Papers Relating to the Home Secretary

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Andy Slaughter

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The issue is about whether or not the Home Secretary is continuing to breach the ministerial code. We know that on 19 October she had already broken the ministerial code twice, and she may have done so again in a subsequent meeting, also on 19 October. How many times can a Minister break the ministerial code in a single day and still be reappointed six days later?

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend notes that the Home Secretary says that she did not ignore the law, but she does not say that she followed the law or complied with the law. Yesterday, a Minister appeared to be saying that the Home Secretary chose to break the law in one way, rather than another way, which was to put people out destitute on to the streets of Kent. Is that not almost an admission that there has been lawbreaking in this case?

[Yvette Cooper]

The important point here is that Ministers have a responsibility for public safety, security and meeting and upholding standards. Part of the reason we are seeking this information and these facts about the decisions that were made is to find out whether any of these issues and concerns that have been raised in the Home Office were raised with the Prime Minister at the time, or whether the way in which the Home Secretary had behaved was raising concerns within the Cabinet Office and with the Cabinet Secretary.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Andy Slaughter

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The 3,000 figure was proposed by Save the Children, at a time when it thought that 26,000 children in Europe were alone. We now know that the figure is much higher, and that 95,000 children are alone and at risk across Europe. It would be for the Government to work with agencies such as Save the Children to establish the criteria; I think that priority should be given to those with families in Britain who can care for them, but that is something that we can debate.

It is right for us to do our bit to help. Children are sleeping rough tonight because countries across Europe simply do not have the capacity to provide that help. According to UNICEF and Save the Children, 2,000 children are alone in northern Greece, but there are fewer than 500 places for them, and those places are full. In Italy, the agencies found that girls were being exploited by older men, and that half the boys already had sexually transmitted diseases. In Calais, I met 11 and 12-year-olds who were suffering from scabies and bronchitis, and who were sleeping in tents with adult men.

This is the challenge that Europe faces: teenage girls being trafficked into prostitution, teenage boys being abused and raped, children with hypothermia and pneumonia, children who are traumatised because they have lost family along the way, and children who are locked up in detention centres because there are no other places for them to go to—again, often alongside adult men. A Syrian teenager who came to Parliament last week to meet Alf Dubs told me that he had fled the violence and fighting to reach family members who were here in Britain, but the abuse and the suffering that he saw and experienced as a refugee alone in Europe were worse than the violence that he had left behind.

[Andy Slaughter]

As always, my right hon. Friend is speaking passionately. I was at that meeting, and the eyewitness accounts were extremely telling.

Is this not the problem that the Government have tonight? They say that the developed countries of Europe should be able to deal better with refugees, but, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out, those countries are not dealing with it. The fact on the ground, in Calais and in Greece, is that children are at risk and are being brutalised and tormented, in some cases—to their shame—by the authorities who should be looking after them. That, surely, is why we have to do our bit.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Let me make my position clear. I think that other countries should be doing more—I think that it is shocking how little child protection the French authorities have put in place around Calais, and that we need countries across Europe to do far more—but how can we urge them to do more if we are refusing to do anything to help and give sanctuary to those child refugees?

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Andy Slaughter

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I want to make some progress before I do.

The Secretary of State also said that he wants to make work pay. Yesterday he told Sky that there are marginal tax rates of 90p in the pound for some young people, that that was regressive and that he wanted, first, to change the system so that they are able to keep more of their own money. But, page 69 of the Red Book shows that as a result of the Budget an extra 20,000 people will lose more than 90p in the pound.

We agree that housing benefit needs reform, and we brought forward some measures in the March Budget and introduced a consultation paper last December to set out our proposals. We agree also that we have to stop some of the most excessive rents being paid, and that we should exclude some of the highest rents in every area. However, we should also consider how we provide more security and payments for people moving into work, so that work incentives are improved. There is a strong case for linking housing benefit to tax credits in the longer term, but the Government’s proposals do not set out any reforms; they set out only cuts, and destructive ones at that. Their plans cut almost £1.7 billion a year from housing benefit, and there is no analysis of how many people that measure will push into poverty or homelessness.

[Mr Slaughter]

There are clearly no poor people left in Southwark—certainly none on housing benefit, or the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) would not have the temerity to support the Budget. However, there are poor people in Hammersmith, Islington, Westminster and Kensington, so does my right hon. Friend agree not only that it is wrong to force thousands of families out of London, but that such measures will do nothing to get people into jobs, nothing for family break-up figures and nothing for community cohesion in London?