Windrush Compensation Scheme

Lord Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have two points to make in my contribution. They are to do with the isolation of part of the Windrush community in some parts of the country. I recall that, during the coal miners’ strike of 1984-85, I was asked to look after the only black miner out of 2,500 miners working at Manton colliery in Worksop. When the union asked whether I would take him under my wing, assist him and look after him during the strike, I asked why. The answer was “For his safety.”

In those coal-mining communities and in similar rural and semi-rural communities, there are scattered around many individuals who are from the Windrush generation and who are potentially eligible for compensation, but in my experience they tend to be less well connected to others of that generation and therefore more isolated in terms of information. There is one very straightforward thing that does not appear to have happened, so I propose to the Minister that she should write to local newspapers, such as the Worksop Guardian, the Mansfield Chad, the Retford Times and the Doncaster Free Press, spelling out in simple terms who is eligible and why and what they can do about it. That will open it up to those individuals, some of whom I assisted in my former representative role to apply and win the compensation they were due.

My second point echoes that made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. My experience of coal miners’ claims for industrial injury is that solicitors and claims handlers took one-quarter, sometimes more, of the settlement, and people will not come forward in the same numbers. Citizens advice bureaux ought to be empowered and given a modest degree of funding to promote the case and give advice to individuals, whatever kind of community they live in. Then those in areas such as Nottinghamshire who are due compensation will have the opportunity to get it.