Barry Gardiner
Main Page: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent West)Department Debates - View all Barry Gardiner's debates with the Home Office
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is right to recognise that this scandal affected people from Commonwealth countries. We do have that information, and I can confirm that people were affected from Pakistan, India and a range of Commonwealth countries. I would be very happy to share that information with the House.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
His school had been demolished more than 30 years before and he had never been in trouble, so there was no record of him with the police either. We searched the archives at Kew, the central NHS and Brent Council. It was difficult going back 54 years, because most records had been destroyed or the systems had changed, but after three years, the Home Office accepted that Mr Breedy had arrived—as he said, freely landed—aged nine in 1962 and had paid his national insurance contributions for 45 years until the Home Office had written to his employers in 2016 and put him out of a job. I will accept the Home Secretary’s offer to come in and work with her officials, because it is unforgivable that after accepting that he was right all along, the Government have still not sent him the British passport that he applied for five years ago, and they have not even begun to compensate him for his lost earnings or lost pension entitlement, let alone his pain or suffering. If the compensation team at the Home Office does not need more staff, as the Home Secretary has just assured the House, why has my constituent still not been contacted? He is now 68 years of age. How long will he have to wait?
Priti Patel
I would be very happy to work with the hon. Gentleman. If he can provide me with the background that he just shared in the House and some contact details, we will pick that up, and I will absolutely get some answers to his question.