Windrush Compensation Scheme

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for the question. We will examine the points that he has made, and I will write to him about the detail of the potential Home Office response on that. He needs to be reassured that the Windrush commissioner proposals that we are bringing forward, the £1.5 million we have put in to help with advocacy—as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin—and the commitment to deliver this scheme quickly are for the whole purpose of recognising the hurt and suffering of Windrush victims, and giving them proper redress for that hurt and loss.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned that it had been significant that a single caseworker had been allocated, and that it had really improved the system. The Windrush compensation scheme is one of many that the Government are running at the moment, such as the Post Office and infected blood. Can the Minister please make sure that he shares the lessons learned across government, particularly with the Cabinet Office, to ensure that people are getting a speedy redress when they are owed compensation by the Government?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I will certainly do that and take that back to pass on to my Cabinet Office colleagues. One of the reasons why the new Government introduced the single named caseworker was in direct response to the type of criticism that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, has brought forward. We hope that it will streamline the process, improve consistency, increase transparency and remove the duplication, because those are the factors that have led to delay. If there is good practice from the Post Office and infected blood compensation schemes, and/or vice versa from this, the Government should self-evidently adopt it and make sure that victims get the justice they deserve at the time they deserve it.