Windrush: 70th Anniversary

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

It has been a real pleasure to sit here and listen to the many excellent contributions made today. I particularly commend the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for securing this debate and for setting out very movingly some of the experiences of the Windrush generation and their descendants. I want to celebrate another outstanding speech by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), which was, yet again, brimming with humanity, compassion and, quite rightly, anger. In his typically eloquent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) challenged definitions of identity and reminded us that in the end we really are all Jock Tamson’s bairns.

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) made a very good contribution in which she pointed out that focusing on immigration statistics is dehumanising. We should be hearing the stories behind those statistics to truly understand the situation. We all have a responsibility as MPs to celebrate the enormous contributions made by immigrants to our society, and not to harass them constantly. I thank the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) for sharing with us the experiences of her father, illustrating better than any number of speeches what matters in this debate—the people behind the figures.

There is a real irony, as has been mentioned, in the fact that Windrush is such a poetic word and yet has now become the byword for a record of racism, intolerance, injustice and lack of compassion. People in general do not really want much. They want somewhere safe and comfortable to live, the means to put some food on the table and to keep the heating and lighting on, and the reassurance that they are not about to be lifted from their comfortable house and flung away to a country they have never known or have not lived in for decades. Arming them with a wee booklet that says, “Try to fit in; pretend you’re from there” is not exactly a substitute for assuring them of a right to live here. Denying people healthcare—that has been mentioned already—and the opportunity to secure a tenancy on a house, have access to education or the right to work, just because they or their parents did not keep their payslips going back 50 years, is simply repugnant. It is not good Government policy, it is not good social or economic policy, and it does not achieve anything other than turning people into outsiders in their own communities. It is xenophobic, racist and it should end.

I was born in a Commonwealth country, but I have had none of the problems that other people report in our surgeries or in emails and letters. Perhaps that is simply because I am white and Australian, or because my English father passes on his rights to me—a privilege not extended to some people who were born here because their families chose to move here. Whatever the reason, I do not get the hassle, and I do not suffer the prejudice that others receive on what often seems like a daily basis. Such prejudice is simply horrific and can easily be described as base mob thuggery, but the horrific part is that the Government are the gang leaders. I applaud the Government for the small steps they have taken to address the issues faced by the Windrush generation, but they do not go nearly far enough. I encourage Ministers to gather their courage and plough on with getting a fair deal for people who have built lives here and contributed to society and the economy, as well as to Government coffers.

For me, the line in the sand is this: the old Immigration Act 1971 should go. Its arbitrary cut-off point has no sense—January 1 1973 has become an immigration shibboleth, and a new totem for staying tough on immigration. It is ludicrous. I have constituents—I am sure we all do—who arrived here with the same ideas as the Windrush people. They came to build a life and contribute to the economy. They had families, paid taxes and made this country a better place. However, because they arrived after the magic date, they are now in limbo. Many of them will be buried in graveyards on these islands without ever having officially become a citizen. They have children who are now adults, and those adults now contribute to society, paying taxes, driving the economy, and making their contribution to the patchwork that is society. They were born and educated in the UK; they work and bring up families in the UK, but they are not citizens of the UK. They may tend the graves of their parents in the land their parents adopted—the only land they have ever known—but they have fewer rights of residence than their parents did when they first set foot in the UK. It is a strange and unusual policy.

Leaving aside the daft hoops and labyrinthine processes that the Government have invented for people who need to prove that they have lived here long enough to be regarded as “one of us”, the arbitrary date is nonsense and exists only because that is the day some outdated legislation came into force. It is the new pale, and those who are beyond it, through no fault of their own, are regarded as “other” by the machinery of state. They are regarded as a problem to be addressed, or as an annoying inconvenience by the state that should be protecting and nurturing them, and utilising their talents.

The response is always that there must be a cut-off point. I disagree, but I hear the argument, so let us have a cut-off point. Let us make it the same as that for EU citizens. If someone can show that they have been living here legally for five years, they can be a citizen. Let people show that they have contributed to society in some way—perhaps by bringing up a family, volunteering, paying taxes or keeping a home for someone else who does those things. There should not be a fee for someone to become part of their adopted country. While we are at it, let us get rid of the stupid tests that people are forced to go through as if they are appearing in a theatrical farce. It is time to step up and sort out this maelstrom of stupidity, so I urge the Minister: let us have a bonfire of these immigration vanities, and let us have some decency for people who are part of the fabric of our communities. Let Windrush stand for something other than prejudice and mistrust; let it stand for the time when sense prevailed and humanity became the underpinning element of immigration policy.