Criminal Law

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Steve Rotheram

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is right. It is suggested that we could arrange separate extradition treaties, but in the past when we did that, they took too long and caused immense problems. In the case of Rachid Ramda, the Algerian national arrested in the UK in connection with a terrorist attack on the Paris transport system, France sought extradition from the UK in 1995. The process was completed in 2005. That was when the EAW was not in place.

[Steve Rotheram]

My right hon. Friend started by calling the proceedings in the House “shambolic”. Does she agree that the Home Secretary has got herself into a mess, but that equally the Prime Minister has got himself into a mess, because on 29 October he told the House that he would join Opposition Members in the Lobby on a specific vote on the EAW?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. The Prime Minister was asked specifically about the EAW, not the 11 measures on the Order Paper, and he could not have been clearer: he said there would be a vote before the Rochester by-election. That he and the Home Secretary think they can rip up promises made to the House shows that they are not taking this Parliament seriously.

Passport Applications

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Steve Rotheram

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The unfortunate thing is that the message on the Government’s websites and helplines still says that passports will be processed within three weeks. Families are making decisions on that basis: they think it will be done within three weeks and then it is not. It can be delayed by many weeks, and that is a huge problem, because they have made plans and invested in booking holidays.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that staff in places such as Liverpool passport office are doing their best with the backlog, and that this is a systemic failure on the part of the Government and not the fault of people who have been put in an intolerable position by staff cuts?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We understand that staff are working long hours, including weekends, but people are still not getting their passports in time.

Jobs and the Unemployed

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Steve Rotheram

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) should learn a few lessons from economic history. He should look at what happened not just in the 1980s, when there was not the same scale of world recession, but in the 1930s and at the orthodox views being put forward then by Bank of England Governors and senior politicians and the devastating consequences that they had. Keynes was led to write his general theory because of the deeply destructive approach that so many people in senior positions took and the consequences that devastated the lives of millions of people who were pushed into unemployment and poverty. Businesses were destroyed for many years as a result of that approach—the approach that the Conservatives seem to want to go back to.

I agree that borrowing needs to come down, and of course we need to ensure that the deficit comes down in a steady and sensible way as the economy recovers. However, by cutting an extra £40 billion for ideological reasons in a way that will hit jobs and the economy, the Conservatives are turning their back on the unemployed. Ministers need to tell us what they will do to help young people this summer. What are they going to do to reassure parents that their sons and daughters will not be stuck on the dole for more than a year? All that they promise is a Work programme sometime in the future, with incentives for private sector companies to help people find work but no guarantees to young people or anyone else that they will actually get work. There are no jobs for them to go to.

Ministers also want people to move house to help the labour market, but it is not clear where they want them to move to. The Secretary of State has said that he wants the unemployed to move to more affluent areas where there are more jobs. In fact, if they do not and they are out of work for a year, their housing benefit will be cut. At the same time, the Government are telling working people on housing benefit in affluent areas that they have to move to cheaper areas because their rents are too high. If they do not, their housing benefit will be cut, too. The Secretary of State is telling my constituents that if they do not move south to get a job he will cut their benefit, and his own constituents that if they do not move north to get a cheaper home he will cut their benefit too. Presumably they can wave at each other as they pass somewhere along the A1.

The Secretary of State wants people to give up cheaper housing to find work, but he also wants people to give up work to find cheaper housing. He is telling people to get on their bikes, but with no clue about where they are supposed to go. That is the same Secretary of State who said last year that he wanted to maintain community ties. He said:

“It is getting more and more difficult for parents in some poorer backgrounds…that extended family link is often severed by the fact that they can’t get living near their parents.”

Yet those are the very same community ties that the Government’s policies on employment and housing would rip up right now. They are cutting help for people to get jobs and cutting their benefits too.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government’s contention appears to be that the future jobs fund is simply training without a job guarantee? Is that not just snobbery, as they do not put forward the same argument—nor should they—that people accessing degrees should have a guaranteed job outcome? Quite simply, is it not true that the Tories have never believed in parity of esteem between vocational and academic training routes and still believe that unemployment is a price worth paying?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. I know that his constituency was hit very badly in the 1980s as a result of the decisions that previous Conservative Governments took, and that that is why he feels so strongly that we should not take those decisions again. We have to do everything possible to help people back into work.

The Guardian has even reported that Ministers want jobcentres to give out charities’ food vouchers, so now they are turning the clock back not just to the 1980s but to the 1930s. It is looking less like welfare to work and more like welfare to the workhouse.