Windrush Compensation Scheme

Debate between Lord Ouseley and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Sometimes, someone who fails a good character test—for example, because of criminality—will be precluded from having leave to remain in this country. That is what the good character test is around.

[Lord Ouseley (CB)]

My Lords, we always hear about lessons learned when there are major disasters or atrocities of the kind associated with the Windrush generation and the compensation scheme. As early as 2012, representations were made by Caribbean Heads of Government about the mistreatment of their residents and the issue of non-documentation and proving their right to be here, in spite of having been here since the last war. As late as 2014, those representations were made. Just over a year ago, I asked a Written Question, and a Written Answer came from the Minister herself. I was told that no representations had been made to Her Majesty’s Government; it was the tenacity of those campaigning on behalf of people who had been mistreated that ensured the matter came into the open and started to be taken seriously.

It was almost exactly a year ago that a major press conference launched the initiative that exposed what was going on. So when we come to hear about lessons learned, which was stressed in the Statement, I would like to know why the representations made by the Caribbean Heads of Government were not made known to anyone else? Was that based on the context of the hostile environment, which suggested that these people did not matter and were unimportant, and that it was irrelevant to take those representations and pass them on? When the Minister realised what had happened, she made it known that she was misled and did not have that information when she gave an incorrect answer to the House. Can we be assured that, if this happened tomorrow—if representations were made to Her Majesty’s Government through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as they were on that occasion—representations would be communicated to those in the Home Office who have responsibility for this matter and there would not be a repeat of the situation we have just had?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Lord for the points he has made. He will be aware that the Home Secretary has asked Wendy Williams to carry out a lessons learned review and we look forward to hearing its findings. We often say “This will never happen again” in all kinds of settings in life. The Windrush episode is a travesty for this country and all we can do on identity assurance is to build on that situation and try to do things better in future.

Brexit: Hate Crimes

Debate between Lord Ouseley and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Thursday 19th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I will get to the point about pre-referendum, because in fact the numbers of hate crimes reported are now down to pre-referendum levels. The reasons behind some of the hate crime were many and varied. The Polish community, for probably the first time in its history in this country, experienced in Hammersmith an unprecedented attack, and the Polish centre in Hammersmith was one of the first centres to benefit from the community demonstration project funding. As I say, the reasons that motivate people to provoke hatred against other people are many and varied, and it is generally based on certain characteristics of those people and those communities, and it has gone down to pre-referendum levels since then.

[Lord Ouseley (CB)]

My Lords, on 24 June we were all shocked by the level of responses of hate demonstrated by the recorded and reported incidents. I declare an interest in my work as chair of Kick It Out, where we monitor—and have done for the last 23 years—hate incidents that are at the lower level of everyday abuse. There is nothing new about the level of hatred that exists within our society. We have to tackle the issue of prejudice, which we are not doing sufficiently. To blame Brexit as a cause of what we saw on 24 June and since is delusional. Quite frankly, in the context of racial abuse, you cannot blame the levels of homophobic abuse and abuse of disabled people that we are witnessing specifically on Brexit. How are we taking action to effectively tackle prejudice, which is what feeds bigotry and hatred?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord raises a very important point, which is that it was not Brexit per se that was the cause of this hatred but Brexit was used as an occasion to promote prejudice and hatred. The Government have done many things since 2010 to try to tackle this. I mentioned the hate crime action plan that the Home Secretary produced upon becoming Home Secretary. We have made changes to legislation that offer further protection for transgender and disabled people, and those have led to the first convictions for the offence of stirring up hatred on grounds of sexual orientation. We have also improved the police recording of hate crime. Forces now capture data on all five of the monitored hate crime strands. We have also recently launched a funding scheme to help protect places of worship from hate crime and to tackle hate crime at a local level.