Windrush Lessons Learned Review

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I look forward to that engagement if it is something we can facilitate.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

My right hon. Friend will be all too aware of the multicultural nature of my constituency: not a day goes by without somebody coming to my office—at the moment, virtually —with a new immigration case. Many of these cases are complicated, stretch back several years and are in a queue in the Home Office. Can I urge her, as she progresses the reforms on the Windrush generation, not to remove resources from dealing with people in the backlog, but actually to concentrate more experienced caseworkers there to clear this backlog so that people who have been living in this country for an awfully long time can normalise their position?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I can assure him that the two are separate—obviously we have a bespoke team working on Windrush. I hear him completely on the wider immigration cases. The closure of centres over the last four months will not have assisted with the speed of processing, but now that we are getting back to work, the claims will be processed and people will be given the attention they deserve.