ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SKY NEWS, SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY

SOPHY RIDGE: There is just five months to go until we leave the European Union and there is no guarantee of course that a Brexit deal will be done in that time so you might have thought that working out what no deal could mean for the country’s borders would be high on the to-do list at the Home Office but our next guest was somewhat taken aback shall we say, at some of the answers given to her at a sitting of the Home Affairs Select Committee earlier this week. It’s Yvette Cooper, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

YVETTE COOPER: Good morning Sophy.

SR: I want to start with a picture if we can, I think we can have a look at the picture in the screen behind us, perhaps not the most flattering image of you but you’ll forgive us, taken during a session of the Home Affairs Select Committee when you were hearing from officials and also from the Immigration Minister. Can you just explain what was going through your mind here and why?

YVETTE COOPER: It was the end of a sort of series of questions where we weren’t getting answers and where the Home Office just seemed to be in a complete mess about arrangements that may need to be in place for just five months’ time and this was about what should happen if there was no deal for EU citizens, both those who are here already and where the government has rightly said they will have their rights respected and will be able to continue to stay and work, but also for people arriving for the first time, perhaps coming to work. The government seemed to be saying that free movement would end straight away on day one but also that there wouldn’t be any checks on people arriving but then maybe that there would be checks by employers but then that they wouldn’t be able to differentiate between checks on new arrivals and checks on people who have lived here for a long time and it just go so muddled and seemed to be so full of contradictions and you thought we’ve only got five months to go, surely the Home Office ought to be better prepared and ought to at least know what on earth it’s going to be doing and we still don’t know the answer to a lot of those questions.

SR: Who should be responsible? I think it was quite clear during the session that you were becoming frustrated with the Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes, do you think she’s the right person for the job?

YVETTE COOPER: I think to be honest there is a conflict here actually going on between the Home Office and Number 10. The sense that I’ve got and from some of the reports that I’ve got and sort of clarifications since, is that Number 10 is still trying to maintain that free movement will end on day one if there is no deal. The Home Office in practice knows that they have got no new system that they would have in place, no changes that they could possibly implement in time and I have the feeling actually that the Immigration Minister – a more junior minister – and the officials, are a bit caught in the crossfire on that. They know there are no sensible decisions being made, no proper planning being done and that’s why they were getting themselves into such a tangle, so I don’t actually think it was their fault.

SR: So you think they were effectively being hung out to dry by Number 10?

YVETTE COOPER: I do. There is a conflict between Number 10 on the one hand, the Home Secretary on the other and nobody actually making proper clear decisions or being straight with us and being clear about what the consequences will be and that the reason this matters is obviously it is a big concern for EU citizens who are here but there are a lot of other issues, for example what are the security arrangements going to be? What are the security arrangements going to be at the border if we don’t have shared information from the EU? What are the policing co-operation arrangements going to be? And we heard from senior police officers about the downgrade in security we’ll have, the inability to be able to arrest people who may have committed crimes in other countries if we don’t have a proper deal in place and these proper arrangements in place.

SR: It is pretty clear that you are alarmed, shall we say, at the prospect of no deal. As you say, five months to go, with that in mind could you see yourself supporting a deal that Theresa May comes back with?

YVETTE COOPER: Well I think clearly no deal is the worst situation for all of us, a bad deal is better than no deal but I don't think the country should be forced into accepting a bad deal simply because the Prime Minister and the Conservative party are …

SR: But if the alternative is to come up with … would that may be the reality?

YVETTE COOPER: Well that’s why I think it’s really important that the government is now preparing the option of being able to extend Article 50 because no deal we clearly cannot accept, it would be very damaging for our security but a bad deal, something that is going to be bad for the country for the long term, we shouldn’t be forced into that because we’ve run out of time, because of the chaos and confusion so I do think now there should be preparations made so that if the Prime Minister doesn’t get a good deal before Christmas, we don’t just get timed out, we don’t just end up in a mess and we do make proper sensible plans now to extend Article 50 in those circumstances to make sure we can get an arrangement that’s in the best interests of the country.

SR: What about the idea of a second referendum?

YVETTE COOPER: I don't think that should be the focus at the moment, I think the focus should be on the deal. I think the Labour party has the right position which is look, what you’ve got to focus on is trying to get the right deal. Of course you can’t rule out things in this very chaotic …

SR: But you prefer to see an extension to Article 50?

YVETTE COOPER: … but I think the right thing we should be focusing on is trying to get a good deal but if that is not working out, extending Article 50 so that there’s a chance to look at this again, to renegotiate and to properly get it right.

SR: There are reports that Theresa May is close to agreeing a part of the withdrawal agreement, this idea that the whole of the UK could be kept in an effective customs union with the EU, is that something you’d support?

YVETTE COOPER: I think being in a customs union is really important, personally I think it should be a front stop, not just a backstop because I think this is good for Yorkshire manufacturing, it’s about manufacturing jobs and trade so…

SR: But you must be close to the idea even if it’s a backstop.

YVETTE COOPER: … so I hope that they have made progress to agree a customs union, I think that would be a step forward but this all still seems to be about the withdrawal agreement and the temporary arrangements and not about the long-term plan. We need some clarity about what our arrangements and relationship would be for the future so we are not going into this blind and we also I think need some reassurance on the security issues. Nobody is talking about what the security arrangements will be. We’ve heard that even if there is a deal, we could still lose access to some of the really important criminal databases. Well if that downgrades our security, we need answers for that as well so I want to hear the Prime Minister talking about the security side not just the trade side.

SR: Now I want to take you back to immigration, where we started the interview, because it does feel as if policy is somewhat chaotic should we say at the minute. We’ve had of course the Windrush allegations, the Windrush scandal that happened. We’ve also had the recent scandal for some people being forced to give DNA samples or asked to give DNA samples, is it the Home Office that is not fit for purpose?

YVETTE COOPER: I think that’s a really big question and I am very worried actually about the state of the Home Office. We had the Alex Allan review that was published, or the Executive Summary that was published last week which did raise questions about the advice that was given to Amber Rudd as former Home Secretary but of course there are also really responsibilities that Ministers have to take about the state of the department as well. I think overall we have just had one set of mistakes after another from the Home Office and the reason this matters is because these are the kinds of decisions that have huge implications for people’s lives and really devastating effects for people’s lives when the Home Office gets things wrong. We are going to be hearing from the Home Secretary in a few weeks’ time, we are also going to be hearing from the Permanent Secretary as well, the head official in the department, so we will be putting those questions to them.

SR: I mean do you think that there is an argument for example that the Home Office should be split up and immigration should be moved to a different department, is it too big?

YVETTE COOPER: Personally I do think that is something that should be looked at but it is not something we’ve discussed on the Home Affairs Select Committee so it is not a committee view but I think when you’ve got all of the issues around crime and policing, we concluded recently that there hasn’t been enough Home Office leadership on crime and tackling crime for example and working with the police to support the police and then you’ve got all of the issues around immigration as well, so you could look at different structures but, as I said, we’ve not addressed this as a committee so we don’t have recommendation to make at this point.

SR: I want to talk to you about something a little bit different, tax cuts. You of course voted in a very different way to your party’s leadership about the tax cuts in the budget, why did you do that and what was your reason behind that?

YVETTE COOPER: Well in April there is a whole series of further cuts that are going to be made for some of the poorest families in the country, cuts to the value of Child Benefit, value of the Tax Credits so you have got some of the poorest people in the country who are going to end up hundreds of pounds worse off and yet the Chancellor has announced this budget which gives big tax cuts to some of the richest people in the country, people on £100,000 a year who are going to get hundreds of pounds back in tax cuts at the same time as taking away hundreds of pounds from some of those on lowest income and I just think that’s wrong. We’ve got rising child poverty, those in my constituency who are facing real hardship, and what we need is a plan that is fair.

SR: Okay, now we have got some breaking news just coming in, we’re hearing that the former Cabinet Secretary and the Head of the Civil Service, Sir Jeremy Heywood, has died from cancer aged 56. That’s just come in from Downing Street, Sir Jeremy Heywood only very recently relinquishing his duties to try and focus on his illness. Yvette Cooper, this surprising news has only just come in, what is your reaction?

YVETTE COOPER: It’s deeply sad and … Jeremy I think was a wonderful public servant and he I think did a huge amount to hold governments together at very difficult times. I’ve … him personally and I think all sorts with his family. I think people will not be aware of quite how many remarkable things that he did to solve crises, to deal with some of the most difficult problems and as a very honourable public servant to hold people together and to make sure that the government frankly didn’t do stupid things on many occasions and to make sure that there were solutions. So I think his contribution to public life for all governments, whatever your politics, his contribution to public life was immense and I think we all owe him a debt of gratitude.

SR: Thank you very much, Yvette Cooper, I know it’s difficult with someone you obviously knew very well, so I appreciate it.

YVETTE COOPER: Thank you very much.