Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill

Baroness Bull Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend and to speak today in support of this Bill, which has taken on even greater significance— if such a thing were possible—in the light of the crisis that we are living through. As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, pointed out, this unprecedented challenge has high- lighted once again the massive contribution that the Windrush generation, their children and their children’s children, make to the fabric of our lives in the UK. In these changed circumstances, as perhaps a truer perspective on what really matters in life emerges, as we redefine our views on what “key worker” means, as we reflect ruefully on past debates in this Chamber about immigration and the notion of low-skilled workers, we have occasion on a daily basis to be grateful to those members of our community who are of, or descend from, the Windrush generation.

They were brave pioneers. They came here, at our invitation, to help rebuild a nation battered by war. They did not come here asking to become British citizens; they travelled on passports which said that they were British citizens. Despite the discrimination and racism that they encountered and endured, they stayed on and made vital contributions, not least to the foundation of the NHS and the establishment of London’s transport system, and so 70 years later, as this generation endures its own global crisis, we are reminded every day of the contribution of those original pioneers, as we lean harder than ever on the health infrastructure that they helped to build, and as we witness the daily sacrifice of NHS workers and transport staff who risk their lives to support others.

The impact of the Windrush scandal and the hostile environment that enabled it has been well documented. It has affected the lives of individuals, their families and communities—homes and jobs have been lost, access to healthcare, pensions and social security refused. People have been subject to immigration enforcement, those travelling abroad have been refused re-entry to their home country, while others were unable to visit family to say final goodbyes to loved ones or to pay last respects at funerals. Some died before they received any acknowledgement of the appalling way they had been treated, let alone any sign of compensation. These people were and are British citizens, and we must all share the sense of shame at the treatment that they endured. This Bill is an important part of the process by which we will begin to right those wrongs. That is why I felt compelled to come in and speak today. I support the Bill, but I have some questions for the Minister, which I hope she can address when she winds up.

First, can the noble Baroness offer any explanation as to why, as we have heard, so few applications to the scheme have been received? The Home Office estimates that 15,000 people could be eligible to apply, yet 1,000 applications have come in, with just over £62,000 paid out to 36 people. I share concerns that people may be dissuaded from coming forward by the absence of provision for legal aid, the complexity of the claims process and the extensive requirements for documentary evidence, exactly the kind of evidence that people were denied as a result of this scandal. When you add in the understandable mistrust of the Home Office, and individuals’ fears of testing their own status, lest they suffer the same consequences as others, it is probably less surprising that so few have yet to make a claim.

Secondly, is the Minister confident that the £500,000 fund for community-based organisations will be sufficient? Community-based groups are effective because they are just that—they are rooted in and specific to that community and locality. But this scheme is open to a range of different communities, and certainly not just those who originally came from the Caribbean Commonwealth. We should not imagine that these people are all part of a single community just because they share that same characteristic of having suffered as a result of the Windrush scandal.

Finally, can she tell us what progress the stakeholder advisory group is making on its stated purpose to build trust with the affected communities? How many times has it met? What recommendations has it put forward and which have been taken up?

Since this Bill had its Second Reading in the other place, we have now seen the Wendy Williams lessons learned report. Her important recommendations take on an added poignancy today. “Go further,” she urges, “to right the wrongs.” She does not add, but I will—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, has already mentioned this—that the lessons learned from this shameful episode need to be applied as we implement a new immigration regime for the post-Brexit environment. Worrying reports are emerging of EU citizens who are resident in the UK being denied access to universal credit right now, despite having pre-settled status, but because they do not pass the right to reside test. The Home Office has said previously that whether they have pre-settled or settled status, they have been accepted through the scheme and have secured their rights in UK law.

This may not be the moment to push this particular issue further, but I would urge the Government to hold the Windrush lessons and that simple but powerful phrase in mind,

“Go further to right the wrongs”,


because, however important this Bill is, it cannot in itself end the Windrush scandal. That is because it is one of discrimination, of the denial of rights and of the perpetuation of inequalities that stretches back over decades, and it is a scandal that is still playing out, as is clearly evident in the relative rate of poverty among black and Asian minority ethnic communities as well as in access to education, housing or employment and in the social and health-related inequalities. It is horribly revealing that, of the first 3,882 patients critically ill with Covid-19, more than a third were non-white, despite those communities representing only 14% of the population. BAME staff make up 44% of the NHS workforce and yet they account for 68% of deaths, including every one of the 14 doctors who had died at the time at which I wrote this speech.

Last month, the Government called for retired doctors and nurses to come back into service to help manage the coronavirus crisis. For many, that call to action will have evoked memories of 1948, when they answered a similar call and boarded HMT “Empire Windrush” to come to the UK and help build the embryonic NHS. Yet despite the prejudice they faced in their careers, despite spending decades nursing others only to be denied healthcare when they needed it themselves, despite their children being told that they were aliens in the only country they had ever called home, many of these nurses and doctors have put their own safety on the line and signed up. The Windrush generation and their descendants have twice answered the call to help this country through its darkest hours. We are clapping for them now, but what happens when the weekly applause no longer rings out? That will be the true test of whether the lessons have been learned. We need not only to compensate these people who have been so shamefully wronged; we need to ensure that nothing like it is ever allowed to happen again.