25
Examination of witnesses
Yvette Cooper, Richard Clarke and Simon Ridley.
Q1 The Chair: Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this session of the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee. We are absolutely delighted that we have the Home Secretary with us today. Just before we begin, Home Secretary, will you be kind enough both to introduce yourself and the officials who have joined you?
Yvette Cooper: Thank you very much for having me, Lord Foster, and thank you to all of the committee. I appreciate your time this afternoon. I have with me Simon Ridley, who is the Second Permanent Secretary in the Home Office, and Richard Clarke, who is the director for the Safer Streets as well, so we can cover the wide range of issues that you want.
The Chair: It is certainly our intention to cover a wide range of issues. If we can just start off, we have recently seen your department has been told it has got to find a 1.7% cut per annum in future years. You have talked about making 5% savings and so on. There is also a concern, given the Government’s recent decisions in relation to U-turns over benefits, that further cuts might have to be made. How are you going to deal with the cuts in the department?
Yvette Cooper: Obviously, there are always challenging decisions around budget allocations, and those apply right across government departments to ensure that you get value for money. In the Home Office, we have set clear priorities around national security as part of the foundation for the plan for change, as part of Safer Streets, which is a mission for the Government, and also around border security and restoring order to the asylum and immigration systems. We have a series of areas that we are prioritising.
In terms of the overall funding issues, of course, we are unusual in the fact that we want to make very substantial savings from asylum accommodation. Under the previous Government, there was a big increase—a multi-billion-pound increase—in the funding being spent on, particularly, asylum hotels, but asylum accommodation more widely as a result of the disorder in the asylum system. As part of our programme, to ensure that we can make savings, we will be making sure that we are delivering on our commitments to end asylum hotel use over the course of the Parliament, and to make sure that we are making savings on asylum accommodation.
The Chair: That is helpful, and we will be returning to that specific point in some detail a little later on. In the meantime, we have obviously done our research and we have been looking at what other people say about the Home Office. We have heard concerns about record keeping, data management, lack of institutional memory, the inability to do horizon scanning, and a lack of co-ordination between different parts of the Home Office. Only this month we have had, for instance, the PAC report, which has been looking at the management of skilled worker visa routes and that report talks of a lack of risk assessment, poor understanding of whether visa holders actually leave when their visa comes to an end, poor communication with customers, a lack of having any real ambition for customer satisfaction, out-of-date IT systems—I could go on. Those are all the comments about your department. You have been not only—for a while now—the Home Secretary, but prior to that, you were the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee. In light of your previous experience and now in the role, do you think that the Home Office is fit for purpose?
Yvette Cooper: We obviously inherited a Home Office, just a year ago, where a whole series of really chaotic decisions had been taken. The immigration system is a very good example, where net migration quadrupled in the space of four years. There was a lack of any proper grip on the immigration system, where we obviously had the serious problem around criminal gangs able to take hold along the channel in terms of the organised immigration crime, as well as a detachment from policing and crime, which allowed a situation where neighbourhood policing had been decimated over many years. A lot of those things were policy decisions made by the previous Government, but policy decisions that then had implications for a sense of a lack of grip.
The work that we have been doing since the election has been working to turn a lot of those things around. The immigration White Paper, for example, addresses a lot of the things you have just raised as part of the PAC report. I agree with a lot of the conclusions of the PAC report. They were about the long-term history around the immigration system, such as a lack of proper data on entry and exit. The immigration White Paper set out not only much stronger measures to bring in new controls around skilled worker visas, for example—new controls around the immigration system that, frankly, had previously allowed this big increase in a very short period of time. We introduced not only those controls, but also a programme to roll out, effectively, a digitalisation of the borders. The introduction of eVisas and a new approach to entry and exit checks allow us to have a much more data-driven analysis of who is entering the country, who is exiting the country, who has overstayed their visa, and therefore what enforcement action is needed.
The immigration White Paper does respond to a lot of those things in the PAC report. Of course there is a lot more to do, and there are lots of different areas in which we can discuss what further action is needed.
The Chair: Thank you. Unfortunately, time does not permit us to go into all of those issues in detail, although there are many I would love to pick up with you, but if we move specifically to the immigration White Paper and some of the comments you have made, I will hand over to Lord Dubs.
Q2 Lord Dubs: Home Secretary, we have been looking hard at the immigration White Paper, and in paragraph 152, you say you will “ensure that Parliament sets the boundaries” for the reform of Article 8 “within our international obligations”. Why have you decided that individuals no longer need the protection of Article 8? Have you discussed the impact of the proposed reforms with the EU and its implications for UK-EU co-operation via part 3 of the trade and co-operation agreement?
Yvette Cooper: We continue to abide by international law. The issue around the family routes to the UK is that we have a situation at the moment where, although there is a framework set out by Parliament through the Immigration Rules and so on, for family routes to the UK, it has become very complex over an extended period of time and, increasingly, a very high proportion of cases are being decided as exceptions outside the rules, rather than according to the rules, and effectively being decided through different court interpretations around Article 8, rather than us having a proper effectively parliamentary debate about how Article 8 should be interpreted. As you know, Article 8 around family life is also a qualified balancing right. It means that you need to take account of other issues—for example, the rights and responsibilities of Governments and countries to control borders, manage public finances, manage national security, all of those sorts of issues as well.
What we think we need is a much clearer, better framework determined by Parliament that sets out how Article 8 should be interpreted in the courts in order to deal with some of the individual cases where there is real concern about perverse conclusions. We need to set out proposals for that later on this year and obviously consult on them as well in order to ensure that this is done properly. To carry on with a situation where increasingly high numbers of cases are being decided as exceptions to the rules, rather than according to the rules, suggests that we have got the balance of the system in the wrong direction.
The Chair: Can I just ask you for greater clarity here? If you are saying that Parliament is going to be involved in a discussion about the interpretation of Article 8, that will then presumably lead to a statement about how Article 8 is to be interpreted. What is the process of ensuring that the EU is comfortable with that interpretation before it is accepted? You made the commitment back in May, with the EU, about the ECHR.
Yvette Cooper: Well, obviously the ECHR is separate from the EU and other European countries are also signed up to international law, to the convention and so on. Other European countries are also having exactly the same debates about the way in which different aspects of international law should be interpreted within their own systems. We already have legislation—for example, the 2014 Act—that sets out the way in which different aspects of international law should be interpreted. But actually, that goes back to 2014; that is 11 years ago now, and a lot has changed since then. We should be able to refresh those debates and make sure that we have a new, clear framework for how we think some of these balancing rights should be interpreted.
Q3 Baroness Prashar: My question is about indefinite leave to remain. As you know, the qualifying period is to be increased from five to 10 years. You have said that, for people already in the UK, you will publish transitional arrangements after consultation has taken place. For those already close to the five-year period, this has caused uncertainty, so it would be useful to know when they will know and how this will work with the points-based system.
The press release that was issued by Downing Street said: “Under a new framework to be rolled out high-skilled, high-contributing individuals who play by the rules and contribute to the economy and society would be fast-tracked, such as nurses” and so on. I think this has caused confusion, so it would be helpful to get clarity on how it will work in practice.
Yvette Cooper: Again, this is an area where we need to set out detailed proposals for consultation. In the immigration White Paper, we set out the concept—the approach that we want to take—which is that settlement and citizenship should be earned. It should reflect a sense of contribution to the country. Therefore, while the standard period to be able to apply for settlement would be 10 years, if there is a contribution to the country, that could be reduced. We need to set out the detail of how that will work.
You are right that that means that we also need to ensure that there are transition arrangements in place for those who are currently here, working and contributing to the UK. At the same time, we can reassure people that obviously everybody can continue to reapply and have their visas renewed and that this will take time to implement. This is not something that will be introduced tomorrow; it needs proper consultation on the detail, including on the transition arrangements.
I completely recognise your questions and concerns, but part of the reason that we have said in the White Paper that we need to set out more detail is in order to make sure that we consult and get the details right.
Baroness Prashar: Is there a timescale for that? Could you unpack for me the concept of earned settlement and earned citizenship? How do you communicate the difference to ordinary mortals who are waiting for decisions?
Yvette Cooper: That is what we need to do as part of the consultation. We need to set out those details in the consultation later this year. It will be this year, rather than next year. Factors to take into account include the contribution to working in this country—working for the National Health Service, for example—paying taxes in this country and obviously abiding by the law. It is extremely important that we take seriously that those who come to the UK and want to make the UK their home need to respect the rules and laws of this country. We need to make sure that that is taken into account as well.
Baroness Prashar: I understand the rationale for why you are trying to do this, but the concern that I am trying to get across to you is that those who are nearing that five-year period want some clarity. If the consultation takes place within this year, what happens to those people in between now and when the consultation is completed?
Yvette Cooper: The existing rules apply. We are not changing the rules in advance of any consultation. We will put out detailed proposals. We will then have a consultation period, there will be an implementation timetable and there will be transitional arrangements. For anyone who is currently in this situation, the normal, current, existing rules apply, which we inherited and that have been in place for many years.
The Chair: I am sorry, but I have received letters—as, I am sure, have many parliamentarians in both the Lords and the Commons—from people who are particularly concerned about this five-year to 10-year change that is taking place. They are not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with it, but they are asking where they stand. What I have heard from you is that you will consult; there will then be a transitional arrangement, then something will happen. I have not heard any indication at all of when the consultation is even going to begin. I mean, is the consultation paper prepared?
Yvette Cooper: The consultation will begin before the end of this year.
The Chair: That is potentially not until December 2025.
Yvette Cooper: We will set out the timetable in due course. As you know from your experience of consecutive Governments, it is an unwise Minister who gives a precise month for documents to be published. The Whitehall definition of seasons of the year is often rather different from how other people define the seasons of the year. I am giving you the assurance that we will publish it in the course of this year. We will do so as soon as we possibly can and certainly before the end of the year.
Baroness Prashar: You are also saying that the current rules will continue to apply.
Yvette Cooper: The current rules will continue to apply until there is a formal change. We need to go through a proper consultation on this. At the end of the consultation, we will set out the implementation timetable including transitional arrangements. The reality is that anybody who is coming to the end of their current five-year visa period under the settlement rules will be covered by existing rules.
Baroness Prashar: I have one other question. The White Paper also commits to refresh the test on life in the UK and how it operates. What is the timetable for that process and what is the purpose of it? Will the emphasis shift from contributing to society and so on? What is the rationale for that and in which direction are you intending to move?
Yvette Cooper: It has been in place for a long time. Therefore, it feels appropriate and timely to refresh that as part of an approach to earned citizenship and settlement. To have a discussion about earned settlement and contributions without taking the existing tests into account would look a little disjointed, so we will do it as part of the same process.
Baroness Prashar: Do you want to shift the questions in a particular direction?
Yvette Cooper: Again, we will set that out as part of the process. I completely understand: we have recently published an immigration White Paper, which sets out a further series of additional steps. You are asking me questions about in between, after we published the White Paper that sets out the overall framework, including some areas where we have moved very rapidly to make changes. For example, the most recent Immigration Rules have brought in changes to the skilled worker visa threshold on skills and the healthcare visa. There are some areas where we have moved very swiftly on implementation; there are others where we have recognised that we need much further consultation and consideration before those changes can be introduced. That will take time to set out.
Baroness Prashar: Given the uncertainty, do you think there is a need for better communication of the transitional arrangements and what happens between now and until such time as the consultation takes place?
Yvette Cooper: The current rules continue to apply.
Baroness Prashar: But that needs to be communicated.
Yvette Cooper: You will find that on the Home Office website and in the details that are provided by the Home Office. We will set out the next stage in due course.
The Chair: Just before we move on, what is your own view of the current Life in the UK Test?
Yvette Cooper: Much as you might tempt me to set out the detail that we might put in our document before we do so, I will resist that, Lord Foster.
The Chair: You must have a view because, if you have decided that you are going to review it, you are presumably not entirely happy with it.
Yvette Cooper: It has been in place for a long time, and it is appropriate for us to review and refresh it as part of the approach to earned citizenship. We will do that in due course.
The Chair: Just off the top of your head, from looking around the entirety of the people currently in this room, what percentage do you think would pass it?
Yvette Cooper: You are asking me to judge the members of the committee, which would be very unwise for me to do. It has been in place for a long time, I do not think it is up to date and it should be looked at as part of the earned citizenship approach.
Q4 Lord Dubs: Home Secretary, what are your proposals for the future of family reunion for refugees, especially children abroad who want to join family in this country?
Yvette Cooper: This is obviously something that you and I have worked on in the past, over very many years. We think that the overall family framework needs to change and to be looked at again. That refers back to the point that you asked me earlier about Article 8.
Changes are being made in other European countries at the moment around family refugee reunion taking place in different countries, which we also need to take into account. I will happily write to the committee on this issue. This is another of the areas that we flagged in the immigration White Paper that we will take forward later this year, as part of the wider consultation reforms.
We have been looking at some areas where there will be more rapid changes. We have been doing some work looking particularly at children reuniting with family—for example, we have had unaccompanied children in the UK who have reunited with family elsewhere—and at what that framework might be. We no longer have the Dublin arrangements in place, but there has been work done on the most effective ways to make sure that the best interests of the child are supported.
Q5 Lord Filkin: Clearly, closer co-operation on border security is essential, between the UK, EU and France in particular. What are your ambitions for closer co-operation? Could you refer to the “one in, one out” scheme and more widely?
Yvette Cooper: For the last 12 months, we have been working quite intensively with other European countries and more widely, on a series of areas to increase and strengthen co-operation—particularly on irregular migration, illegal migration and organised immigration crime. We held the first border security summit in the UK a few months ago, which brought together people from all around the world to look at the way in which organised immigration crime effectively spreads its tentacles across borders; but, because the gangs operate across borders, we need Governments and law enforcement to co-operate across borders as well. For too long that has not happened.
Some examples of things that we have done already are to have strengthened co-operation with the Calais group of France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK, with a series of meetings there. We have a new agreement in place with Germany, which includes the commitment by the German Government to change the law around the facilitation of organised immigration crime—in effect, allowing law enforcement to take action on the warehouses where we know boats are being stored in Germany and where gangs have been exploiting that loophole in the system.
We have also been working closely with Iraq and with the Kurdistan Regional Government, including in drawing up new agreements between them, the UK and France. We know that a lot of the gangs that are operating in northern France are Iraqi-Kurdish gangs that have stretched their networks right back to the hills of Kurdistan, and we are increasing the National Crime Agency operations in Erbil, Kurdistan, and in Baghdad. We are strengthening that operation across the board.
Specifically on France, we have been looking at the maritime arrangements in particular. We have seen the gangs take advantage of the fact that the current French rules prevent French law enforcement from intervening in French waters. The French Interior Minister and I both agree that those rules need to change, which is why he has instigated this maritime review and is looking at changing tactics and operations as a result. We want to see that come into place as rapidly as possible to prevent boat crossings in the first place.
Lord Filkin: That was quite a bit on process and on what has been done, which was very interesting, and clearly the last point has been well covered in the media, at present. Could you focus more on the question? What do you hope will be done in the future? Can you tell us about the “one in, one out” ambition and more widely than that? It is a question about your ambitions for the future, rather than a record of the past.
Yvette Cooper: The issues around the maritime review are about changing the rules in the future. That is immensely important and is something that the French Government are looking at, at the moment.
The next area that we are working to strengthen is increased joint law enforcement operations. We have started to share far more intelligence on some of the organised immigration crime gang networks not just with France but with Belgium and Germany. We are accelerating that co-operation, and we want to strengthen that co-ordination and the work with Europol and the Europol task forces in order to go after those gangs.
On the issues around returns, we have again been looking very widely over a long time around how we increase returns—for example, to places like Iraq—how we look at some of the work that European countries have been doing around returns hubs, how we look at different issues now that we have lost the Dublin agreements that we used to have and what kinds of additional returns we could do as part of that process. That work is still under way.
So I understand the questions that you would like to pursue, but they may have to wait while our additional work is under way on how we will strengthen those returns and that law enforcement co-operation.
Lord Filkin: I will turn to a slightly different topic.
Q6 The Chair: Before you do, Lord Filkin, we are hearing a lot about things that are going to happen and things that you, Home Secretary, are planning to do. But in your thinking about these things—for instance on returns and one for one—will your negotiations predominantly be with France or will you widen them to the other countries that will clearly be affected? People return to France, then return to the other European countries where they first came in. Is that all in this work that is going to be done?
Yvette Cooper: With respect, Lord Foster, I think that Lord Filkin just said, “That’s all very well, but don’t tell me about the things that you have done; tell me about the things that you are going to do”. I think you just asked me a question by saying, “Hang on: you can’t tell me about the things that you are going to do; tell me about the things that you have done”. I am very happy to try to answer both sides of the same coin.
The Chair: That is a very fair criticism, but I would still like an answer.
Yvette Cooper: We have a lot of work under way with France. We will set out the conclusions of different pieces of work as we work our way through them. We have been looking particularly at maritime and law enforcement issues and, as the French Interior Minister said some months ago, we are looking at different returns arrangements.
The approach that we are taking on this is to go after any different way that we can to prevent these dangerous small boat crossings, which undermine our border security and put lives at risk. You see these incredibly overcrowded boats: children get put into the middle of the boat and children have been crushed to death on these boats. We need to look at every different approach to this, including strengthening the law in the UK on endangerment, so that we can go after people for these overcrowded boats; through to the new counterterror powers, so that we can investigate; through to new law enforcement co-operation; through to different kinds of returns arrangements. Bear in mind that we have increased the returns of failed asylum seekers by nearly 30% since the election. We need to look at the whole range of things to prevent small boat crossings and to restore order and control to the system.
The Chair: Lord Filkin, I interrupted; I apologise.
Q7 Lord Filkin: Thank you, and I am grateful for the Home Secretary’s help in trying to chair the Chair, Chair. Home Secretary, I turn to a more positive or optimistic topic—the youth experience scheme. I think many people welcome this; it is clearly not the full Erasmus, but at least it is a step in the right direction. When do you hope it will go live?
Yvette Cooper: There is a lot more work to be done on developing and negotiating this between the UK and the EU. What was set out in the reset agreement was around having a balanced scheme, which would be effectively time limited and capped and have similar numbers of people travelling in both directions. That work still needs to be taken forward because it needs to be taken forward together by the UK and the EU. The reset agreement also referred to issues around the channel crossings. We are taking forward some of that work at a faster pace because some of those security issues are particularly important.
Lord Filkin: So hopefully by 2026.
Yvette Cooper: I cannot set out the timescale at this stage. It is work that we will take forward with the EU.
Lord Filkin: That sounds disappointing—it might be 2027, by the sound of it.
Yvette Cooper: I cannot set out the timetable at this stage, but I am sure that we will provide regular updates to not just the committee but Parliament more widely.
Lord Filkin: Without being trivial, there seemed to be quite a large distance between the UK position and that of France and the EU. Are you optimistic that you will close those differences?
Yvette Cooper: The approach set out in the agreement was that this will be agreed by all sides. We have different immigration arrangements. We are outside free movement and we are staying outside free movement. France, Germany and other European countries have a system of free movement. So of course there are differences in the ways that we approach our immigration systems and there will continue to be so, but the agreement as part of the reset was that the new arrangements would be drawn up to the satisfaction of all sides.
Lord Filkin: I do not want to press you too far, but we are aware that the world has changed radically in the last couple of years—the scale of global security threats and the threats of invasion in Europe, let alone our economic risks of absolutely flat productivity growth. We know that it is essential that we get closer to Europe, whether on security or the economy. It sounds as though the machine is still fighting over the detail and the small-picture stuff without really seizing that we just have to get closer faster and be better at compromising on both sides. Is that a fair statement?
Yvette Cooper: No. I think we are all looking forward today to President Macron’s state visit and his address here in Parliament. That is a sign of the very close co-operation between the UK and France. Certainly, the French Interior Minister is the Minister I have worked with most closely over the last 12 months. On the economic side, having better trade agreements sorted with the EU has been hugely important for the UK. It is also about how we strengthen those trading relationships.
The big picture that we have seen over the last 12 months is one of strengthening the UK’s role more widely on the international stage. The three trade agreements are in place and there is much closer partnership with other countries and working with them more widely—and yes, particularly with our nearest neighbours, where that strengthens our economy and means that we can deal with shared challenges around crime, irregular migration and a series of other areas. There are the smaller issues focused on individual policies, some of which will move at different paces to others, but, in terms of the big picture, the work the Prime Minister has been doing on international relations has been incredibly important and really strengthened the UK’s role.
Lord Filkin: Finally, the implementation of the EU’s Entry / Exit System and ETIAS is great in theory, but it has considerable potential to go wrong and cause quite a lot of distress to UK citizens. I am sure you are well sighted of these risks. What will you do as Home Secretary to try to mitigate them?
Yvette Cooper: There is a lot of work under way on trying to phase the implementation of some of the EU entry and exit systems to make sure that they are workable. Seema Malhotra, a Minister in the Home Office, has been leading some of the detailed work around the agreement that we have secured from the Commission and France for the Port of Dover to open a new coach facility at the Western Docks—some of those really practical issues that we need to address to be able to manage border checks away from some of the existing facilities. We have had further agreement on piloting registering car passengers in different ways. There is a lot of quite detailed work under way which I am very happy to write to you about, or I can ask Seema Malhotra to write to you about the detail.
Alongside that work trying to ensure that the entry and exit system is phased in a way that is workable, as part of the UK-EU reset, the support for eGates will smooth passenger journeys into and out of the EU from the UK. Alongside that, we are strengthening the digitalisation of our own border for people coming into the UK—not just the eGate system but ETA and other e-visa arrangements.
Lord Filkin: Clearly, in the light of that, you are optimistic that it will go well.
Yvette Cooper: There are always challenges in major systems; we continue to work to make sure that they are in place and to keep negotiating with other European countries on them.
Q8 The Chair: I am sure you are aware that this committee has looked at the EES, ETIAS and ETA on a number of occasions, and has obviously been disappointed by all sorts of delays. There is contained in what has now been agreed—the phased introduction by the Schengen countries—an agreement which says that, at times of severe congestion, they can pause it anyway to ease that congestion. My simple question is this: who makes the decision to pause and what ability does the UK have in those juxtaposed border posts to make the decision to close the EES, or will we not have it?
Yvette Cooper: The EES is a Schengen system—it is not our system. In practice, though, the French Government will not want a situation to build up where there are queues, for example, to Dover or Calais. As we know, the nature of the roll-on roll-off journey is that difficulties on one side of the channel can very rapidly escalate to difficulties on both sides. We will need that to work effectively across countries. We are continuing engagement with the European Commission and the French Government to understand their plans. Clearly, if this is about arrivals at an airport in Spain or Germany and so on, those will be decisions for those countries, but you are right that the arrangements for us are around how the juxtaposed controls are applied in practice. We continue to work with the European Commission and the French Government on how that needs to work in practice.
Simon Ridley: The Home Secretary has set it out. We have very close working relationships with the French Ministry of the Interior on this. We are doing that with the Department for Transport on this side to make sure that we have the administrative arrangements in place that we need. We are focused very much on the juxtaposed controls.
The Chair: We should bear in mind that, as is very often the case with transport, going through the juxtaposed borders from the UK to the EU, we have much more information about the build-up of traffic and the potential for delay than about the actual delay. Therefore, it is really important that we have a major say in the decision. I accept entirely, as the Home Secretary says, that this is a decision for the EU, in particular for French staff operating at the juxtaposed borders, but having more say in making decisions at peak times and times of potential chaos would be very helpful. Since we have the French President with us today, surely it is a good opportunity to chat about it.
Yvette Cooper: I do not think they disagree with us on this one. This is an area on which we have a strong shared interest.
The Chair: We look forward to hearing more about it in answers to parliamentary questions in our House tomorrow.
Q9 Baroness Hughes of Stretford: I want to focus on the Border Security Command and Border Force and get your views on whether they have the capacity and capability to meet the Government’s aims for migration. A review and evidence to this committee over the last three years have identified significant problems in Border Force with recruitment and retention, very high turnover of staff and problems with training. Have those issues been addressed? Is it up to a full complement of staff now? What is the situation with capacity and capability for Border Force?
Yvette Cooper: I will update you on the Border Security Command and then ask Simon to add more detail on the latest recruitment for Border Force. The Border Security Command was set up with really the same concept as the office of security and counterterrorism back under the last Labour Government—to be an overarching command that brings together all the different organisations and agencies, in the same way that we countered terrorism 20 years ago with the office of security and counterterrorism, and take the same approach to border security now. That includes Border Force, the National Crime Agency, police forces and so on.
The Border Security Command currently has over 200 people as part of its co-ordinating function, but obviously draws on the specialist investigators in the National Crime Agency, which we are increasing and recruiting, and the intelligence officers who work as part of Border Force as well. That is how that is operating. The Chancellor has announced an additional £280 million for the Border Security Command by 2028-29. That will increase year on year. We are already looking at increasing recruitment this year for both the Border Security Command and the National Crime Agency.
Border Force has to deal with security issues at our borders as well as the rapid facilitation at our borders of everybody going on holiday, coming home and coming here as tourists and so on. We are doing a shift towards digital borders in a lot of those areas, which means that we can better use Border Force staff for intelligence-led and evidence-based issues around security.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford: I want to pick up on those issues of security in a minute. Simon, could you deal with recruitment, retention, whether there is a full complement of staff and current turnover?
Simon Ridley: In short, there is a full complement of staff in Border Force at the moment. Over the course of recent years, we have grown it considerably.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford: Is it about 10,000 now?
Simon Ridley: Yes, there are nearer 11,000 at the moment. Some of that growth has been driven by the growth of the small boats operational command, which is organisationally part of Border Force. It essentially did not exist about three years ago and has grown to around 600 people. There is also growth in other parts of Border Force.
That recruitment has gone well. We have recruited from a range of different backgrounds, including taking on quite a large number of apprentices across Border Force, as well as people from other roles in the Home Office, wider Government and beyond. As with any big front-line operation, a lot of Border Force workers shift work and there is some churn as people’s lifestyles change and that sort of thing. But, actually, it is nothing particularly out of the ordinary. We have maintained that complement. I am afraid I do not have with me the precise turnover, but we can certainly provide that to the committee.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford: Could you let me know? Are you assured that you are not losing a lot of people early on and therefore have a fairly high proportion of inexperienced people who are staying a short time?
Simon Ridley: I am assured about that. The current director-general of Border Force has been in his role for three years and we have a very experienced set of directors and deputy directors beneath him.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford: And the training?
Simon Ridley: A wide range of training takes place across Border Force, both when people join and throughout. As well as training on operations, we do regular training on health and safety and such things. For teams doing goods searches in the backs of lorries, for example, we carry out particular training on a regular basis. There is a team at the centre of Border Force that maintains that and makes sure that we are doing what we need to do.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford: Home Secretary, you mentioned increasingly using technology to help with the security aspects of Border Force’s work. What is the focus on preparing Border Force staff—in other words, training them to use those digital technologies effectively? Secondly, while there are obvious benefits, it has been put to us in evidence that there is a potential danger, as automation and pre-clearance of arrivals in particular increases through this digital technology focus, of losing the ability of officers on the ground to use their intelligence to intervene when they are suspicious of people arriving. Do you have any concerns about maintaining the right balance on that?
Yvette Cooper: You are right that we are effectively training people almost to play different roles. If some of the routine checks can be done by eGates or by having ETAs and e-visas, so you can do a lot of those security checks upstream and effectively push some of the border security checks further outwards, that means you can deploy trained officers more effectively to spot problems. Those might be safeguarding issues around children, issues around trafficking or issues around stronger customs searches, for example, or identifying where there seems to be a problem or problematic behaviour at the border.
It is about how you best use the technology to make it possible to do the intelligence-based, evidence-based checks. Yes, it means training, because you are slightly shifting the roles that people play, but the advantage of the digitalised approach is that we can also track when people are leaving the country, or whether they have not left the country when they were due to and are therefore overstaying their visas. It allows us to do better and more targeted immigration enforcement action as well.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford: You have touched on ETAs; could you help us understand how the department is assessing the effectiveness of the ETA system? In particular, it has been put to us that the rate of refusal for people applying for an ETA is very small and there is a suggestion that the scrutiny in reviewing ETA applicants was not sufficiently rigorous, which is part of the reason for the very low refusal rate.
Yvette Cooper: Obviously, ETAs are for countries that have traditionally been non-visa countries—countries with which we have had trusted relationships and there have not traditionally been problems in the immigration system. A lot of this is about people coming as tourists, in the way that we want people to be able to do. You would not expect it to operate in the same way or have the same kinds of refusal rates as people who want to come for long-term family reunion or long-term visas in a different way.
Our understanding is that other countries—for example, New Zealand or the USA—have similar levels of refusals. We will keep monitoring this. Wherever we have any abuse of the system, we will be ready to take action as well.
Just as an example of this, we have made some visa changes for Colombia, Jordan and Trinidad and Tobago over the last nine months, and these have been areas where different changes to the visa regime had meant we were suddenly getting a big increase in asylum applications, even though nothing particular in those countries had changed. We tightened the rules for each of those countries to prevent misuse of the asylum system. We will continue to monitor anywhere we have any kinds of challenge or problem.
The Chair: When this committee looked at arrangements for ETA and its phased rollout, we were particularly concerned that information about it did not seem to be available in anything other than English. We recommended that there be publication in a range of other languages. Has that happened?
Simon Ridley: I would need to check and come back to the committee to be sure, but we have granted about 5.5 million ETAs, and there is no indication that people are struggling to apply. I would think it has, but I cannot be certain. We will confirm for the committee.
The Chair: We look forward to hearing about that.
Q10 Lord Henley: Home Secretary, thank you very much. The Government have made clear that they want to end the use of asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament. That is a very specific time, rather than one that can be subject to seasonal interpretation.
We recently saw David Bolt, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, and he expressed some doubts as to whether the department would be able to achieve that. He said, “Frankly, I do not think that it will be achieved”, and “There is simply not sufficient housing stock to be able to deal with the sorts of numbers that are in the system”. Are you confident that it can be achieved, and how will you go about achieving it?
Yvette Cooper: We are determined to do this. The asylum hotels are completely inappropriate and incredibly expensive. They also reflect that the backlog in the system is just far too high. We should not have this many people in supported asylum accommodation or in the asylum system for so long in the first place.
There are a series of things that we are doing. The most important thing is to clear the backlog. The situation we inherited last July was chaotic because, as a result of the Illegal Migration Act, the previous Government had effectively halted asylum appointments and decision-making. In the final three months in the run-up to the general election, there were plummeting numbers of asylum decisions and appointments being made: there was a 70% to 80% reduction in the decision-making.
That meant we inherited a rising backlog, and we have had to deal with that. We have had to substantially increase the initial decision-making. The last quarter was the second highest three-month period for decision-making since 2002 and was more than double the rate of initial decision-making that we had in the first three months before the election. That was the first stage: to hugely speed up the initial decision-making and take a lot more decisions to start clearing that backlog.
Secondly, we will need to reform the appeals system. The border security Bill coming through Parliament at the moment includes the new statutory 24-week timetable for supported appeals. The Ministry of Justice is expanding capacity in the asylum appeal system. We are looking at ways to go further on that, because the appeals backlog is now increasing because that system was not fit for purpose.
The next area we are looking at is tighter management of the contracts. We have removed Stay Belvedere from the asylum contract supply chain. We are also looking at working with local authorities on more appropriate accommodation as well and on different ways to be able to do that. Fundamentally, we have got to get the overall numbers in the system down.
The final thing we are looking at is stronger checks on asylum applications in the first place. There has been a big increase in applications from people who arrived on a visa, including on a student visa, even where there have been no changes in the circumstances in their home country since they arrived. In those circumstances, we are looking at how we prevent some of that misuse of the system and how we make sure that there are really robust checks done on whether or not people actually need asylum accommodation. If they have been here working or studying, they should have funding to support themselves and should not be going into asylum accommodation.
Lord Henley: As of 31 March, there were a little over 50,000 open asylum cases. When will you have the next set of figures and are they coming down?
Yvette Cooper: The numbers of people waiting for initial decisions are coming down. At the moment, the challenge is to make sure that we can also have the same progress around appeals. That is why we are introducing these appeal reforms as well. The numbers in the overall system waiting for initial decisions are coming down significantly.
Simon Ridley: We publish statistics quarterly.
Lord Henley: So the June figures will be coming out.
Simon Ridley: The figures will be coming out in August, I think. They will be published at the end of next May.
Q11 Baroness Buscombe: Home Secretary, I want to highlight the issue of organised crime, much of which we now know is intrinsically linked to the illegal boats and supported by a really powerful and dangerous network of criminal gangs, who are here and now, established in every part of the UK: in our villages, towns and cities. It goes unspoken, but it is here and very much alive. We do not know how many asylum seekers the gangs comprise of. They have leaked out of the hotels, calling themselves barbers, cigarette vendors, sweet vendors et cetera. They are operating illegally with alacrity. We are all watching it daily.
As the risk to them is so negligible and the rewards as are so great, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has told us that in respect of organised crime, “the best you can do is deflect it to something else that you are less concerned about, rather than expect to eradicate it”. Do you agree?
Yvette Cooper: I do not accept that we should accept the presence of organised crime in our communities. Organised crime expands if they are given free rein to do so and if it is too easy for them to do so. You are right to say that we have had organised immigration crime that has been let off the hook for far too long. We have seen that in the way the gangs have been operating across Europe. They have exploited the lack of co-ordination between Governments across Europe.
We have also seen organised crime take advantage of lax enforcement around the high street as well. We have seen that because there really has not been a strong enough response on illegal working or strong enough policing and neighbourhood policing in our town centres. Town centres have been too easy territory for organised crime to operate, whether that be around the organised shop theft or around the organised takeover of different high-street locations as well.
Straight after the general election, the first thing we did was substantially increase the resources for immigration enforcement. There are an additional 1,000 people working in different areas of immigration enforcement. That has led to a 50% increase in raids and arrests for illegal working. It is between a 20% and 30% increase in penalties now going through the system for both employers and illegal workers as well.
We need to keep going. We are setting out and working through different ways to increase the targeting. We are just drawing up a new focus around particularly gig economy operations. There is a new measure, as part of the borders Bill, about closing the loophole on the gig economy, meaning that employers need to do employment checks there.
Increasing neighbourhood policing is part of this as well, because we have got the 3,000 additional neighbourhood police that we are putting into place over the course of this year. We have said that the focus for police forces this year needs to be town centres. If you have got police forces and neighbourhood police in town centres, that is when they will see. They will get the intelligence about what is going wrong in particular locations as well.
Baroness Buscombe: My local police community support officer is fantastic. She is covering an area of 120 square miles. How can she do this? People in organised crime go to quiet areas and no one dares say anything. The Equality Act needs to be looked at, because people are terrified of saying anything, otherwise they are accused of being racist or whatever.
Have you looked at landlords and their role in allowing people to rent who have criminal intent or where there is any suspect of crime? If one was renting to someone that had something to do with illegal drugs, that used to be a strict liability. None of that is happening at the moment, as far as the public can see and feel.
Yvette Cooper: What I am saying is: crime is crime. Wherever it is taking place, whoever is undertaking the crime, the police need to go after the crime without fear or favour. The way the e-visa system works is that landlords are supposed to do checks on people’s right to be in the UK in the same way that employers can and do. We are bringing in a tighter regime around landlords more widely and separately, as part of the work that the MHCLG is doing, but our particular enforcement focus right now is around illegal working.
Lord Dubs: I will raise a related issue. Do you think identity cards would be helpful to you across the whole range of topics we are talking about?
Yvette Cooper: We are trying to effectively roll out digital ID for non-UK and Irish citizens. The e-visa is a digital footprint such that Immigration Enforcement, an employer or landlord, can at any point check whether somebody has lawful status here in the UK and whether they have the right to work.
We are now working to link and integrate that with the asylum and immigration biometric system, which not only has the biometrics from the e-visa system, but has the biometrics from Western Jet Foil for people who are arriving and then applying into the asylum system. That then gives Immigration Enforcement, if it has the right biometric equipment, the ability to take fingerprints and do biometric checks on the spot and effectively put in place a digital ID system that allows for much swifter enforcement, information and intelligence to be able to take action. If we link that with the broader system around the entry and exit checks and the digitalisation of the border, that will give us a much better and more effective data-driven way to ensure that the rules are properly respected and enforced.
The Chair: It is very interesting that, in your response, the protection of the individual, identity and so on is clearly very important. I wonder why this Government have not considered making the theft of somebody’s identity illegal, because it currently is not. Perhaps you will look at that, but I will leave that for another day.
Q12 Lord Bach: I was a police and crime commissioner for five years, as you may or may not know, so I am going to ask three questions around policing. First, many argue that there has been a crisis in confidence in policing in general in recent years. I refer to a speech you made last November to the NPCC and APCC gathering in London, when you said, “Our precious tradition of policing by consent” is “in peril”. Do you still think that it is in peril, and if so, why? Is it to do with the lack of confidence among different communities in our country?
Yvette Cooper: This is a really important issue. I thank you for your service as police and crime commissioner.
The Safer Streets mission for the Government effectively has two halves—harm and confidence—which are the ambitions to halve serious violence, to halve violence against women and girls and to halve knife crime over the next 10 years. Alongside that, there is the mission to restore and rebuild confidence in policing and the criminal justice system. On the harm side, we have plans around the new strategy for tackling violence against women and girls and around the changes we have made to take knives off the streets. The confidence side, at its core, is about putting neighbourhood policing back on the streets to rebuild confidence.
You are right: confidence in policing has fallen in recent years, and that is for a series of reasons. First, it is because of the disappearance of visible policing. Neighbourhood policing and visible policing have been decimated. If you do not know your local police officer and never even see a police officer, you are much less likely to have the confidence that the police will be there when you need them. There is that confidence issue, and we also need to take action on those kinds of crimes that are too often treated as low level, such as shop theft or persistent anti-social behaviour in the town centre. If you see that kind of disrespect and crimes being committed in your town centre at the very heart of your local community—criminals and vandals just getting away with it—you are much less likely to have confidence in policing.
Alongside that, we have had a series of just awful cases, such as the terrible murder of Sarah Everard, which revealed a lack of proper vetting standards in the system. There are some issues around standards not being addressed and around different communities having different levels of confidence around policing as well. It has been a range of reasons.
To turn that around, the starting point is restoring neighbourhood policing with 3,000 additional neighbourhood police this year, focusing on town centre crime. Alongside that, as part of our policing reform White Paper due later this year, we will set out reforms around raising standards in policing across the board as well.
Lord Bach: My next question is about the greater use of technology, in police terms. Do you think that carries public support? Do you believe, for example, that the use of live facial recognition should be placed on a statutory footing?
Yvette Cooper: I think there are areas where the public might be shocked to know how far back some of the technology is that policing has been using. The police national computer is 50 years old; that means it was modern and whizzy when I was five. We have a problem with the technology and a lot of work to do to upgrade it.
That is why work is being done around the police national computer and Airwave, and we are looking at new ways to use things such as facial recognition and AI. We strongly want to develop the use of AI. That can be everything from reducing bureaucracy and redacting information that is needed before a case goes to court through to using AI to support intelligence as well.
On facial recognition specifically, some forces have now developed some very effective examples of using live facial recognition. We want to see more forces be able to do that. Many forces have a concern about not having a proper governance framework in place to allow them to do that, so the Policing Minister, Diana Johnson, has been doing a lot of work with police forces and stakeholders to draw up what that new governance framework should be to be able to allow forces to use facial recognition more effectively.
The Chair: For greater clarity, the question was: should it be put on a statutory footing? Take the current deployment of live facial recognition in Croydon: for the first time, the cameras are going to be fixed to street furniture. That is not covered under common law or by the one case that is discussed with these issues. There is a real question as to whether there is legality for what is happening in Croydon. Do you think that needs to be sorted out?
Yvette Cooper: We think a new framework is needed. The Policing Minister has currently been drawing up what that framework will look like. We hope to be able to set out the way we would do that more frequently.
The Chair: What about the statutory framework?
Yvette Cooper: We will update you as soon as we possibly can and write to you with the details on that. You need a new, proper and clear governance framework to be able to give forces the confidence to use it with the right standards in place.
Lord Bach: Given recent comments from very senior police officers, we have all heard about the case for the reorganisation of police services and police forces in England and Wales. We are looking forward to the White Paper on policing coming out later this year. What is your thinking about this at the moment? Will the forthcoming White Paper include some comment on this?
Yvette Cooper: The policing reform White Paper is being drawn up very closely with policing. Senior police officers have been seconded to work with the Home Office on drawing up the White Paper. This has been done in very close conjunction with police chiefs, mayors, police and crime commissioners and others. There has been a lot of consultation and development on different areas.
We will set out the full detail when the White Paper is produced, but it certainly needs to address the issue that we have got around the 43 different forces making 43 different sets of decisions around key things. Even on issues such as digital structures and digital capabilities, they are being made 43 different times. Some of this is about efficiency and procurement efficiency and whether forces can work together in a different way or whether we have national co-ordination and leadership. Some of it is about the effectiveness of services—for example, forensics, helicopters or air support services. Some of it is also about looking again at what should be done at local level, including at very local level, with neighbourhood policing. What should be done at force level? What should be done at regional level? What should be done at national level?
It will include setting out a new national centre of policing to be able to both drive standards and draw together some of those capabilities that really should be provided nationally, rather than be negotiated between 43 different forces and sometimes 86 different decision-makers.
Q13 Baroness Bertin: I follow on from some of the points Lord Bach has raised. It was very welcome news that violence against women and girls is now a strategic policing requirement and is therefore on the same footing as terrorism and CSAM. But the funding is so radically different, and I wondered if you could talk a little bit to that. I say that with the deepest respect, given the anniversary we are in. Given that 20% of recorded crime is violence against women and girls, that is a big problem. I have some follow-up questions as well, but we can kick off with that.
Yvette Cooper: We will set out the violence against women and girls strategy after the Recess. This is the first time we would have done a really comprehensive cross-government strategy. The Home Office has led a huge amount of work around policing, the criminal justice system and the framework of the law around this. But for this to be an effective strategy, it has to go much broader than that. It has to involve education, health, communities and local government, housing, DSIT, science and technology and online issues as well. We are drawing up a cross-government strategy.
You are completely right; in terms of policing, domestic abuse is both one of the most serious and one of the highest volume crimes we face across the country. Too often still—whether it is throughout policing, the criminal justice system, agencies and organisations—issues around coercive control are not fully understood and appreciated, as some of those dangers and risks are not.
The new centre for public protection is set up currently in the College of Policing, but to be part of the new national centre of policing is a new opportunity to drive much higher standards across the board and to ensure that we are properly making this a priority right across police forces. Huge amounts of police resource are used to respond to things such as domestic abuse—call-outs and so on—but are not used effectively enough at the moment. Rather than us needing to create an entirely new infrastructure, we have got to hugely overhaul and improve the existing systems we have that are dealing with these often very terrible crimes on a daily basis.
The centre for public protection is a way to drive that, but it is not the only way to drive that. Having domestic abuse specialists in the 999 control rooms, as was part of Raneem’s law, is now starting to roll out across the country and the domestic abuse protection orders are starting to roll out across the country. I was going to say something about the review you did, but you may want to ask about that.
Baroness Bertin: I will do, if you do not mind. It is a shameless plug.
Yvette Cooper: You should.
Baroness Bertin: I have given 32 recommendations to the Government, and many of them are around prevention, because we know there is a very strong correlation with violent and barely legal pornography affecting real-life traits—not least, 38% of women and girls now expect to be strangled during sex. Could you therefore confirm the happy news that you are going to criminalise depictions of strangulation in pornography?
Yvette Cooper: I first thank you, Baroness Bertin, for doing this really comprehensive review and for highlighting this. There is something really horrific about the evidence you have gathered and the evidence we have seen separately about the extent to which we are seeing strangulation in sexual relationships, especially in young people’s and teenage sexual relationships. This is always dangerous. There is no safe way to do strangulation in sex. It is always dangerous and comes with incredibly risky consequences. The way this kind of violence has become normalised as a result of what young people are seeing online is quite appalling and really deeply troubling.
We will change the law on this. We will ensure that we bring forward an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill here in the House of Lords during its passage to criminalise the possession of porn depicting strangulation, suffocating or choking, because it just cannot be normalised. This is dangerous. Young women’s lives are at risk.
Baroness Bertin: I thank you very much for that. Could I also urge that, in the strategy, when it is announced, there must be far greater scrutiny and interrogation of the industry. At the moment, standards are not there whatever. I would very much urge you, please, to include those recommendations in that strategy.
Moving on, to keep on the theme of technology, quite a few people who work in the VAWG arena have given feedback that the momentum seems to be tailing off just a little bit. I want to get your reassurance on that and on the momentum around safety by design technologies. You talk about working with DSIT, but the Home Office has to be far more involved in this because clearly there is a little bit of a conflict of interest with the growth surge that it is trying to get out of AI and so on. The Home Office may have a different view of being more preventative and conscious of what harms can come of it.
Yvette Cooper: We expect issues around the online safety and issues around the impact that that is having on violence against women and girls to be a significant part of the strategy. That has involved a lot of work. There is also further work that DSIT had been doing directly itself around online safety issues and also specific measures such as the issue around the online pornography and strangulation that we are bringing forward in the Crime and Policing Bill. We have a lot of work really under way across the departments.
You are right to raise this, because the pace of technological change makes all of this challenging. Everybody is having to respond to a pace of change that none of us anticipated 10 years ago, particularly in terms of the way in which this affects our children. The safeguards, issues around age verification and all of those things will become central over the next 12 months.
Baroness Bertin: We have to get ahead of it, rather than chasing it down. Shall I ask the question that I was supposed to ask? The Crime and Policing Bill is in front of us and prioritises VAWG, as we have discussed; shop thefts; burglaries; robberies; child sexual exploitation; and many other issues. How are the policing priorities set? Is it really helpful to speak about priorities given the many challenges that the police face and the fact that, in reality, they are often set at a local level?
Yvette Cooper: We tried to frame the priority approach in the safer streets mission as being about the most serious violence and about confidence. We have identified the most serious violence as knife crime and violence against women and girls. Alongside the violence against women and girls strategy, we also have major work under way to tackle knife crime, particularly but not only among young people. We have a knife-enabled robbery task force, which has been working very effectively for the past 12 months to reduce knife-enabled robbery in hotspot areas. We need the issues around the most serious violence to be a policing priority.
Alongside that, the other set of issues is around confidence. Obviously, the kinds of crimes and circumstances that are undermining confidence will vary from area to area, but the common theme around confidence right across the country is the lack of visible policing and the lack of neighbourhood policing. Town centre crimes have become a common theme across the country.
This is our focus right now: neighbourhood policing and visible policing are the building block of policing by consent. They will be a central priority throughout the course of the Parliament. We are focusing on town centre crime now but, if confidence issues become a concern around some other area of crime, policing will need to adapt to respond to them. That is how we have framed it: the priorities for policing are serious violence, neighbourhood crime and neighbourhood policing. Beyond those, there are the strategic national priorities, such as counterterrorism or public order policing, where all police forces must have that basic capability in place in order to respond to threat.
Q14 Lord Tope: I am conscious of the time. We shall turn to prisons in our last five or so minutes. There is a lot of emphasis now, quite rightly, on reducing the prison population; we have had recommendations from the independent sentencing review on similar grounds. How confident are you that one of the consequences there will be even greater pressure on the police service and, in particular, the Probation Service? How confident are you that they will manage the inevitable consequences of reducing prison size and reducing sentences?
Yvette Cooper: We started with a prisons crisis that we inherited. Probably the most damaging thing of all to public confidence and public safety—and, certainly, to the effective work of policing—would have been if we had reached the point where the police could not arrest dangerous offenders because there were simply not the prison places, remand places or custody places to take people to. It became an essential public safety issue to respond to the prisons crisis. That is what the Lord Chancellor has been doing. That is why we had the major sentencing review, alongside the prison building plan to expand the number of prison places and to strengthen non-custodial penalties and intelligence monitoring.
Expanding the work of the Probation Service is being led by the Ministry of Justice. We have also worked closely with the Ministry of Justice on issues around how domestic abuse should be managed, because that raises different kinds of concerns and we need to make sure that there is a swift response to, for example, the breaching of orders. We have been working very closely with the Ministry of Justice to ensure that proper risk assessments are being developed and are in place; that people are paying the price and are punished for their crimes; and that the system is working as effectively as possible to keep victims safe.
Lord Tope: I think that we, as a committee, are strongly in favour of reducing the prison population in a responsible way. Equally, we have considerable concerns about the capacity of the Probation Service, as it is, to cope with the inevitable consequences of that.
Yvette Cooper: I should be clear that we are expanding the number of prison places. The prison building programme is still about expanding the number of places.
Lord Tope: That will take quite a long time to achieve.
Yvette Cooper: It will take time. It is about making sure that there is a proper, strong prison system in order to make sure that people face proper penalties. The Ministry of Justice leads on the support for the Probation Service, but the Chancellor has set out additional funding for the Probation Service so that it can respond and to make sure that we have systems in place.
Lord Tope: You have given me a lead into my next question: how are you working with the MoJ to ensure that there is a consistent message across government about the need to reduce offending and the consequences of doing so?
Yvette Cooper: A lot of work has been under way throughout. For example, the Safeguarding Minister, Jess Phillips, has worked very closely at every point in the response over the past 12 months—not just in the most recent work around the sentencing review, but at every stage—in terms of which safeguards or checks needed to be in place. We are continuing to do so.
I turn to Richard, who is the lead for the overall safer streets mission, which covers confidence both in policing and in the criminal justice system. He can set out a bit more the way in which the Home Office and the MoJ have been working together.
Richard Clarke: It is worth saying that, as the Home Secretary said, we have we have an exceptionally close working relationship with the Ministry of Justice. It is, in effect, a co-lead on an aspect of the safer streets mission because, as the Home Secretary said, confidence in the criminal justice system is one of the two confidence halves.
In addition to what the Home Secretary said, Jess Phillips, the Home Office Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, has done a lot of close joint working with her opposite number, Alex Davies-Jones, who is the Minister for Safeguarding in the Ministry of Justice, together with senior police officers and the Prison and Probation Service, in order to understand the sequence of releases that have been under way so far—the early release schemes—and the specific design for how the Government will respond to David Gauke’s sentencing review. We also expect Brian Leveson’s courts review shortly. We are working closely with the Ministry of Justice on that as well.
The Chair: His report is due out, I think. Home Secretary, there is lots more that we would love to ask you. It will perhaps be helpful for you to know that, in the next week or so, we will publish a detailed report on prisons and our thoughts on them. We shall do so in the light of the report from the Chief Inspector of Prisons, which has just come out today. We are also conscious that part of the problem of prisons is the delays in the criminal justice system. The Brian Leveson report and recommendations may or may not prove helpful.
The one area that is particularly relevant to this committee’s next inquiry, which will look at tagging, ties in to the question that Lord Tope asked about the police’s ability to respond to potential problems, breaches of orders and so on that may come about because of an increased number of community sentences and increased tagging. I do not know whether you have looked at that issue in your department. If anybody has, we would like to know who to speak to about that as a matter of urgency; that is a little plug for what we are doing.
Secretary of State, we are enormously grateful to you. You have covered a huge amount of ground in a very short period of time. You have indicated a clear understanding of many different roles, and we are enormously grateful for that. However, you have pointed to a very large amount of “work in progress”, so I hope that we can get you to agree that, in about a year’s time, you will be willing to come back before us so that we can see what that work in progress has led to. I hope that that will be possible, but I know that the committee will have found today entirely useful; I am sure that those people who are listening in or watching will also have found it very helpful. I thank your two officials as well. This public evidence session is now concluded.
Yvette Cooper: Thank you for having me.
