EU Council

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I grateful for what my right hon. Friend says. Anyone who thinks that something of a manufacturing renaissance is not happening in Britain should go to that Jaguar Land Rover plant. Seven or eight years ago there were 4,000 people there; there are now 14,000. It is about not just manufacture and assembly, but design, R and D and technology. The company is taking on hundreds of apprentices every year. It is a magnificent car plant and we want to see more of them. It is absolutely crucial for companies such as that that we keep the European market open, and it is crucial that they keep investing in our country rather than in countries inside the European Union. That will always be an alternative, which draws into sharp relief the importance of maintaining strong access to the single market.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

There is obviously a difference between future free movement reform and the position of existing residents. The Prime Minister said earlier that we could not confirm residency or employment rights for EU citizens who already live here until the negotiations were under way, but why is that the case? Given that the matter is being exploited by awful “go home” or repatriation campaigns, we should take a firm stance against them and pass some swift motions or legislation or new immigration rules in this House before the summer recess to put an end to that speculation and to provide reassurance to EU citizens who may have worked here for many years. I urge the Prime Minister to consider that because it would be a wise thing to do for the sake of community cohesion.

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously, I will look very carefully at what the right hon. Lady says. I have tried to answer the question as accurately, factually and legally as I can. If we come out of this negotiation arguing for visa requirements, restrictions on numbers, quotas, work permits or whatever for European nationals to come here—this will be for a future Government—other countries might take reciprocal action against British citizens trying to travel, work and live in other countries. Even if that were to happen, the answer would be to guarantee the status of anybody here now. We can say that while we are in the European Union, but it is for a future Prime Minister to make that decision.

Outcome of the EU Referendum

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 27th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No, I do not think that will be possible. The new unit has to get up and running and go through all of the complex issues that need to be sorted out, whether they be agriculture payments, borders, the situation in Northern Ireland or which British laws need to be rewritten because they mention a lot of EU law and all the rest of it. What I envisage happening is a series of papers being worked through, being discussed by the Cabinet and being prepared for the new Government as they come in.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Given the enormity of this decision and the repercussions of the negotiation process, the arrangements that the Prime Minister has described sound extremely weak. He is effectively saying that Members of Parliament should just go and have an informal chat with the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin). The Prime Minister is leaving a dangerous political vacuum. I urge him to consider much broader arrangements to build a wider consensus, including setting up a cross-party Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament to look at wider arrangements to involve voices from all across the country in what the negotiations about our future Britain, alongside the EU, should be. Britain feels very divided now and all of us have a responsibility to build a new consensus for the future.

[The Prime Minister]

I do not disagree with a lot of what the right hon. Lady is saying. Obviously, Parliament and Select Committees will want to consider how they can best produce evidence and take research and interviews to add to this process. I see the role of the Government as this. It is clear that we are moving from one situation—membership of the EU—to leaving the EU. We need to describe in a dispassionate, neutral and objective way what all the different outcomes look like and what are the advantages and disadvantages of all the different outcomes—the trade deal like Canada, the situation like Norway, and the pros and cons of being in the single market or out of the single market—so that our constituents can see the disadvantages and advantages in each case. That is what the Government should do, but Parliament—the House of Commons—can also play its part.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that Cumbria depends to a large extent on jobs from the industries he mentions. We continue to invest in reprocessing procedures at Sellafield. As he knows, we are also looking at redeveloping our commercial nuclear industry, starting with the vital decisions at Hinkley Point, which could then have great benefits for other areas that want nuclear power stations. Barrow is home to the development of our nuclear submarines and we will hold a vote in this House to make sure that we renew Trident in full.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has just suggested that child refugees who are alone in Europe are safe. Children’s homes are full in Italy and Greece, and more than 1,000 children will sleep rough alone tonight in Greece. How are they safe? Ten thousand children have disappeared in Europe. How are they safe? The agencies say that children are committing survival sex and that they are being abused and subjected to prostitution and rape. It is not insulting to other European countries to offer to help: they want us to help. So will he reconsider his position on Alf Dubs’s amendment before it comes back for a vote, and will he stop, through his attitude to lone child refugees, putting this House and this country to shame?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady asks whether we are helping other European countries, and we are, not least with the £10 million we recently announced. The crucial point is this: how do we in Britain best help child refugees? We think that we help them by taking them from the refugee camps, taking them from Lebanon, taking them from Jordan and taking them when they come to this country. That is what we are doing. We have a proud record and nothing to be ashamed of.

Panama Papers

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support. We met our manifesto commitment on inheritance tax, which was to exempt the family home. My hon. Friend is right that we need to simplify, but there are things moving in different directions. We want to simplify taxes, but when we see abuses occurring, we sometimes need to write new tax code to make sure that those abuses cannot be used, which can lead to complications. However, I am well aware of his general point, and I think he is right.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister now answer a question that both he and the Chancellor refused to answer a few years ago, and confirm that they both benefited personally from their cut to the top rate of tax? On the day that universal credit cuts mean that part-timers could be over £1,000 a year worse off, does he think that the several thousand pounds a year from which they both benefited is fair?

[The Prime Minister]

The information is contained in my tax return, which is in the House of Commons Library, and everyone can go and look at it. The key point is not only that since we reduced the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p we have not only raised more revenue, which we can spend on the public services that the right hon. Lady supports, but that the richest 1% in the country pay a higher overall percentage of income tax at 27%.

European Council

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I respectfully disagree with my right hon. Friend about this fundamental European issue. The £46 billion that we spend on disability benefits is many, many times more than anything we give to the European Union. Indeed, if we think about it, for every £1 paid in tax, a little over 1p goes to the EU for our net contribution. My right hon. Friend and I will be on different sides of the arguments, but I believe that 1p out of every £1 in tax gets us the trade, investment and co-operation that we need. He takes a different view, but I am sure that we will have a civilised argument about it. Because of the budget agreement that I reached in the last Parliament, our contributions are much lower than they otherwise would have been. We have a falling EU budget, rather than a rising EU budget, and that is because of this Government and this House of Commons.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The EU-Turkey deal will do nothing to help the 26,000 child refugees who are already alone in Europe. I met 12-year-olds who were alone in Calais this morning with no one to look after them. If the House of Lords votes this evening to support the Alf Dubs amendment to help 3,000 child refugees, will the Prime Minister drop his opposition and support children, as we did with the Kindertransport which many decades ago helped to save the life of Alf Dubs?

[The Prime Minister]

We do not support the Dubs amendment because, as I said previously, we think it is right to take additional children over and above the 20,000 refugees, but to take them from the region and to do so by working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I think that the unfairness, if I might say that, of comparing child migrants in Europe with the Kindertransport is that countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain are safe countries, where anyone who claims asylum and has family in Britain is able to come to Britain. I do not believe that it is a fair comparison.

European Council

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid that my right hon. Friend is not right. It is already legally binding and irreversible, because this is a decision of 28 Governments to reach a legally binding decision that is then deposited as a legal document at the UN, so this could be reversed only if all 28 members, including the UK, were to come to a different decision. But the document sets out very clearly that two specific areas—the changes that we need to the treaty on ever closer union, and safeguards for businesses and countries outside the eurozone—will be put into the treaty as well.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Mayor of London, who has been touted as the leader of the leave campaign, said yesterday that Britain would easily be able to

“negotiate a large number of trade deals at great speed”

because we

“used to run the biggest empire”

the world has ever seen. Will the Prime Minister invite the Mayor to wake up to the 21st century, in which the European economy is six times larger than the British economy and in which it took seven years for Canada to get a trade deal? Does he agree that with so much uncertainty in the world economy, it would be deeply disruptive to increase the risks for British exporters, British manufacturers and British jobs?

[The Prime Minister]

Where I share the frustration of many of those who are questioning whether we should stay in is that Britain does need trade deals to be signed rapidly, and we do find it frustrating that Europe is not moving faster, because the Korean free trade agreement has been excellent, and we want to push ahead with Japan, with Canada, with America, and with China—and because of this document, all those things are more likely. Where I think the right hon. Lady has a good point is that you cannot sign trade deals with other countries until you have determined the nature of your relationship with the EU from the outside. That would take at least two years, and then you have to think, how long does it take to sign trade deals? The Canada deal is now, I think, in its seventh year and is still not put in place, so I worry that this is a recipe for uncertainty and risk. Businesses literally would not know what the arrangements were for year after year, and British business, British jobs and our country would suffer as a result.

EU Council

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Once this negotiation is complete, people will have to ask the big question about whether Britain is better off inside or outside a reformed European Union. The question will also be about whether we will be safer and more prosperous. I believe that this renegotiation will make a difference on competitiveness, on sovereignty, on the euro and on the issue of migration. People will also be asking the bigger question about whole of the position of Britain in Europe, and what the Government and I are doing is making sure that the choice people face is not between the status quo and leaving altogether but between an important amendment to the status quo and leaving altogether. It is right that we get that right.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Before Christmas, I met 11 and 12-year-olds who were living in the “jungle” in Calais. They are of a similar age to my children and those of the Prime Minister, but they are alone and separated from their parents. They are vulnerable to exploitation and prostitution, as well as to the cold, to bronchitis and to scabies. The longer the Prime Minister looks at this proposal to help 3,000 children, the more of them will simply disappear. The proposal has cross-party support, and I urge him to agree today to work with Save the Children on a plan for Britain to help 3,000 unaccompanied children from across Europe. Just agree to the principle today!

Syria

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Thursday 26th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have great respect for my right hon. Friend, who thinks about these things very carefully. There are a lot of grounds of agreement between us: we agree on the dangers of ISIL; we agree that it needs to be crushed; we agree that that will need the involvement of ground forces; and we also agree that, as I put in my response to the Foreign Affairs Committee, we need an ISIL-first strategy—ISIL is the greater threat to the United Kingdom. I think the only areas of disagreement between us are on a technical point and a slightly more profound but not unbridgeable one. The technical point is that what I have said about 70,000 moderate forces in Syria is not my figure; it is the considered opinion of the Joint Intelligence Committee, a Committee that was set up and given independence to avoid any of the mistakes we had in the past of the potential misuse of intelligence and other information. This is its considered view; that document has been entirely cleared by the Committee, as has my statement.

The other issue we have to come to is that of course my right hon. Friend and I agree that in time the best ground troops should be the Syrian army, but my view is that that will be more likely to happen after a political transition has taken place in Syria. My contention is that the problem of believing it can be done with Assad is that we will never get the ceasefire and we will never get the participation of the Sunni majority in Syria while Assad is still there. I think the area of disagreement between us is narrowing, as is the area of disagreement between Britain, America and France, and the Russians; we all now see the need for there to be both a military and a political solution.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has made a strong moral and legal case for defeating what is a new totalitarianism in both Syria and Iraq, but the real question is, obviously, the practical one, and that is what the House will want to consider. May I therefore press him on the following issue? Given the different Russian objectives in Syria, how will he avoid giving support or appearing to give support to Assad forces and becoming dependent on them, and how will he avoid that giving succour to ISIL in its recruitment in the region?

[The Prime Minister]

That is the important issue. We have been very clear that our target is ISIL, not the regime. However, we will be helped, as I said in my statement, in our combating of ISIL if the Sunni majority in Syria continues to believe, rightly, that we think that Syria requires a transition away from Assad. Assad cannot, in the long term, run that country.

On Russian objectives, the gap between us has narrowed. Russia sees the danger of ISIL and is attacking them. We see the danger of ISIL and are attacking them. The difference is that Russia is still attacking the moderate Syrian forces that we believe, in time, could be part of a genuine transition in Syria that would have the support of all the Syrian people. We do have ways of deconflicting, and we are having discussions. I met President Putin at the G20. I think that the horrific attack on the Russian airliner flying from Sharm el-Sheikh will bring home to everyone in Russia again that this needs an ISIL-first strategy. That is where the greatest threat comes from and that is where we should focus.

National Security and Defence

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a considerable expert on this. What we have, particularly with our partnership with the French, is a plan for the next generation of fighter aircraft being unmanned combat systems. The research is there, the work is being done—with the French and Americans—and choices about that will have to be made, but I think it is too early to say whether the next generation of fighter aircraft will be manned or unmanned, which is why it is right we are developing the F-35 Lightning with the Americans and that we think seriously about whether to move to fully unmanned platforms in the future. Personally, as an amateur rather than a professional, I have my doubts.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has said that he will come back to the House on Thursday to respond to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Will he also ensure a full day’s debate in Government time on this issue, well before the Government table a motion on military intervention, so that we can have a full debate, not only on the day of a vote, but well in advance, and so that the House can give this proper consideration?

[The Prime Minister]

I will consider what the right hon. Lady says, but obviously we have a statement on Thursday, when I will be publishing our response to the Foreign Affairs Committee, and then, depending on the reaction of the House and the sense that right hon. and hon. Members have about whether we should move ahead with this, my intention would be to have a full day’s debate and a vote subsequent to that in the coming days and weeks. I think there is also a debate, I understand on Monday, in Back-Bench time for people who want to make further points about this issue, but I would put it like this. I do not think we are going to be under-spoken or under-considered before we take this step. We had the statement last week, we have had the statement today, which obviously has links to Syria, and we will have the statement on Thursday and then a debate in Government time, with plenty of time for people to air their views and then, I would hope, have a vote.

G20 and Paris Attacks

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support and for what he is saying. I very much welcome what he has said today. Yes, I can confirm our full diplomatic effort is towards bringing everyone together. Sitting around the table in Vienna are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Britain, France, America, Turkey and Russia. All the key players are there. On the legal basis for any action that we might take, I believe that we can answer that question comprehensively, as we have on other issues, and I am very happy to put that in front of the House, as part of my response to the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister will know that ISIL wants to exploit the refugee crisis and to poison Europe’s attitude towards those who are fleeing the very same barbarism that we saw, so tragically, on the streets of Paris. He has told me before that Britain is supporting proper registration in Greece. I am concerned that that is not happening. Will he look again urgently at what more Britain and Europe can do to support proper registration and border checks, not just in Greece but at internal borders throughout Europe, so that we can ensure that we provide the security and humanitarian aid that is desperately needed, and Britain and Europe can support both our security and our solidarity with desperate refugees?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Lady for what she says. She is right that, as the external border of Europe, Greece plays an absolutely vital role and that it is vital that the registration of migrants as they arrive takes place properly. My understanding is that we have given more, I think, than any other country in Europe to the European Asylum Support Office, EASO, so we are certainly putting in the resources, even though, effectively for us, Greece is not our external border; our external border is the border controls at Calais, because we are not part of Schengen. So we are doing what we can; we will continue to see whether more can be done, but she is right that making sure that people can be properly documented as they arrive will be a vital part of our security.

European Council

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The issue of ever-closer union is important both symbolically and legally. It is important symbolically because the British people always felt that we were told we were joining a common market, and were never really told enough about this political union, which we have never been happy with. I want to make it explicit that for us it is principally a common market and not an ever-closer union, but this concept does have legal force because ever-closer union has been used by the courts to enforce centralising judgments and I want that to change.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister will know that there are thousands arriving on Greek islands every day, many of whom are refugees from Syria. The humanitarian response they get when they arrive on Europe’s shores is still hopelessly inadequate. He has said that we should not help directly because we are not in Schengen, but he knows that it is not Schengen that has caused the crisis; this is a humanitarian crisis and we should all respond. May I urge him to rethink this? The programme he has announced for Syrian refugees direct from the camps is welcome, but it is still very slow—4,000 a year is not enough. In the short term, people are going to be coming whether or not Britain acts, so please will he be the Prime Minister who rethinks, show some leadership in Europe, not just outside Europe, and let us do our bit to help those who are arriving directly on Greece’s shores?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me repeat something I said earlier: taking action when people arrive in Greece and other European countries is something we can do, and that is why we are giving staff and expertise, including technical expertise, to help to make sure these people are properly processed. However, we have taken a decision—I think it is the right decision—to say that in terms of the refugees we take, we should be taking them from the camps, rather than from among those who have already arrived in Europe. That means that we can target the most vulnerable people. One of the reasons why it is taking time to identify and then get the right people is that we are often dealing with the most vulnerable people—those who have had the most difficult time in those camps—but I am confident that we are doing the right thing. That means we are also helping other European countries with people as they arrive.