Speeches by Cooper.

“My hon. Friend is right. If we go back just six years, there were barely any boat crossings. This criminal infrastructure was not in place along our borders, but we have seen it take hold, and be allowed to take hold, for several years and to build and grow. Those gangs are getting away with undermining our border secu…”

“If anyone had believed that flights were going to go off to Rwanda this summer, the Conservatives would not have called the general election when they did. They would have hung on hoping that it might happen. However, we saw just the same thing time and again: they kept promising and kept saying it was going to happen,…”

“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on net migration, asylum and border security, and on the collapse in controls that took place over the last five years, the damage done as a result, and the action we are now taking to turn that around. Last Thursday’s official statistics show how over the …”

“We have been working with other European countries. We have a new agreement in place with Italy to go after the illicit finance that underpins many of the criminal gangs. The work that Prime Minister Meloni has done already has helped to significantly reduce Mediterranean crossings. We are working with Italy, and we th…”

“My hon. Friend is right. It was a total, shocking waste of money to send just four volunteers—and the Government had 1,000 people working on the Rwanda scheme. That was 1,000 people who could have been working on enforcement, returns or clearing the backlog, or taking action to pursue the criminal gangs. Instead, they …”

“My hon. Friend makes an important point. I thank the Kurdish Regional Government for their hospitality and welcome, and the Iraqi Government for their welcome and support for my visit last week. We had important and serious discussions with both the regional authorities and the Iraqi Government on a range of issues suc…”

“Enforced returns for those with no right to be here were up 19% this summer, and voluntary returns are up 14%. We think that those should increase. On the overall immigration system, we will be setting out in a White Paper new proposals to better link the Migration Advisory Committee, the skills bodies across the UK an…”

“The agreement that we reached and signed with the Iraqi Government explicitly commits to support for international law, international humanitarian law and human rights, and this was one of the issues that we discussed as part of the meetings. The hon. Gentleman will also know that every decision in the asylum system is…”

“We think that using asylum hotels is the wrong way to respond to the system that we have, which is why the increase in the backlog as a result of the previous Conservative Government’s collapse in decision making has been so damaging. That is why we now have additional caseworkers in place and asylum decisions back at …”

“No, I do not think that is the right thing to do. We need to clear the backlog, speed up decision making and ensure that those who do not have the right to be here are swiftly returned. Where we have had people arrive from Ukraine or Hong Kong, we want to see them working, being part of the economy and being able to su…”

“Some of the work that we are doing with different countries is about speeding up existing returns arrangements, which sometimes do not work effectively enough. Sometimes it is about relatively practical improvements to existing arrangements that take far too long or have too many hurdles. We are already doing that, whi…”

“Conservative Ministers made policy decisions that they asked Home Office officials to implement. Fundamentally, the Conservative Government need to take responsibility for policy decisions that they made in 2021, which led to a big increase in migration for work, for example, and a big increase in the net migration num…”

“The last Government had 14 years—or at least four years, since the EU settlement scheme was introduced—to deal with some of these issues. We take very seriously the need to speed up and improve enforcement of returns for those who have no right to be here. The immigration system and the asylum system can only work and …”

“As the hon. Member will know, we strongly support Ukraine, given what it has had to endure and go through. We continue to condemn the Putin Government for the things that they have done and the impact that they are having on Ukraine, and we will continue to support Ukraine in every way possible.”

“We have been very clear about the importance of working with other countries, both on tackling gangs and on addressing some of the wider issues that we face. We have always said that we will look at anything that works, and we will look at practical measures. We have recognised that different approaches are being taken…”

“I completely agree. Spending £700 million just to send back four volunteers was the most astonishing, shocking waste of money. My hon. Friend is right. The criminal gangs operate across borders, but law enforcement across borders is far too weak. It has been far too much a case of each country looking inwards rather th…”

“One of the things we are doing is cracking down on illegal working and the exploitation by employers of people coming to the UK who are often not here lawfully and as a result are being exploited by employers. That has been too easy for employers to do for far too long. That is why we saw an increase of more than 30% i…”

“My hon. Friend is certainly right that the £700 million for four people is absolutely not good value for money at all. We will always make sure that we are looking for good value for money, as well as getting results.”

“We are determined to clear the backlog so that we can end asylum hotels. In 2019, there were no asylum hotels, so it was the previous Government who increased and opened about 400 of them. There are still around 220 asylum hotels in place. We have had to deal with the shocking crashing of the asylum system. Just before…”

“One of the reasons we are talking to the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan regional authorities about biometrics and supporting biometric roll-outs is that they make it easier to prevent people delaying either asylum claims being resolved or returns being agreed by not having papers. Where there are biometrics in plac…”