Windrush Day 2021

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) [V]]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this important debate.

I am a daughter of the Windrush generation. When my parents and my family arrived from Nevis and settled in Leicester, they made tremendous sacrifices so that they could contribute to our local and national community. The Windrush generation were part of a brief post-war attempt to reconcile centuries of extractive, violent colonialism by ensuring that members of the British empire could settle in the UK. Despite facing horrific systemic racism and discrimination, the Windrush generation helped to rebuild a country ravaged by war and made an immense contribution to shaping the country we live in today.

The British state has not held up its end of the bargain, and the mistreatment of the Windrush generation that ensnared UK residents in the Government’s callous, racist hostile environment immigration system is one of the most evil chapters in modern British history. British citizens who built our NHS, who worked in frontline jobs and whose actions define public service were criminalised. They were denied access to work, housing and healthcare for no other reason than their country of birth or the colour of their skin.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission found that the Government had failed to comply with their equality duties. Wendy Williams’ Windrush lessons learned review found a culture of neglect within the Home Office that created conditions in which British citizens were systematically denied their rights due to damaging, pernicious immigration targets. That review made 30 recommendations that the Home Secretary committed to implementing, yet progress has been slow—so slow that Wendy Williams accused the Home Office of paying “lip service” to the urgent reform that is necessary. It is utterly shameful that only 687 people have received compensation from the Windrush compensation scheme out of 11,500 people who the Home Office estimated might be eligible, although the National Audit Office found that 15,000 people might be eligible. That means that less than 5% of people whose lives were unjustly ruined by this Government have received the compensation they deserve. Tragically, at least 21 people have died waiting for justice.

The National Audit Office found that despite the compensation scheme needing 125 full-time caseworkers, when the Home Office launched the scheme, it had only six in post. Applicants are also forced to go through a complex, convoluted and tortuous process that includes at least 15 steps, and the wait times are unacceptably long. This derisory commitment shows how utterly unserious this Government are about making amends for their abuse of human rights. Frankly, it seems that this Government could not care less about the victims of their own institutionally racist policies. Putting the same Home Office that is responsible for the Windrush scandal in charge of the compensation scheme is like leaving a fox in charge of a henhouse. The scheme must be removed from Government and placed under the control of a properly funded, independent regulator.

The mishandling of the Windrush compensation scheme rubs salt into wounds, heaping insult upon injustice. Under this Government, citizenship rights have been deliberately obscured, and deportation and removal targets have taken precedent. They have made no effort to end the institutionally racist hostile environment policies that created this disaster. Indeed, the Windrush scandal is perhaps the definitive example of institutional racism, and the fact that this Government have embarked on a damaging crusade against the reality of institutional racism shows just how little they have learned from the suffering of the Windrush generation. I am very concerned by this Government’s denial of structural discrimination, as demonstrated by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities’ report, which sought to blame minorities for, and gaslight them about, the structural disadvantages they face. This is not a Government who want to learn lessons from the Windrush scandal; it is a Government who are cynically using culture war tropes that are designed to divide our communities against each other and distract from the real causes of inequality and injustice.

The victims of the Windrush scandal need urgent justice. The compensation scheme must be taken away from the Home Office and rapidly accelerated. Beyond this, the Government must recall the suffering of the Windrush generation and remember that the demonisation of migrants and African, African-Caribbean, Asian and minority ethnic communities has devastating consequences for the lives of British residents. Ultimately, the Government must abandon their divisive agenda and commit to governing in the interests of all our citizens, regardless of the colour of our skin or our country of birth.