but are coming to the end of their visas, are claiming asylum when nothing has changed in their country. We need to ensure tighter rules about that, as well as action on border security to prevent dangerous boat crossings, which undermine security and put lives at risk.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend will know, many student visas do not allow students to bring dependants to the United Kingdom. There will be exceptional circumstances, such as those involving Gaza, but the overall approach—for example, to student visas relating to masters courses—is not to include dependants. We do, however, want to ensure that the refugee route for students is available, recognising that some people will be able to come and be educated at UK universities to develop their incredible talents, but will want to return to their home countries in future to rebuild them. There may be others who are not able to return, because that is the nature of the crisis we face.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right that crossings in August were at their lowest for several years even though there was the same level of crossing days as last summer. He will know that a lot of different factors are involved. We have been seeking with France, through the implementation of its maritime review, to be able to make stronger interventions. I welcome the point that my hon. Friend made about the Greece-Turkey deal, which did have a significant impact on those crossings. That is why we believe that pursuing this co-operation with France is the right thing to do. I welcome the work that the French Government have done to support the pilot agreement on returns.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  Everyone has a right to be safe, and to respect. The pursuit of division, hatred and violence is never acceptable, in the immigration and asylum system or more widely across our country. It is hugely important that alongside all the reforms that we introduce—we do need reform to the system—we have clear recognition of our shared humanity and the need to prevent any kind of violence and hatred, or the tensions and problems that my hon. Friend describes.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member refers to the Kindertransport and the important support for children it provided. The UK also took orphaned Jewish children from concentration camps and provided them with a home and a future in the UK. We have a long history of supporting those who have fled persecution and conflict, and that is exactly why it is so important that the system is properly managed and controlled and that we tackle the chaos we have inherited and strengthen our border security, in order to restore confidence in the very system and values that the hon. Member describes. This Government will never pursue the violence-promoting rhetoric that can cause such division. We will always be responsible and serious about the practical steps that need to be taken to deal with the chaos we inherited.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  This Government have managed to get the agreement with France in place—that pilot agreement that we seek to build. France, obviously, is not the country where most of the people passing through started from, so it is effectively a third-country agreement that we have already put in place and are now working to implement on a pilot basis. We are also working with other European countries to explore returns hubs. But what we do not think is the right thing to do is have an incredibly expensive programme that sent just four volunteers and, during the two years-plus that it was in operation, ended up costing £700 million while 84,000 people arrived in the UK.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend says, we made clear in our manifesto that we will end asylum hotel use. We need to put an end to asylum hotel use right across the country, and to do so in an orderly way. We also need to ensure that the rules are properly enforced and laws are properly respected. We will strengthen the law. That is why, for example, the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill bans sex offenders from the asylum system and strengthens counter-terrorism powers to go after the criminal gangs. It is astonishing, frankly, that the Conservatives and Reform refuse to support it, when we need those laws in place as rapidly as possible. We will do so alongside ensuring that there are proper controlled and managed legal ways to support refugees, as our country has always done, because that is a proud part of our history.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to talk about international law, and the ECHR being part of the reason why we have been able to get international agreements; other countries know that we will abide by international law. That is how we got the French pilot, which the previous Government were repeatedly unable to do. The way in which the ECHR is interpreted is significant and needs to keep up to date. We have a challenge around article 8 and family cases; far too many cases are being treated as exceptions to the rules that Parliament has set. We think the rules need to change for us to address that, and we need to work through changes to how article 8 in particular is interpreted in our immigration and asylum system. We will set out more details on that in our asylum reform package later this year.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  I know that this is an issue in which the hon. Member has taken a very strong interest over a long period of time. Since he and I first started discussing this issue many years ago, the way in which the family reunion system is used has changed. It has gone from people applying one or two years after they have refugee protection here in the UK to people applying in around a month. That means that the people applying have often not left asylum accommodation or asylum hotels. They do not have housing, jobs or ways to support family members whom they seek to bring to the UK, and we have also seen that criminal gangs are using and exploiting the system. That is why we are temporarily pausing the existing refugee family reunion route, and we will consult on the new arrangements that should be brought in. We will aim to bring in some of those arrangements by this spring. In the interim, refugees will be covered by exactly the same rules as everyone else, and by the same conditions as everyone else, through the appendix FM process. But there is a concern, because there are no conditions on refugee family reunion at the moment. The way in which it is being used has changed, and there is a responsibility on us to not have huge problems with homelessness assistance for local authorities, and to have a managed system that also supports contributions and does not simply end up being exploited by criminal gangs.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  The laws on illegal entry go right back to 1972, I think; the issue of illegal entry is long standing. I say to the hon. Gentleman that the policy of the previous Government—his Government—was to claim that everybody was going to be returned to France or sent to Rwanda, but they ran their scheme in Rwanda for two and a half years during which time only four volunteers were sent, so nobody was returned, and they never managed to return anybody to France. We are clear that we believe that people who arrive on dangerous boat crossings or via illegal routes should be returned to France. We have set up the pilot scheme to develop that; we want to build it. It is something the previous Government never managed to do. There is no point in their fantasy claims—we need practical steps, which is what we are doing with France.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes important points. The new arrangements that we set out will include both stronger border security and reforms to the asylum system to make it more controlled and managed and to reduce its size, as well as to have the controlled and managed legal routes. That needs to include arrangements for family and dedicated arrangements around unaccompanied children. My hon. Friend is right to raise that as a serious issue. Obviously we have a separate dedicated scheme for Ukraine, and we are continuing with that scheme. On my hon. Friend’s point about what we should recognise, I think that people across the country continue to support that. Having spoken to Ukrainian mums who described how they fled in the first few weeks of Putin’s invasion, knowing that their home villages had been overrun by Russian troops and not knowing whether other family members were safe or whether they would ever be able to return again, let me say that we should always remember what people can be fleeing from and the importance of countries working together to support them.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  We have been clear that we will end the use of the asylum hotels that were opened by the previous Government; we will close those asylum hotels. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support our reforms to the appeals system, so that we can speed them through Parliament and clear the backlog. I hope that he supports the increase in decision making that we had to introduce after his party froze decision making, creating a soaring backlog that would have increased the number of people in hotels. I also hope that he will support the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is passing through the other place and will bring in stronger counter-terrorism powers, enabling us to go after the criminal gangs who are organising the small boats; sadly, his party is still opposing the Bill.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  I, too, welcome the law enforcement work in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We have set up a domestic organised immigration crime taskforce to work across different police forces on the networks that are exploiting illegal working, which often have networks into all kinds of other organised crime, undermine communities and town centres, and exploit individuals and border security. We are strengthening that domestic work, which had never before been done, as a result of the report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises an important point about the gig economy and the need to ensure that it does not become rife with abuse and misuse when it comes to illegal working. That is why we are bringing in—again, in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which unfortunately the Conservatives and Reform have continued to vote against—requirements for employers in the gig economy to abide by checks on illegal working. We have also recently signed with some of the major delivery companies a new agreement to share information, so that we can target abuse and crime.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  We have set out that this is a pilot, and that we want to build and grow it. There is no cap on the overall numbers to go as part of the pilot, and we need to build it as we go. We have also said that we will not set out the kinds of operational details that criminal gangs will simply use and manipulate, but we will provide updates, as each month goes by, on the progress of the scheme. It is important in two ways: first, it is the basis from which we can then expand to actually be able to return people to France and undermine the model of the criminal gangs; and underpinning this is a fairness principle, which is that if you arrive on a dangerous illegal small boat and pay a criminal gang, you should be returned. But we should do our bit, alongside other countries, to help those who apply through a legal route and go through proper security checks.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. We need to end asylum hotels across the board, and that means ensuring that we can clear the appeals backlogs through major appeals reform, because that is currently the main obstacle to the faster closure of hotels. It means preventing people from taking up accommodation in the first place when they are not entitled to it, and it means looking for alternative sites that are more appropriate, which will mean working with other Government Departments. It also means, crucially, recognising that carrying on with the system that we inherited—the frozen system, in which the last Government were not returning people and not making asylum decisions—would have left us with tens of thousands more people in asylum hotels. That is the system that Conservative Members want to go back to, but it would be deeply damaging for my hon. Friend’s constituents, and for the country.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  I recognise the important points that my hon. Friend makes and the work that Lord Dubs has done over many years, particularly in championing unaccompanied child refugees. We have recognised that there will need to be dedicated arrangements that recognise the particular plight of unaccompanied child refugees, but this needs to be done in a properly controlled and managed way, which it has not been for a long time. Under the existing systems that will apply to everyone over the next six months while we bring in the new arrangements, there are always provisions for exceptional circumstances, but we need to prevent the current system from pushing significant homelessness pressure on to local authorities, and from being exploited by criminal gangs.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  We are seeking accelerated legislation to bring in the new independent appeals commission. The hon. Gentleman will know that once that legislation begins its passage through the House, it will be possible to start implementation and make sure we can invest in getting the trained adjudicators in place. We will provide an update before the end of this year, both on the timetable and on the further details of how that appeals system will work. Obviously, it has to be fully independent of the Home Office and of the Government, but it needs to be able to surge and respond swiftly in order to prevent the growth of huge backlogs. I really hope that the hon. Gentleman and his party will be able to support that legislation, because if they do so, we will be able to move it through much more quickly and implement the new body much more quickly.