Windrush Review

Abena Oppong-Asare Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Wendy Williams’ Windrush Lessons Learned Review progress update.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship for the first time, Ms McVey. I will endeavour to keep my comments as brief as possible, but you know MPs find that difficult.

I want to talk about Wendy Williams’ progress update following her “Windrush Lessons Learned Review”, published in 2020. More than five years have passed since a steady stream of constituents began approaching me who realised that they or someone in their family had been victims of the Windrush scandal. Some were from families who had been torn apart, with a father or mother wrongly deported. Others had been falsely imprisoned, lost their jobs and homes and were denied medical care and access to benefits. They all suffered at the hands of a Government that dehumanised them as they tried to implement the hostile environment policy at all costs. They were British citizens who had been asked to jump over impossible hurdles to prove their status and, having failed to do so, endured incredible cruelty at the hands of the Home Office.

Five years later, the media, some politicians and the Government have largely moved on, but many victims have been unable to, with only a small minority having received a personal apology from the Home Office or any compensation. Most of those affected by this terrible scandal are still waiting for any kind of justice. For most victims, the compensation scheme is the most visible response to the scandal and their path to a resolution. However, rather than delivering justice for victims, the scheme has been so mismanaged that it has become an extension of the scandal itself.

In her 2020 progress report, Wendy Williams stated that her recommendations boiled down to three factors, including that the Home Office should open up to “greater external scrutiny” and recognise that migration policy is “about people” and “rooted in humanity.” It is clear that the compensation scheme has failed to meet those challenges, being described in the progress report by claimants as “traumatic”, chaotic, “very stressful” and a “game of back and forth”.

The most notable failure of the compensation scheme has been the painfully slow progress of cases—so slow, in fact, that at least 28 people have now tragically died without ever having received any compensation offer. At least 28 victims will never get the justice they deserve. For most, the process has been slow, lengthy and painful. Often, they are given few updates and have little to no under-standing of how their claims are progressing. Incredibly, only one in four applicants has received any compensation, and fewer than 7% of the 15,000 compensation claims the Government originally expected have been paid.

For one of my constituents, waiting for a compensation offer took more than two years. In that time, he was forced into more and more debt. His son died tragically, having passed away in his sleep. While he was awaiting a decision, he was unable to even bury his son. His experience is not unique. In her progress report, Wendy Williams highlights the timeliness of compensation payments as one of the main concerns raised by those she consulted. The Home Office must listen to Wendy Williams and the victims of this scandal. I urge the Minister act now to speed up the process.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) for securing this important debate. I echo her points; Wendy Williams has said that the process is slow. Other issues raised with me include how poorly trained the advisers are, which is causing issues. As well as being slow, the scheme lacks independence and is not paying costs quickly. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is further evidence of putting a broken system ahead of those who are dying without redress? The Government need to take this issue seriously and implement Wendy Williams’ recommendations. Not only has she done the report on lessons learned, but she did a progress report earlier this year, and the Government are still failing to implement those recommendations. We do not have the time; people need the support right now.

[Kate Osamor]

I thank my hon. Friend for her powerful intervention, and I wholeheartedly agree. I urge the Minister to act now to speed up the process wherever possible by increasing staff numbers and simplifying the decision-making process. The victims of this scandal have been trapped in limbo for long enough. It is time to give them the resolution they are entitled to.

Often, the scheme fails even the lucky few who have received an offer of compensation. The headline figures for compensation may seem like sizeable amounts, but they do not reflect the life-changing trauma that so many experienced. Wrongful imprisonment can lead to an award of just £300 per day of detainment. The headline figure for deportation is £10,000, but for administrative removal the amount drops to £5,000. Claimants who have lost out on potentially years of child benefit or working tax credit are only given just over £1,000—far less than the amount they were wrongly denied. If claimants were denied access to housing, they are given £1,000. Denial of education results in a one-off award of £500. I know of at least one incident in which the total compensation offered to my constituent was less than the total debt they had been forced into as a result of the scandal. How can that be right?