Public Office (Accountability) Bill

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I too pay tribute to the fearless campaigning by the victims’ families and survivors of Hillsborough, whose resilience, strength and courage over 36 long years in the face of unaccountable power and unthinkable injustice made this Bill a reality. Bishop James Jones should also be praised for his commitment, determination and dedication to getting us to this landmark point.

The Bill is a welcome step on the road to improving openness and candour within public bodies, but it does not go far enough to protect victims of state injustice. The opportunity to strengthen the impact of the Bill should not be lost, so will the Minister confirm that the Government will ensure that the Bill has the strongest effect? Will he guarantee that a timetable will be set without delay to table secondary legislation extending the duty of candour in Clause 2, and that the extension will include public officials subject to serious complaints, sometimes affecting thousands of people?

With this in mind, I draw attention to the Windrush victims and survivors—the generation who came, as British citizens, 78 years ago from the Caribbean, answering the call from Britain, the motherland, to come and help rebuild the country after the war. Yet the Windrush generation had to face adversity, discrimination, violence, rejection, racism and abuse. They could not get places to live. They had to take low-paid jobs even though they were qualified to take on senior roles. But with determination, resilience, courage and a driving force, they showed that Caribbean people could survive and thrive despite all the obstacles, hurdles and challenges. Even though they faced unbelievable prejudice, they influenced the country with their style, music, talent, vibrancy and creativity, and I am proud to be part of that generation.

However, astonishingly and brutally, many of them found themselves part of the hostile environment policy developed by the last Government. It had a catastrophic impact on the Windrush generation, who had their British citizenship taken away from them. It was established that more than 15,000 victims suffered the loss of employment, pensions and homes. They were denied access to passports, health and social care, bank accounts, driving licences, and much, much more. Many were wrongly deported to countries they had not grown up in and were not even born in. Some were denied re-entry to the UK when they travelled abroad. They suffered significant and unbelievable trauma. Some have died because of the severe stress, and their descendants have continued to be severely impacted too.

Because of these experiences, survivors of the Home Office Windrush scandal have been calling for a public inquiry since 2018, when the scandal first came to public attention. However, successive Governments, including the current one, have dismissed and marginalised their calls for truth, accountability and repair. Victims have had to face the trauma of missing personal documents, destroyed records and misleading statements—all by public officials. The ineffective compensation scheme run by the Home Office continues to retraumatise survivors. A lack of legal support is leading to more than half the claims made by survivors being rejected.

A report in April 2026 by the National Audit Office found that by January 2026 only 3,148 claims had resulted in a payout. The survivors of the Home Office Windrush scandal are rightly calling for a public inquiry to shine a light on the compensation scheme, which is vastly inferior to other schemes set up following state wrongs, and to hold the public bodies responsible for this grievous harm to account. Windrush victims and survivors need a clear plan to be published, setting out how the duty of candour will be used to secure truth, accountability, justice and fair compensation for them. We need to know why innocent British citizens were allowed to lose their jobs, homes, healthcare, pensions, freedoms, dignity—and their lives. Windrush victims need to receive proper independent legal representation, just as victims of Hillsborough, Grenfell, the Post Office scandal and the infected blood scandal have fought to receive.

The department responsible for any scandal should not be allowed to investigate itself, judge its own wrongdoing and decide how much its victims deserve. People are still dying while waiting for justice. They do not need another listening exercise, another apology or another promise that things will improve one day. Trust needs to be restored. Victims need a voice and access to justice. By widening the duty of candour, this Bill can transfer some power away from the state, which caused the harm in the first place, and give some power to victims, who, as recent history has shown, have been repeatedly let down by the state.

Windrush victims and survivors deserve and need the truth to be released. They need those responsible to be held accountable so that nothing like this ever happens again. They need independent legal help and fair compensation while they are still alive to receive it. Surely these British citizens are entitled to that justice. So I ask the Minister: will the Government commit to an inquiry to show consideration and empathy for the Windrush victims and survivors? I noted that he did not mention them in his opening remarks. I look forward to what the Minister has to say.