Yvette Cooper MP: speeches

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Speeches

16 Jun 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report · Hansard source
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Yes, I can. That work is either completed or well under way.
16 Jun 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report · Hansard source
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Everyone should want not just to get to the truth about past failures, but to ensure we make the changes to protect children for the future. That includes changes in social services; changes in policing and the police operation, which I hope the right hon. Lady would welcome, to take action to put perpetrators behind bars; and action to gather proper ethnicity data, which simply has not been gathered properly before. Louise Casey’s report is very clear: the data gathering that the right hon. Lady’s Government left behind is totally inadequate. I hope she will agree to all those factors being extremely important, so that we can get stronger protection, and truth, for victims.
16 Jun 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report · Hansard source
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I agree that there are challenges with inquiries that can take a long time, which means that victims and survivors, or those affected by the inquiry, wait a very long time for answers. That is why it is critical that we introduce and implement recommendations from previous inquiries—that we get on with it and strengthen police operations now to put perpetrators behind bars. I can also tell the right hon. Gentleman that we will not restrict where the inquiry goes or where the commission chooses to investigate.
16 Jun 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report · Hansard source
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I welcome my hon. Friend’s point. The Minister for Safeguarding will follow up these issues with the devolved Administrations. My hon. Friend is right that this is a devolved issue but that this kind of appalling crime is happening everywhere. Action is needed everywhere to safeguard and protect children.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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The question comes from a former policing Minister under whose Government charge rates for rape and domestic abuse plummeted, while charge rates for crime dropped substantially. This Government support much stronger action on violence against women and girls because we recognise the serious damage that those crimes do. Shamefully, the previous Government left us with a shocking legacy on crime, on immigration and across the board, but this Government are turning that around.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I join my hon. Friend in saying a huge thank you to all the first responders—those who I met last week, but also many more who were involved in a very swift response that undoubtedly saved lives that day. It was a day of huge joy across the city of Liverpool that ended in a horrific incident, but I know from her constituency and across Liverpool that it is a city where communities come together in the face of the greatest difficulties and show their strength as a community.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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The hon. Member raises an important point, and we did inherit an unacceptable asylum backlog, including huge and unacceptable bills for asylum accommodation. We have already brought the bills for asylum accommodation down, saving hundreds of millions of pounds, with hundreds of millions of pounds more to be saved over the course of this year. That is a result of the action we are taking to clear the backlog that the previous Government left us with, and as part of that we are working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on how to co-ordinate support for local councils.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I welcome the work that South Yorkshire police has been doing and the Doncaster East neighbourhood policing team going after the offroad bikes, which cause havoc and are a total nightmare in the community. They are getting additional neighbourhood police as part of the neighbourhood policing guarantee, and we will give them stronger powers to keep the streets safe.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I convey all thoughts to the family of the victim in this awful stabbing case, and all of those affected across the community. My hon. Friend is right to raise the deep concerns that exist about the number of young people getting drawn into serious violence—we are seeing this across the board. That is why the Young Futures prevention programme is so important, and why we need to work to prevent this by strengthening the law on child criminal exploitation.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I can tell the hon. Lady that more than 400 additional neighbourhood police officers will be on the streets in London this year as a result of our neighbourhood policing guarantee.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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Let me remind the shadow Home Secretary that when he was Immigration Minister he said: “I will continue to push my French counterparts to look hard at interceptions at sea.” Five years of Conservative government later, the French Government had not agreed to any changes at all. This Government have reached a new agreement with France, and we are now pressing for that to be operationalised as swiftly as possible. But we will not take lessons from a former Immigration Minister who, on his watch, let legal migration treble and small boat crossings soar more than tenfold.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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The Chair of the Select Committee raises a very important point. I know that she has a strong interest in this issue that goes back many years, and has taken strong action herself on modern slavery. We will look at the amendment she has tabled, and are happy to discuss it with her further.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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Lord Hermer does not decide sentencing—he has a particular role as the Attorney General. The right hon. Gentleman, as a very experienced Member of this House, will know the way in which the system works.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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May I first pay tribute to the first responders, the police, ambulance, fire service and others who dealt with the horrific incident at the Liverpool parade, some of whom I met last week? I know that the thoughts of the whole House will be with those who were injured and affected. The House will also have seen the disgraceful and unacceptable small boat crossings on Saturday. No one should be making those journeys, and criminal gangs are likely to have made millions of pounds this weekend alone. The gangs are increasingly operating a model where boats are launched from further along the coast, and people climb in from the water, exploiting French rules that have stopped their police taking any action in the sea. That is completely unacceptable. The previous Government raised the issue with France for years, but to no avail, and I have raised it with the French Government since the summer. The French Minister of the Interior, and the French Cabinet, have now agreed that their rules need to change. A French maritime review is looking at what new operational tactics they will use, and we are urging France to complete the review and implement the changes as swiftly as possible. This weekend I have again been in touch with the French Minister of the Interior, who supports stronger action, and further discussions are under way this week. I will update the House in due course.
2 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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Given that the right hon. Member was a member of the previous Government, her question might be rather more plausible if she apologised for the 100-fold increase in small boat crossings under her Government’s watch and for the quadrupling of net migration as a result of the policies that she supported in government. If she wants to support stronger action against illegal migration and the gangs that are organising it, why will she not support the counter-terrorism powers that this Government are putting in place to go after them?
2 Jun 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is right to raise the importance of PCSOs as well as police officers in neighbourhood teams working to prevent crime. He is also right to raise concerns. Over the last two years of the previous Government, both street theft and shoplifting increased by more than 60%, at the same time as neighbourhood police were cut. We are putting the bobbies back on the beat.
2 Jun 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source
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The hon. Member makes a really important point, because having links between local services is crucial. We will ensure that the Home Office looks into and takes up the points she raises, so we can ensure strong local partnerships working to tackle crime.
2 Jun 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source
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I gently remind the hon. Member that thousands of police and PCSOs were taken off our streets under the Conservatives. That is why the number of people who say that they never see the police in their communities doubled under the Conservatives. This Government are turning that around, with 3,000 additional police on our streets this year alone. That includes 470 more neighbourhood police on London’s streets.
2 Jun 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source
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We will continue to support Greater Manchester police and police forces across the country. It is right that they should be able to deal with issues and challenges, including public order. We are strengthening the system in that area as a result of weaknesses in the national co-ordination that we have inherited. I can tell the hon. Lady that Greater Manchester police will be getting 176 additional police officers for their neighbourhood teams over the course of this year.
2 Jun 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is right to welcome the additional neighbourhood police in Thurrock. She will know that that is part of 74 additional neighbourhood police officers across Essex just this year, as a result of our neighbourhood policing guarantee, and we will go beyond that. She is right, too, that local police who know what the problems are in Thurrock and across Essex are crucial to tackling local crime.
2 Jun 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source
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The hon. Member is right. There has been an increase in shoplifting in recent years, at the same time as neighbourhood policing numbers have fallen. As a result of the neighbourhood policing guarantee, there will be 110 additional neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs in Devon and Cornwall police over the next 12 months. That is important, but we are also strengthening their powers to tackle shoplifting.
2 Jun 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source
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We are providing £200 million across England and Wales this financial year to increase neighbourhood policing. As part of our neighbourhood policing guarantee, every community will have named, contactable officers dedicated to addressing local issues. Alongside that, during the course of this year we will have 3,000 additional officers and police community support officers working in neighbourhoods teams. I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) that, for Thames Valley police, that will include an extra 68 police officers on the streets this year.
2 Jun 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source
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The shadow Minister is, as he knows, talking nonsense. The police have to police without fear or favour; that is the standard that they apply and sign up to. I am really sorry that he wants to undermine the important work of police across the country, just as his party in government undermined the number of police on the streets—took them off the streets—so we ended up with thousands fewer police on our streets. This Government are finally putting them back into communities and back on the beat where they belong.
2 Jun 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source
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The hon. Member makes a really important point about the role of specials. We want them to be able to play a much stronger role, not just in neighbourhood policing but across the board. People who take time out to be part of police forces can bring all kinds of additional skills. We are working on what more can be done to support specials and their recruitment, which has plummeted in recent years. It is important that that trend is turned around.
2 Jun 2025 · Neighbourhood Policing · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is right: we need to make sure that Thames Valley has the 68 additional neighbourhood police just this year and give them the powers they need. That is why we are strengthening the Crime and Policing Bill both on dangerous cycling and dangerous riding, and giving the police stronger powers to take e-scooters and off-road bikes literally off the roads.

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