Yvette Cooper: What you need to know about the potential future home secretary

Published

5 months ago

June 4, 2024

admin

After rising to Labour stardom under New Labour, Yvette Cooper was sidelined under Jeremy Corbyn. But she’s now seen a rapid return to the frontbenches.

Yvette Cooper was first elected in the 1997 Labour landslide; the previous incumbent was prised from a safe seat to afford her easy entry to the Commons.

Since then, she has been the first female chief secretary to the Treasury, where she was an advocate for a “feminist approach to economics”.

But she has also faced a turbulent time in opposition – after being relegated to the backbenches under Jeremy Corbyn; perhaps as a consequence of her public criticisms of him.

Most recently, in her role as shadow home secretary under Sir Keir Starmer, she has promised to run a “hands-on Home Office” with a focus on cutting crime rates.

Election latest: Farage’s Tory rival ‘sorry to hear’ about milkshake attack

Many people may also know her from her marriage to Ed Balls, Gordon Brown’s former top adviser and confidante. Ms Cooper and Mr Balls married in 1998, and soon became the ultimate power couple. Their marriage made them the first couple to sit in the government cabinet together. They have three children.

A family with an impeccable Labour pedigree

Ms Cooper was born in Inverness in Scotland in 1969 but raised in the South East of England in leafy Hampshire.

She was born into a Labour family – her father was a union leader, and her mother was a maths teacher who initially came from a mining community.

Ms Cooper has previously spoken of how her father’s unionist values – whom she joined on marches in the early 1980s – have stayed with her throughout her political career.

First taste of politics… ‘I organised a prefect’s strike’

Ms Cooper attended state comprehensive schools as a child, but has admitted she got the political bug while there – over the issue of “white socks”.

She recalls feeling a sense of burning “injustice” when one of the male prefects came to school wearing white socks.

She made the decision to take away his prefect badge and send him “to the headmaster with our demands”.

The perfect career politician’s CV

Ms Cooper later attended Oxford University and read PPE – coming away with a first-class degree.

She was then awarded a Kennedy Scholarship in 1991 to study at Harvard University.

She finished her studies with a MSc in economics at the London School of Economics.

A varied early career

Ms Cooper’s first job was on a farm picking strawberries and driving a tractor.

She later embarked on a journalism career as lead writer of an economic column for The Independent.

‘I did not think I would end up as an MP’

It was 1992 in Arkansas where Ms Cooper made her first impact on the political scene, working on Bill Clinton’s successful presidential campaign.

At the same time, she was also working in the office of the then Labour leader John Smith, as an economic researcher.

Ms Cooper was then chosen for the seat of Pontefract and Castleford in 1997 which she won with a majority of 25,725 votes, aged 28.

It’s remained a safe Yorkshire seat – although it was renamed Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford in 2010. In the 2019 general election, her majority was reduced to just 1,276 votes.

Time in the House of Commons

Ms Cooper quickly found herself working her way up the ranks in the Labour Party and was allocated her first position as parliamentary under-secretary in the Department for Health in 1999.

Ms Cooper then held multiple junior government roles under Tony Blair.

In 2001, she became the first minister to have a period of maternity leave – though some criticism was levelled at her for this, including being called “the Minister for Maternity Leave”.

In 2008, she was the first woman to be appointed as chief secretary to the Treasury, where she spent time highlighting the impact of the recession on women.

After the 2010 election defeat, she got the most votes of any Labour MP in the elected shadow cabinet and took on the role of shadow home secretary.

A tumultuous time in opposition

Ms Cooper faced a tumultuous time in opposition after she was relegated to the backbenches under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

In 2015, she ran against Mr Corbyn in the campaign for the Labour leadership, sparked by the resignation of Ed Miliband.

? Tap here to follow Politics at Jack at Sam’s wherever you get your podcasts ?

She accused Mr Corbyn, the only leftwinger on the ballot, of “bad economics” and policies which “[weren’t] credible”.

She came third with 17% of the vote.

Sir Keir Starmer makes her a frontline star again

After Sir Keir was elected leader of the Labour Party, Ms Cooper soon saw the dynamic change within the party and was brought back to the frontbenches.

Ms Cooper was tasked with the role of shadow secretary of state for the Home Department – a position she has held since 2021.

In this role, she has set out a “five-point plan” for her department:

Crackdown on criminal smuggler gangs, through new cross-border police unit
Clear the backlog and end hotel use
Reform legal routes for refugees to stop people being exploited by gangs
New agreement with France and other countries on returns and family reunion
Tackle humanitarian crises at source helping refugees in their region

Ms Cooper has also claimed she would run a “hands-on Home Office” if she takes the reins after the election and would focus on cutting crime.

Politics

NHS league tables and cancelled pay rises for managers among government health reforms

Published

5 hours ago

November 13, 2024

admin

NHS league tables and cancelled pay rises for managers among government health reforms

NHS league tables revealing failing NHS trusts and cancelled pay rises or dismissal for managers who don’t turn things around are to form part of the government’s plans to improve the health service.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting is confirming new measures he hopes will boost failing hospital trusts and encourage successful ones.

The changes form part of the Labour government’s strategy to reduce waiting lists “from 18 months to 18 weeks”.

Politics latest: ‘Eye-watering’ climate target announced by PM

Health and the state of the NHS were consistently among the most important issues for voters at this year’s general election – with Labour blaming the Conservatives for “breaking” it.

As health is a devolved area, any reforms proposed in Westminster would only apply to England.

Chief among Mr Streeting’s proposals is a “league table” for NHS trusts.

An announcement from the Department for Health and Social Care said: “NHS England will carry out a no-holds-barred sweeping review of NHS performance across the entire country, with providers to be placed into a league table.

“This will be made public and regularly updated to ensure leaders, policy-makers and patients know which improvements need to be prioritised.”

It also promises to replace “persistently failing managers” – with “turn around teams” being sent in to improve trusts running sizeable deficits or offering poor service to patients.

The government says “senior managers” who fail to make progress will not be eligible for pay rises.

There will be “financial implications” for more senior figures such as chief executives if their trust does not improve.

On the flip-side, those trusts that are deemed to be “high-performing” will get “greater freedom over funding and flexibility”.

Senior leaders at these trusts will also be “rewarded”.

The government says the current system is not incentivising trusts to run a budget surplus, as they cannot benefit from it.

Mr Streeting said: “The budget showed this government prioritises the NHS, providing the investment needed to rebuild the health service.

“Today we are announcing the reforms to make sure every penny of extra investment is well spent and cuts waiting times for patients.

“There’ll be no more turning a blind eye to failure. We will drive the health service to improve, so patients get more out of it for what taxpayers put in.

“Our health service must attract top talent, be far more transparent to the public who pay for it, and run as efficiently as global businesses.

“With the combination of investment and reform, we will turn the NHS around and cut waiting times from 18 months to 18 weeks.”

Concerns from health representatives

Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, said: “While NHS leaders welcome accountability, it is critical that responsibility comes with the necessary support and development.

“The extensive package of reforms, developed together with government, will empower all leaders working in the NHS and it will give them the tools they need to provide the best possible services for our patients.”

Further plans on how monitoring will be published by the start of the next financial year in April 2025, the government said.

Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation – a body that represents all NHS trusts – said healthcare leaders welcome the “government’s ambition”.

However, he said he was concerned league tables and reducing pay may “strip out” the nuance of what’s going on.

👉 Listen to Politics At Jack And Sam’s on your podcast app👈

Mr Taylor said: “NHS staff are doing their very best for patients under very challenging circumstances and we do not want them feeling like they are being named and shamed.

“League tables in themselves do not lead to improvement, trusts struggling with consistent performance issues – some of which reflect contextual issues such as underlying population heath and staff shortages – need to be identified and supported in order to recover.”