Speeches by Cooper.

“Yes, I will. When the Greater Manchester reports came out, I did speak directly to Andy Burnham about the content, about what his next steps were going to be and what the local next steps were going to be. We take very seriously the local reports, be it the Greater Manchester ones or the Rochdale and other ones as well…”

“We just confirmed today the continuing funding for the violence reduction units next year. We want to work more closely with the violence reduction units on the focus particularly on the ambition to halve knife crime over the next 10 years alongside halving violence against women and girls. To take a step back for a se…”

“We should frame it as we are consulting on our intention to ban the ninja swords. There is a process that we go through but we will want to implement a ban as soon as possible. However, we do go through a consultation first.”

“Stop and search is an important policing tool. Of course, it has to be used appropriately, but it is an important tool for policing, including for things like preventing knife crime. A review was carried out by the inspectorate a few years ago about how to make sure that all police forces have the right standards and s…”

“I had a conversation with a local authority enforcement officer who used to be a neighbourhood police officer. We were standing in the town centre and he talked about repeat perpetrators, because we were talking about problems with antisocial behaviour in the town centre and he described to me powerfully how they used …”

“One of the reasons that we worked with the College of Policing on drawing up a neighbourhood policing guarantee and a new performance framework for neighbourhood policing—and we continue to work with the police forces on this—is how to have a system so that you can prevent the high levels of abstraction, how you can ma…”

“The mayor has described it as the biggest increase for Met Police funding for many years. We know that police forces right across the country have faced very significant financial pressures in recent years, and we recognise that. Overall, this is a 6% increase in the cash funding for police forces, a 3.5% real increase…”

“And to you, Chair, thank you very much and happy Christmas to you all.”

“The hon. Member will be aware that we have long had a common travel area across the UK and Ireland, which of course has meant close security co-operation and information-sharing in recognition of that unique situation. That common travel area will continue, and we will also continue to work with the Irish Government to…”

“I think everyone will be clear that no one should be making these dangerous boat crossings that undermine our border security and put lives at risk. We need to pursue the criminal gang networks that spread across Europe and beyond, which is why we welcome last week’s arrests in Germany as a result of the French-led ope…”

“We have been clear that we need to reduce both legal and illegal migration because we have seen significant increases in both over the past five years. That is why we are setting out the policies that we have been introducing since the election. The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the multiple different aspects a…”

“My hon. Friend asks an important question. The criminal gangs operate across borders and, frankly, they have been able to get away with it because of lack of co-ordination between law enforcement across borders and between Governments across borders. That is what we have been working to change since the election and wh…”

“The right hon. Member will know that the Home Office has the power to deny entry to those who are not conducive to the public good. Those are important powers that we continue to support. He will know that we also have other security powers and measures that we can use where there are individuals who pose a threat to t…”

“With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the new border security agreements we have reached with Germany and with the Calais group of Interior Ministers from the UK, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, which met in London yesterday with Europol, Frontex and the European Commission to discuss st…”

“My hon. Friend is right that the previous record year was 2022 and that in the first half of this year, when the previous Government were still in office, the arrivals were higher for that season—we all know that arrivals are affected by the season—than they were in 2022. Since the election, those arrivals have been si…”

“We need to clear the backlog and the chaos in the asylum system that we have inherited. There is already a detention system as part of both the immigration and asylum systems. However, the core issue over a long period of time has been around the lack of proper enforcement and a proper system to ensure that the rules i…”

“My hon. Friend has considerable experience in these issues, and I thank him for all his work on this. He is right to say that, with something as basic as the right kind of information and intelligence sharing, if the systems are removed and no new systems are put in place, basic operational actions simply do not happen…”

“My hon. Friend is right. We inherited a situation where the Conservatives let the entire system get way out of control. They let criminal gangs take hold along the channel and left us with total chaos in the asylum system and extortionate costs, as she rightly pointed out, with nearly £9 million a day being spent this …”

“The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. As he will know, we do not routinely comment on either proscription or de-proscription, or on any of those processes, but I make it clear that proscription decisions are taken with care, based on evidence over time. They are not rushed or based on inadequate evidence. These…”

“The hon. Member raised asylum claims from Syria. This is something we discussed in the Calais group, and all five countries are taking the same approach of recognising that we cannot currently take decisions. We clearly want to be able to do so as swiftly as possible, but we need to monitor the situation in Syria in th…”