Speeches by Cooper.

“We will need to work with police forces on the mix and the way it that develops because it will vary from force to force. For example, I think Norfolk currently does not have any PCSOs at all. Some other forces have focused heavily on PCSOs. We want to see a mix of people in policing teams. Neighbourhood policing teams…”

“I think you are referring to the police accountability reforms after the announcement about the Martyn Blake case. The important issue that we were raising as part of that piece of work was the need to raise public confidence in policing. That is part of our Safer Streets mission and links back to some of the issues ar…”

“Do you mean the areas that the police—”

“Police misconduct and vetting, yes—the wider work around the response to the Angiolini and Casey reviews includes putting a statutory underpinning to the vetting system so that we have national vetting standards. It includes stronger requirements around action to be taken, for example, suspensions in cases where police…”

“I know that the Committee is holding an inquiry on the disorder and will be looking into further into it. In any of these issues around the violent disorder, we must always start by thinking about the three little girls who lost their lives in Southport, and whose families will still be grieving, and all the families w…”

“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 …”

“Our intention is for this to be about strengthening action against exploitation, some of which will be exploitation of UK resident workers and sometimes be exploitation of people who have been recruited from overseas, but overall we need to be tackling exploitation much more widely. The intention of the legislation and…”

“Yes, and this also links into your question, Chair, about how you make sure that you can encourage innovation and make sure that innovation is not penalised, but also make sure that you get take-up of successful innovation in other police forces right across the country. We do not currently have a strong enough framewo…”

“Yes, I have spoken to him and we have announced, as part of the police settlement that we announced today, a £65 million increase in the national capital city grant. That reflects two things, first the existing grant for the capital cities because they obviously do have lots of national events that will take place in t…”

“The UK will always need to do its bit alongside other countries to help those who have fled persecution, what we have done with the Ukraine programme, with Hong Kong, with Afghanistan, and so on. We made some changes to the Afghanistan arrangements earlier this year to help reunite family members who had been separated…”

“I think we already have different forms of safe routes, that will always need to be part of the UK system. That is one of the things that we did with the family reunion for Afghanistan and that will always need to be part of the system. All countries will always need to do their bit but I think it is just not an altern…”

“Immediately after the election, we moved up to 1,000 staff into the returns and enforcement work more widely, looking at direct returns. We have had 13,500 returns since the election. That includes 33 charter flights and I think four of the biggest return charter flights that the Home Office has ever operated and a 25%…”

“I will ask Matthew or Simon to follow up on this because a lot of the work around the Brook House immigration removal centre took place before the election. Ten areas of concern were raised in the report, and a lot of very serious issues were raised around standards. It was a very troubling report. In any of these issu…”

“There are still safeguards in the existing system around anything that is disproportionate detention. If you have somebody held in detention and there is no prospect of being able to remove them, you will not be able to keep them in detention. However—and this is the point that Simon Ridley made—if you have a fixed tim…”

“No. The issue is what can you do with each individual case on a case-by-case basis to be able to make decisions as swiftly as possible and to be able to remove people as swiftly as possible.”

“No. We try to remove people as swiftly as possible. Bear in mind that the whole point is to be able to deliver the returns while respecting and enforcing the rules. You want to use the detention facilities as effectively as possible in order to do that. The focus always has to be on the likelihood of being able to deli…”

“Part of the reason for having the liaison officers in local areas is for them to co-ordinate with local authorities so that when a decision has been made, where somebody has fled persecution, arrangements can be swiftly put in place for them to be able to work, be part of a community and be supported. You can look at r…”