Sunday wth Niall Paterson Interview with Yvette Cooper MP, Labour

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SUNDAY WITH NIALL PATERSON, SKY NEWS

NIALL PATERSON: I’m joined now by Yvette Cooper, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, a very busy woman these days, a very good morning you Ms Cooper.

YVETTE COOPER: Good morning.

NP: Your committee has been pretty damning about the Home Office plans for EU citizen registration, two systems that they want to put in place, one for those already here, one for those who arrive after March 2019. You say it can’t be done.

YVETTE COOPER: We don’t think they’ve got time now to get two different systems in place because there’s just been so many delays, the Immigration White Paper has been delayed again, we haven’t got the clarity about what these systems are going to do and also not enough resources in terms of people in place and the delays with the IT systems and so on as well so, look, that’s our concern. If we don’t have more details, more answers about how this system should work then it is really difficult for the immigration staff, for the border staff to actually get these things in place in practice and if you can’t get it working properly it’s a mess for everyone.

NP: But just to be clear, you are certainly not as part of this making a value judgement on the government’s position of treating some EU citizens in one way and others, those who arrive after exit, in a different way?

YVETTE COOPER: Well we didn’t look at the desirability of the policies, we thought we would just look at the practical implications, can they deliver things in time and the problem is at the moment different ministers are saying different things so both the Brexit Secretary and the Home Secretary have implied there will be the same arrangements for those arriving after Brexit day as those arriving before, those in the transition compared to those before, those who are here already, people who are here and working here. But then the Prime Minister has said no, the arrangements are going to be completely different and we still don’t know which it is. We do understand some of this will only be finalised during the negotiations on the transition deal however we don’t even know what the government intends to get out of the negotiations, what they are trying to get and what their objectives are. So we want them to tell us, we want them to set out exactly what they want the plans to be during the transition period and then to set out how it is going to be delivered and to put more resources into it.

NP: As you mentioned, that White Paper on a post-Brexit immigration system has been a while in the making, I mean what does that represent? Problems with designing such a system or do the problems in part perhaps stem from the indecision that we’re seeing around the Cabinet table?

YVETTE COOPER: Well it looks to me as though there is just a lack of agreement in the Cabinet and also a lack of decision. I understand why they are not setting out the long term framework on immigration because we’re all waiting for evidence from the Migration Advisory Committee which is due in the autumn but the short term, what happens this year, what happens next year, what happens the year after, they really have to tell us and it’s irresponsible frankly not to do so. It means uncertainty for EU citizens, uncertainty for employers but also just makes life impossible for the staff who have to deliver things. I think they just keep kicking the can down the road because they can’t decide what they think the objectives should be and Parliament as a result having no opportunity to debate it and work out whether we’re getting this right.

NP: But didn’t we learn anything from the speeches from Theresa May, from Boris Johnson this week? Let’s take Mr Johnson first, you’ve said a number of things including ‘To be honest, given everything he said about the bus I don’t see why we’re taking him seriously at all’ and you also tweeted this, which is interesting, ‘Waffly, bumbling, empty speech confirms my view, why on earth is anyone taking this man seriously?’ I mean did you not learn anything from Mr Johnson’s speech?

YVETTE COOPER: No, only that he’s gone round and round in circles and not made any progress at all. Look, there is a formal response which is where’s the detail? We’ve only got 13 months left until Brexit day and we still have got no practical details, it’s still just the same frankly waffly vague stuff and that is irresponsible but there’s another thing here which is I do think you should show respect for people in politics, there’s lots of people I strongly disagree with including the Prime Minister who I show respect for, but the thing about Boris Johnson, I just think he’s a joke, he embarrasses us here and abroad and he makes things up for his own personal gain and that’s why I just don’t think we should be taking him seriously at all. If the Prime Minister didn’t take him seriously as well, actually the government might be in a better state.

NP: Some people would suggest there is a similar degree of waffle when comes to Labour’s own position on Brexit, I mean should we be seeking membership of the single market, should we retain our position in the customs union?

YVETTE COOPER: I think the customs union is particularly important. The Labour party said that we should be in both the single market and the customs union during the transition, I think that’s right but I would go further to what happens after the transition because for manufacturing areas, if you care about manufacturing and distribution across this country, Yorkshire, the north and the Midlands, actually we need that customs union. The idea that you would impose customs checks on our manufacturers I think will cause big problems, you see I…

NP: So why is the leadership not being clear about it then?

YVETTE COOPER: Well I hope it will, I hope that …

NP: Tens of thousands of people are writing to the party, tens of thousands of members are writing to the party asking for more on single market membership.

YVETTE COOPER: I understand that the Shadow Cabinet I think are meeting tomorrow, I hope this is exactly what they’ll look at, I hope they will say look we need a customs union and I think there is really strong support for this across parliament as well. We are going to be holding a briefing that Nicky Morgan, the Treasury Select Committee Chair, and I are going to be hosting on Wednesday for the CBI, talking to MPs about what it means for constituencies across the country in terms of the customs union as well.

NP: As someone with such a long association with the Labour party, I wonder what you made of events yesterday at the National Policy Forum where we saw the Chair of the NEC in essence manhandled some of the way from the podium because despite the majority of the people in that room wanting the election of the Chair of the NPF, the NEC decided against it.

YVETTE COOPER: Well I wasn’t there but I was troubled by some of the reports that we saw. I think, look, the Labour party has always been a broad church and must continue to be so. We are also always a party that I believe will show respect for those who are chairing robust meetings, they should always make sure every voice is heard, that we have proper processes for internal elections and I think no one ever wants to see one faction trying to silence others or for things to be handled in the way that they appear to have been yesterday so I think that it’s really important …

NP: You used the word faction there, do you see it as factionalism within the party?

YVETTE COOPER: I think that we don’t want that and the reason that we don’t want any of that kind of, kind of internal argy-bargy to end up distorting what we do because for all of us our purpose is to stand up for people right across the country who want a Labour government, who need the work that Jeremy Corbyn has been doing across the country to be taken forward and we should be pulling together and making sure that we’re standing up for people across the country and not just navel-gazing and looking inwards at ourselves.

NP: We spoke to your colleague, John Healey, about this just a few minutes ago but I wanted to ask you ask well, Brendan Cox and his resignation from the charities he’s represented, what do you make of his decision? I mean it’s pretty clear he has admitted to a serious amount of impropriety.

YVETTE COOPER: Well I think, like John, I think that he has done the right thing and I have seen his statement where he talks about taking responsibility and about inappropriate behaviour so I think that yes, he has done the right thing. Look, there is a wider issue here because obviously I don’t know the detail of the individual cases, there is a wider issue here and hopefully we are seeing a change now in the climate and in culture where people are recognising that those in positions of power should not abuse positions of power, those who end up becoming victims of harassment should have support to speak out and there should be systems in place that allow this to be dealt with and sorted out and not allow things to just drag on and continue to cause real problems.

NP: We can only hope. Yvette Cooper, lovely to see you, thanks for coming in.

YVETTE COOPER: Thank you.