Yvette Cooper | |||||||||||||||||
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_2.jpg) Official portrait, 2024 | |||||||||||||||||
| Home Secretary | |||||||||||||||||
| Assumed office 5 July 2024 | |||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Sir Keir Starmer | ||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | James Cleverly | ||||||||||||||||
| Chair of theHome Affairs Select Committee | |||||||||||||||||
| In office 19 October 2016 – 1 December 2021 | |||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Keith Vaz | ||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Diana Johnson | ||||||||||||||||
| Secretary of State for Work and Pensions | |||||||||||||||||
| In office 5 June 2009 – 11 May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Gordon Brown | ||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | James Purnell | ||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Iain Duncan Smith | ||||||||||||||||
| Chief Secretary to the Treasury | |||||||||||||||||
| In office 24 January 2008 – 5 June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Gordon Brown | ||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Andy Burnham | ||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Liam Byrne | ||||||||||||||||
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| Member of Parliament forPontefract, Castleford and Knottingley Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (2010–2024) Pontefract and Castleford (1997–2010) | |||||||||||||||||
| Assumed office 1 May 1997 | |||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Geoffrey Lofthouse | ||||||||||||||||
| Majority | 6,630 (18.4%) | ||||||||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1969-03-20)20 March 1969 (age 56) Inverness, Scotland | ||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Labour | ||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||||||
| Children | 3 | ||||||||||||||||
| Parent | Tony Cooper (father) | ||||||||||||||||
| Education | |||||||||||||||||
| Signature |  | ||||||||||||||||
| Website | Official website | ||||||||||||||||
Yvette Cooper (born 20 March 1969) is a British politician who has served asHome Secretary since July 2024. A member of theLabour Party, Cooper has beenmember of parliament (MP) forPontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, previouslyNormanton, Pontefract and Castleford, since1997.
First elected to Parliament at the1997 general election, Cooper was aParliamentary Under-Secretary of State in three departments under Prime MinisterTony Blair from 1999 to 2005. She was promoted toMinister of State for Housing and Planning in 2005, and was retained in the role whenGordon Brown was appointed prime minister in 2007. In 2008, she joined Brown'sCabinet asChief Secretary to the Treasury, before being promoted toSecretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2009. Following Labour's defeat at the2010 general election, Cooper served inEd Miliband'sShadow Cabinet asShadow Foreign Secretary from 2010 to 2011. In 2011, her husbandEd Balls was promoted toShadow Chancellor of the Exchequer; Cooper replaced Balls as shadow home secretary and served until Labour lost the2015 general election.
On 13 May 2015, Cooper announced she would run to beLeader of the Labour Party in theleadership election following the resignation of Miliband.[1] Cooper came third with 17.0% of the vote in the first round, losing toJeremy Corbyn.[2] Cooper subsequently resigned asshadow home secretary in September 2015. Cooper was the chair of theHome Affairs Select Committee from 2016 to 2021.[3] As a backbencher, Cooper repeatedly sought to extendArticle 50 to delayBrexit. She became shadow home secretary again in Starmer's shadow cabinet in November 2021.
Following Labour's victory in the2024 general election, Cooper returned to government and was appointed home secretary by Prime MinisterKeir Starmer inhis ministry. She faced her first major domestic event, theriots across the country following theSouthport stabbing, three weeks into her tenure.
Yvette Cooper was born on 20 March 1969 inInverness, Scotland. Her father isTony Cooper, former general secretary of theProspect trade union, a former non-executive director of theNuclear Decommissioning Authority and a former chairman of theBritish Nuclear Industry Forum.[4] He was also a government adviser on the Energy Advisory Panel.[5] Her mother, June, was a maths teacher.[6]
She was educated atEggar's School, a comprehensive school inHolybourne, andAlton College, both inAlton, Hampshire. She readphilosophy, politics and economics (PPE) atBalliol College, Oxford, and graduated with a first-class honours degree.[7] She won aKennedy Scholarship in 1991 to study atHarvard University, and completed her postgraduate studies with anMSc in economics at theLondon School of Economics.[8]
Cooper began her career as an economic policy researcher forShadow ChancellorJohn Smith in 1990 before working inArkansas forBill Clinton, nominee of theDemocratic Party forPresident of the United States, in 1992. Later that year, she became a policy advisor to thenShadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury,Harriet Harman.[7]
At the age of 24, Cooper developedchronic fatigue syndrome, from which she took a year to recover.[6] In 1994 she moved to become a research associate at theCentre for Economic Performance. In 1995, she became the chief economics correspondent ofThe Independent, remaining with the newspaper until her election to theHouse of Commons in 1997.[7]
Cooper was selected as theLabour candidate to contestPontefract and Castleford at the1997 general election. She was elected as MP for Pontefract and Castleford with 75.7% of the vote and a majority of 25,725.[9] Cooper made her maiden speech in the Commons on 2 July 1997, speaking about her constituency's struggle with unemployment.[10] She served for two years on the Education and Employment Select Committee.
In 1999, she was promoted asParliamentary under-secretary of state at theDepartment of Health. As a health minister, Cooper helped implement theSure Start programme.[11] In this post, she was also the first British government minister in history to takematernity leave.[12]
At the2001 general election, Cooper was re-elected as MP for Pontefract and Castleford with a decreased vote share of 69.7% and a decreased majority of 16,378.[13]
In 2003, she became Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regeneration in theOffice of the Deputy Prime Minister with the responsibility of coalfield regeneration.[14] Following the2005 general election she was promoted to Minister, asMinister of State for Housing and Planning based in theDepartment for Communities and Local Government from 2006.[15]
Cooper was again re-elected at the2005 general election with a decreased vote share of 63.7% and a decreased majority of 15,246.[16]
AfterGordon Brown becameprime minister, Cooper was invited to attend cabinet meetings as Housing Minister. Shortly after taking the job, she was required to introduce theHome Information Pack (HIPs) scheme. According toConservative columnistMatthew Parris, Cooper conceived HIPs, but avoided direct criticism for its problems because of her connection with Brown.[17] In July 2007, Cooper announced in the House of Commons that "unless we act now, by 2026 first-time buyers will find average house prices are ten times their salary. That could lead to real social inequality and injustice. Every part of the country needs more affordable homes – in the North and the South, in urban and rural communities".[18]
In 2008, Cooper became the first woman to serve asChief Secretary to the Treasury where she was involved with takingNorthern Rock into public ownership. As her husband,Ed Balls, was already a cabinet minister, her promotion meant that the two became the first married couple ever to sit in the cabinet together.[19]
In 2009, Cooper was appointed asSecretary of State for Work and Pensions and took over leading on theWelfare Reform Act 2009 which included measures to extend the use of benefit sanctions to force unemployed people to seek work.[20] Many campaigners – including theChild Poverty Action Group (CPAG) – urged Cooper to rethink Labour's approach, arguing instead that increasing support for job seekers was vital to eradicating child poverty.[21][22]
In May 2009,The Daily Telegraph reported that Cooper had changed the designation of her second home twice in two years. Following a referral to the parliamentary standards watchdog, Cooper and her husbandEd Balls were exonerated byJohn Lyon, the Standards Commissioner. He said they had paid capital gains tax on their homes and were not motivated by profit.[23] Cooper and Balls bought a four-bedroom house inStoke Newington,North London, and registered this as their second home (rather than their home inCastleford,West Yorkshire); this qualified them for up to £44,000 a year to subsidise a reported £438,000 mortgage under the Commons Additional Costs Allowance, of which they claimed £24,400.[24] An investigation in MPs' expenses by SirThomas Legg found that Cooper and her husband had both received overpayments of £1,363 in relation to their mortgage. He ordered them to repay the money.[25]
Prior to the2010 general election, Cooper's constituency of Pontefract and Castleford was abolished, and replaced withNormanton, Pontefract, and Castleford. At the election, Cooper was elected as MP for Normanton, Pontefract, and Castleford with 48.1% of the vote and a majority of 10,979.[26] Following Labour's defeat at the general election, Cooper and her husbandEd Balls were both mentioned in the press as a potentialleadership candidates whenGordon Brown resigned asLeader of the Labour Party.
Before Balls announced his candidacy, he offered to stand aside if Cooper wanted to stand, but Cooper declined for the sake of their children, stating that it would not be the right time for her.[27][28] She later topped the2010 ballot for places in theShadow cabinet, and there was speculation that the newly elected Labour LeaderEd Miliband would appoint herShadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.[29][30] She instead becameShadow Foreign Secretary.
WhenAlan Johnson resigned as Shadow Chancellor on 20 January 2011, Cooper was appointedShadow Home Secretary. Her husband,Ed Balls, replaced Johnson as Shadow Chancellor. Cooper also served asShadow Minister for Women and Equalities from October 2010 to October 2013.[15]
On 20 January 2011, Cooper took the position of shadow home secretary amidst a shadow cabinet reshuffle.[31] In this position, Cooper shadowedTheresa May at theHome Office. She labelled the government'svans displaying posters urging illegal immigrants to go home a "divisive gimmick" in October 2013.[32]
In February 2013, she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom byWoman's Hour onBBC Radio 4, although not in the top 20.[33]
In 2013, she proposed the appointment of a national commissioner for domestic and sexual violence.[34] She spoke at theLabour Party Conference in 2014 abouteastern Europeans who were mistreated by employers of migrant labour.[35]
Cooper was strongly critical of cuts tochild tax credit announced byGeorge Osborne in theJuly 2015 Budget; she authored the following statement in theNew Statesman:
And rememberDavid Cameron's pre-election pledge that child tax credit is "not going to fall." It was a lie. This is a shameful betrayal of parents working hard to support their kids and get on in life. In the twenty-first century working parents shouldn't have to go tofood banks to put a hot meal on the table, as too many families now do.[36]
At the2015 general election, Cooper was re-elected as MP for Normanton, Pontefract, and Castleford with an increased vote share of 54.9% and an increased majority of 6.7%.[37] Following the election andEd Miliband's resignation, she was nominated as one of four candidates for the Labour leadership. Cooper was nominated by 59 MPs, 12MEPs, 109CLPs, two affiliated trade unions and onesocialist society.[38][39][40]The Guardian newspaper endorsed Cooper as the "best placed" to offer a strong vision and unite the party while theNew Statesman's endorsement praised her experience.[41][42] Former prime ministerGordon Brown publicly endorsed Cooper as his first choice for leader, as did former home secretaryAlan Johnson.[43][44]
During the campaign, Cooper supported reintroducing the 50pincome tax rate and creating more high-skilled manufacturing jobs. She proposed the introduction of aliving wage for social care workers and the construction of 300,000 houses every year. Cooper disagreed that Labour spent too much whilst in government.[45]
Following the 2015 Labour Party leadership election, Cooper returned to the back benches, after nearly 17 years on the front bench.[46] Building on her existing work on theEuropean refugee crisis, Cooper was appointed chair of Labour's refugee taskforce, working with local authorities, community groups and trade unions to develop a sustainable and humanitarian response to the crisis.[47][48] She spoke about the issue at Labour's annual conference in 2016.[49]
She supportedOwen Smith againstJeremy Corbyn in the2016 leadership election.[50]
Following a vote of MPs on 19 October 2016, Cooper was elected chair of theHome Affairs Select Committee, gaining more votes than fellow candidates,Caroline Flint,Chuka Umunna andPaul Flynn.[3] As chair, Cooper launched a national inquiry into public views on immigration[51] and, after an emergency inquiry into theDubs scheme for child refugees, criticised the government's decision to end the programme in February 2017.[52][53]
At the snap2017 general election, Cooper was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 59.5% and a decreased majority of 14,499.[54][55]
Cooper was critical of theMay government's infrastructure plans' focus on big cities, and was formerly the chair of Labour Towns, a group ofLabour MPs, councillors and mayors of towns seeking to promote investment in them – publishing a town manifesto in 2019.[56][57]
She is a member ofLabour Friends of Israel.[58]
She was again re-elected at the2019 general election, with a decreased vote share of 37.9% and a decreased majority of 1,276.[59]
During theBrexit process, Cooper consistently fought against ano-deal Brexit, tabling one of the main amendments in January 2019; others to table amendments wereCaroline Spelman,Graham Brady,Rachel Reeves,Dominic Grieve andIan Blackford.[60]
In April, Cooper tabled aprivate members' bill, again with the intended effect of preventing a "no-deal" Brexit.[61] The Bill was voted to be discussed as an important bill using processes often used for issues of national security. MPs voted 312 to 311 in favour of allowing her bill to be fast-tracked, and it was made law on 8 April 2019.
Cooper was reappointed as shadow home secretary on 29 November 2021 byKeir Starmer, replacingNick Thomas-Symonds in ashadow cabinet reshuffle.
Following allegations thatSuella Braverman had breached the ministerial code by sending secure information with her private email, Cooper asked for possible security implications to be investigated. She wrote toSimon Case "I am urging you and the Home Office to now urgently undertake such an investigation [into possible security breaches] as the public has a right to know that there are proper secure information procedures in place to cover the person who has been given charge of our national security."[62][63] Cooper said that it raised doubts about thePrime Minister's judgement. She also added that people need to be able to trust the home secretary with highly sensitive information and national security.[64] Cooper said that the Conservative Party lacked ethics and adequate standards.[65]
Due to the2023 periodic review of Westminster constituencies, Cooper's constituency of Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford was abolished, and replaced withPontefract, Castleford and Knottingley. At the2024 general election, Cooper was elected to Parliament as MP for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley with 47.5% of the vote and a majority of 6,630.[66][67]
Following Labour's victory in the general election, Cooper was appointed home secretary by Starmer inhis government on 5 July.[68] On 7 July, after Starmer confirmed that theRwanda asylum plan had been scrapped, Cooper announced that theBorder Security Command would be established in order to help reduce small boat crossings across the English channel.[69][70]
Following the2024 Southport stabbing, in which three young girls were killed, Cooper stated that she was concerned by the incident and described the emergency services' response as courageous.[71] Cooper additionally visited Southport the following morning to lay flowers and meet officials and community leaders.[72] Starmer also visited the same day and laid flowers at the scene, and was heckled by some members of the public.[73] Cooper later condemnedthe riots across England and Northern Ireland following the stabbing. After Axel Rudakubana's guilty plea on 20 January 2025, Cooper announced apublic inquiry, stating that the victims' families "needed answers about what had happened leading up to the attack".[74] This was followed by Starmer's promise to overhaul terrorism laws to reflect the type of non-ideological killings characterised by individuals like Rudakubana, stressing the threat from “acts of extreme violence perpetrated by loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom, accessing all manner of material online, desperate for notoriety, sometimes inspired by traditional terrorist groups, but fixated on that extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake”.[75] Significant attention was drawn to the anti-radicalisationPrevent programme for failing to accept referrals of Rudakubana on the basis of him lacking a terrorist ideology. Although an emergency review found that Prevent had followed correct procedures on each referral, Cooper concluded “that too much weight was placed on the absence of ideology” in the programme. Cooper announced that there would be a review on the threshold at which Prevent intervenes, with senior lawyerDavid Anderson being assigned by Starmer as the Independent Prevent Commissioner to perform the review.[75][76]
The new office of Border Security Commander was established, whose remit would be to lead the new command and its members. The command was launched by Cooper on 7 July 2024.[77][78] The command would be funded by money previously earmarked for the Rwanda plan and would be responsible for coordinating the activities ofImmigration Enforcement,MI5, theBorder Force and theNational Crime Agency in tackling smuggling gangs which facilitate illegal migrant crossings over the English Channel.[79][77] A team in theHome Office was tasked with setting out the remit of the command, as well as its governance structure and its strategic direction.[77][80]Martin Hewitt was appointed to the role of Border Security Commander in September 2024, by the Home Secretary.[81]
Cooper has faced a significant backlash over her "immigration crackdown", with critics saying that her plans were "a waste of taxpayer money, lack detail and fail to recognise 'the dignity and humanity of migrants', especially in the wake of recent racist riots that targeted hotels housing asylum seekers across the country", withAmnesty International accusing Cooper of "reheating the Conservative government's rhetoric around border security", and Enver Solomon of theRefugee Council stating that she was “wasting taxpayers’ money on expanding detention places.”[82] Cooper'sBorder Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill was criticised by fellowLabour MPs for retaining Conservative era anti-migrant legislation, withSarah Champion criticising the bill for disqualifying asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats from claiming protection from modern slavery, andNadia Whittome stating the legislation must reverse "powers to detain child refugees for up to 28 days."[83] Her asylum bill was similarly criticised inLabourList for continuing "cruel anti-migrant policies", which noted a backlash from Labour MPs over Cooper's "race to the bottom of the barrel."[84] After a trans rights protest in London she branded messages of trans solidarity on the statues of several influential figures, including South African prime minister Jan Smuts, “disgraceful”.[85]
In November 2024, Cooper voted in favour of theTerminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which proposes to legaliseassisted suicide.[86]
Cooper marriedEd Balls on 10 January 1998[87] inEastbourne. Her husband wasEconomic Secretary to the Treasury in theTony Blair government andSecretary of State for Children, Schools and Families underGordon Brown, then in opposition wasShadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and a candidate in the2010 Labour Party leadership election. The couple have two daughters and one son.[88][better source needed]
Cooper has published two books, entitledShe Speaks: The Power of Women's Voices andShe Speaks: Women's Speeches That Changed the World, from Pankhurst to Greta, released in November 2019 and October 2020, respectively.[89][90]
Everywoman Safe Everywhere – Labour's Consultation on Women's Safety
I have been in contact with the Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner and the Merseyside mayor to convey my support to the police and our thanks to the police and emergency services for their swift and courageous response.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forPontefract and Castleford 1997–2010 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forNormanton, Pontefract and Castleford 2010–2024 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forPontefract, Castleford and Knottingley 2024–present | Incumbent |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Minister of State for Housing and Planning 2005–2008 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chief Secretary to the Treasury 2008–2009 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Secretary of State for Work and Pensions 2009–2010 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions 2010 | Succeeded by |
| Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities 2010–2013 | Succeeded by | |
| Preceded by | Shadow Foreign Secretary 2010–2011 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Home Secretary 2011–2015 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Home Secretary 2021–2024 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Home Secretary 2024–present | Incumbent |
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