Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has been accused of not taking knife crime seriously during a back and forth in the Commons with her Conservative shadow, James Cleverly.

Mr Cleverly claimed Ms Cooper was “chatting and chuckling” while he was speaking about stabbings on the final day of the King’s Speech debate.

The Home Secretary hit back, saying those were “unfounded allegations”, before describing the Tory leadership contest as “a cross between Love Island and the jungle”.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper arriving for a Cabinet meeting
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper clashed with her Conservative counterpart, James Cleverly, in the Commons (Jeff Moore/PA)

Opening the debate on Tuesday, Mr Cleverly said: “I really hope that (Ms Cooper) takes this seriously. She can chuckle all she likes, but this is about kids getting stabbed on the streets of London, and she should take this more seriously.”

Intervening, Ms Cooper said: “He knows he should not make disgraceful, unfounded allegations like that about my response to knife crime when he knows I have met with families right across the country who are devastated by knife crime, including in towns and smaller communities and suburbs right across the country, where this terrible crime is going up.

“Where his party when in government repeatedly failed to bring in the bans on serious weapons on our streets, will he now support this party and this Government when we bring in the ban on ninja swords, as well as on dangerous machetes, that he should have brought in long ago?”

Former home secretary Mr Cleverly replied: “I made the observation that, whilst I was talking about young people getting stabbed, (Ms Cooper) was chatting and chuckling with her colleagues on the front bench. That was a statement of fact.”

Labour frontbenchers could be seen shaking their heads in response.

Ms Cooper then took to the despatch box and proceeded to launch a counter-attack in relation to the Tory leadership contest.

She told MPs: “The shadow home secretary, I think, has actually spent his entire speech not actually talking about any of the real challenges the country faces, but simply playing to the backbenches of the Conservative Party with a fantasy leadership application speech.

“And what is it about these former home secretaries and former Home Office ministers? You know, of the last seven Home Office ministers in Cabinet, six of them are apparently running.”

She added: “So, if they are now lining up to do to the Tory Party what they’ve already done to the Home Office and the country, well, frankly, they deserve each other.

“Every one of them championed that policy on Rwanda, that the shadow home secretary, to be fair to him, did notoriously describe as batshit crazy… Well, maybe that’s what you need to stand to be the Tory leader right now.”

Ms Cooper went on: “We’ve heard today this contest is going to run until November. We’ve got five months of this. We’ve hardly got any Tory MPs here because they’re all off doing their little chats and meetings. It’s like a cross between Love Island and the jungle.

“Somebody’s had a nervous breakdown and that is probably all of their backbenchers dreading getting a little text saying another candidate is wanting a chat and you can just see it – look at them on there, all of them really saying ‘I’m a Tory MP, get me out of here’.”