Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Diane Abbott Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I should perhaps point the hon. Lady to her own Government’s record, which left us with a shocking and disgraceful backlog in the asylum system. We are now clearing that backlog so that small boat cases can now be returned, something that was not possible under her Government’s approach. They never decided any asylum cases, and as a result could not return anyone who arrived on a small boat because their system was so broken. Not only are this Government introducing stronger powers to prevent small boats arriving in the first place—something that, shockingly, Conservative Members seem to want to vote against this evening—we are clearing the backlog so that we can substantially increase returns, compared with the total failure under the previous Government.

We have established our new Border Security Command to draw together the work of the Border Force, the National Crime Agency, the police, Immigration Enforcement, the Foreign Office and the intelligence and security agencies in order to strengthen our borders. That is backed by £150 million of funding for new technology and hundreds of specialist investigators, and it has already led to major joint operations with Belgium, France, Germany, Bulgaria and Iraq, taking out smuggler gang leaders and supply chains—the criminals operate across borders, and so must we.

Since the election, we have signed new agreements with Germany, Iraq, Italy, the Calais group and the G7, and we are drawing up new, closer arrangements with France. In parallel with our new UK Border Security Command, the French Interior Minister has announced increased enforcement along the coast and a new criminal intelligence and investigations unit to drive new action against organised immigration crime.

But we need to go much further. It is worth understanding how extensive and vile this criminal industry really is. It operates from the money markets of Kabul to the hills of Kurdistan and right across Europe—through the western Balkans and across the Mediterranean. It uses false advertising on social media and hawala networks to channel the cash. There are huge supply chains of flimsy boats, weak engines and fake lifejackets that would not keep anyone afloat. There are shipping routes through Bulgaria, Italy and Spain; warehouses of boats in Germany; and organised logistics networks through Belgium and northern France.

Gangs have become increasingly violent in their determination to make as much money as possible. They are crowding more and more people into flimsy boats with women and children in the middle, so that if the boats fold or sink, they are the first to drown or be crushed. They provide the fuel in flimsy containers that leak, so that when it mixes with saltwater, it inflicts the most horrific burns.

The gangs’ latest tactic is to make people wait in freezing cold water—even in January—until a boat arrives from further along the shore to pick them up. The International Organisation for Migration estimates that at least 78 people died when attempting to cross the channel in 2024. Families have been left devastated by the loss of loved ones, the victims of a diabolical trade —the most disgraceful and immoral trade in people.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary will accept that this is a difficult time to speak up for a fair and ethical immigration policy, with the tide of far-right politics sweeping Europe, and maybe even lapping the shores of this country. Does she accept, however, that she is in danger of sounding like she is trying to stigmatise desperate migrants, rather than build a fair system?

[Yvette Cooper]

The Mother of the House has long had an interest in these issues and has often spoken on them. I would say that it is important for the UK to have a fair and effective asylum and immigration system. Immigration has always been an important part of the UK, but for it to be so, the rules need to be respected and enforced. We cannot allow the criminal gangs to put life at risk in that way or to undermine our border security. It is as a result of the operations of those criminal gangs that 78 people died while attempting to cross the channel in 2024 and that we have seen those quite horrific tactics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)]

I commend the Home Secretary and her team for the reforms in the Bill that are genuinely positive, including the scrapping of the unworkable and costly plan to expel asylum seekers to Rwanda—a repressive regime that is making war on its neighbours. The Bill rescues us from the “Alice in Wonderland” situation in which Rwanda is safe if the Government say it is safe. The Government have also scrapped and towed away the Bibby Stockholm, the miserable and dangerous prison ship, and committed to deciding asylum claims that had previously been placed in indefinite limbo. Those are all positive developments.

However, it is difficult to be positive about the remainder of the Bill. It clearly aims to prioritise border security, but the malign Greek chorus that chants “Stop the boats!” in response to every problem in our society is wrong. With these measures, as with others, the boats will not be stopped unless we look at the issue holistically. Have we stopped organised crime, drugs, people trafficking, fraud, firearms and so on? Of course not, because some of those crimes are high-tech operations, but all these overseas-based people smugglers need is a dinghy.

We cannot have a credible plan to smash the gangs unless we deal first with the demand for what they supply. Many of us have long argued that the way to undercut and ultimately eliminate the gangs is to re-establish safe and legal routes for asylum seekers, to establish processing centres in northern France, to turn away failed applicants, and to allow safe travel for those who are entitled to be here.

[Ms Diane Abbott]

Does my hon. Friend agree that more people should listen to those of us who say that, if we do not want people drowning in the channel, the answer is to enable the processing of asylum claims in northern France, as the French have offered?

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention, and obviously she is always right. It is not impossible; in fact, it has been done before.

Instead, this Bill could end up criminalising people because of how they travelled here, which is wrong. It is widely understood that many of these people, precisely because they are victims of persecution, cannot apply for visas in the normal fashion, and many more cannot afford the cost of long-haul flights either. Genuine and valid asylum seekers could be criminalised. We should remember that these people are fleeing war and devastation. Some have been trafficked, and many of those are brought here as slaves—either for domestic service and menial unpaid work, or for sex slavery. The Bill could abolish their rights and protections under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Then there is the question of immigration detention, which will increase as a result of the Bill. The immigration detention estate is already costly and cruel. It is a ridiculous irony that we are releasing criminals because our jails are full, yet we are increasing the use of immigration detention despite 75% of those detained eventually being found to be entitled to be here.

The main concern has been foreign national offenders, and 4,674 were returned in the year ending September 2024. That is an increase of more than a quarter compared with the previous year, which means that this Government are doing what they want to do on foreign national offenders. Why are we holding on to the idea of increasing the immigration detention estate when we know that in 2019 the Conservative Government awarded asylum accommodation contracts worth billions of pounds to just three companies, and almost every single one of the removal centres operated by those companies has reported overcrowding, hostile and unsanitary conditions, and, at worst, death and suicide? Those centres are costly and cruel. A limit on immigration detention would be both humane and efficient. The average daily cost of holding an individual in immigration detention is £122. What a huge cost when there are options for detention in the community. Most people are detained when they go to their bi-weekly reporting session at the Home Office.

We are detaining far too many people unlawfully. In 2023-24, the Home Office issued 832 compensation payments for unlawful detention, totalling £12 million. As we have heard, we detain children—in 2023, the Home Office detained 47 children for immigration-related reasons. We disagree on many things across the House, but the rights of children is not usually one of them. People say there are complex reasons why such detentions happen. To that I say: “Make it simple and make it stop.” We should not be detaining children for immigration-related reasons.

I am also concerned that the Bill might undermine the application of international law to refugees. Section 29 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 will be untouched, even though it was a truly rotten measure introduced by the Conservatives, who had a problematic relationship with international law. We on the Government Benches must be better than them. At the moment, a trafficked woman who arrived here having been abducted halfway across the world would have no rights as refugee, precisely because her traffickers brought her here on a small boat. That cannot be right.

The Bill focuses on small boat crossings, but it is an immigration Bill, and that means it does not all have to be negative. There are things we could do that we largely agree on, such as scrapping child citizenship fees and introducing further protections for European Union nationals and the Windrush generation. When we were in opposition, we supported scrapping child citizenship fees. The shadow Home Secretary, when he was the immigration Minister, implemented a fee waiver, but last year only 36% of those waivers were accepted—40% were rejected and 22% are awaiting decision. That is just not good enough. This is about children who have lived here for their whole lives—children who were born here, including the children of EU nationals.

We know that EU nationals continue struggle with their rights, which is something that we could resolve. We can all agree that the Windrush generation have the right to be here, but they are still having major issues; we should not wait for the appointment of the Windrush commissioner to be told that they are still subject to the hostile environment. We could do so much more on things we agree on, but unfortunately there are too many instances where victims can be blamed for the crime, and I worry that the Bill could codify that injustice in law.

Police Accountability

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Mother of the House, Diane Abbott.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

First, I express my sympathy for Chris Kaba’s family and his mother. Whatever he was or did, he was her son, and she deserves our sympathy and respect. I also acknowledge my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), who has worked hard to support the family in challenging circumstances. In the past few days there has been an avalanche of information about Chris Kaba, but I say to those who are asking why that information was not made available to the jury: that was the decision of the judge, and they should put their complaints to him.

The Home Secretary will know that over the years there have been a series of deaths at the hands of the Metropolitan police that have led to deep unhappiness and even riots. One death that comes to mind is that of Cynthia Jarrett in 1985, who died of a heart attack when four policemen burst into her house, and whose death triggered the Broadwater Farm riots. Does the Home Secretary accept that nothing could be more damaging for police-community relations than if the idea took hold that in some way the police were above the law?

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her points. I know that she has worked on and addressed these issues over many years, and how important she sees them as being. She is right to raise concerns around incidents where lives are lost, and to recognise the distress that will be felt by Chris Kaba’s mother and family. I also recognise the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) has done to support the family in difficult circumstances.

My right hon. Friend makes an important point: at every stage in the process, these decisions have to be for the independent judiciary, the courts and the police prosecutors. Our role in this House is to provide the framework within which those individual decisions are then made, but I also agree that ultimately, all these measures have to have the confidence of communities across London and across the country. If they do not, that proud British tradition of policing by consent is lost, which is deeply damaging for police officers and policing, as well as for all our public safety.

Stop and Search

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: stop and search is one tool in our armoury in the fight against violent crime. We have increased police resources and broader police powers; we have continued funding for our violence reduction units, which bring together local partners to tackle the drivers of violent crime in their area; we are working on piloting serious violence reduction orders; we have rolled out knife crime prevention orders; and we have been working intensively with all agencies to ensure that they prioritise such crime and take appropriate action.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Ind)]

The Home Secretary spoke about black mothers. I am a black mother, and I know very many black mothers: they are my friends, my relatives and my constituents. I have represented an inner-city constituency for nearly 40 years. Will the Home Secretary explain to the House how her statement meets the long-standing concerns of black mothers not just about the tragedy of a life lost, but about the use of suspicionless powers, and how, as was asked earlier, it fits in with the Casey review?

Illegal Migration Bill

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

We have several schemes open to people from all nationalities to come here via safe and legal routes. We will, thanks to the Bill, have a more comprehensive discussion and a decision endorsed by Parliament—one that has more legitimacy in how we go forward on allowing safe and legal routes into this country.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

As a child of migrants, can I tell the Home Secretary how much I deplore her seeking to smear migrants as a whole as criminals and rapists? Can I also assure the House that I will never vote for legislation that would have led to my parents being detained and dumped in Rwanda?

The Home Secretary talks about detention and deportation. Where is she going to detain these people? There is not the capacity to detain these numbers of people. In terms of deportation, the only arrangement we have is with Rwanda, which has told us that it can take only 200 people. Her tone, her legislation and her proposed actions are deplorable and unworkable. Even at this late stage, will she reconsider?

Manston Update

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The UKHSA’s advice to me is that the risk to the broader UK population is very low because of the high prevalence of our vaccination programme—over 90% of the British public has been vaccinated for diphtheria. But my hon. Friend, who represents so many people who work at Western Jet Foil and Manston, is right to say that we should be particularly careful to protect people who do that difficult and important work. I will follow up with my officials, and indeed with the outsourcing providers that run our hotels and other asylum accommodation, to make sure that we have all the right procedures in place to protect those people, who are doing an absolutely fantastic job and impress me on every occasion that I meet them.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for coming before the House with his statement, but does he not agree that it should not have taken a death to make Ministers focus properly on issues relating to infectious diseases at Manston? It is not as if the possibilities relating to infectious disease have not been raised and written about. Does he not agree that it is quite wrong that it took a death for him to come before us and talk about new guidance: new guidance that nobody presenting with symptoms will be progressed on; new guidance about ensuring that asylum accommodation providers get the very latest public health advice; and new guidance about co-operating with the French about infectious disease in northern France? It took a death for the Minister to come before us with that new guidance.

The Minister has also said that there is no risk to the wider population and the House is grateful to hear that. However, does he not accept that, whether these people are deemed to be legal or illegal, we have a basic responsibility for their health? It should not have taken Ministers so long to focus on the well-reported dangers of infectious disease.

[Robert Jenrick]

I respect the right hon. Lady’s point of view and experience, but it has not taken a death for the Home Office to focus on this issue. This individual’s death is deeply regrettable, but we have been working on, and alive to, this issue for many months—indeed, for years. The Home Office has had in place procedures to deal with covid since the start of the pandemic. The hotels I mentioned earlier, which we will use to transfer people with diphtheria symptoms, were the locations the Home Office used for those who tested positive for covid.

The UKHSA has been publishing guidance on the treatment and support of asylum seekers and refugees for many months—it may even be years. The latest guidance on this issue was published by Dame Jenny Harries and her colleagues two weeks ago, prior to the sad death of this individual. I am afraid that the connection that the right hon. Lady seeks to draw is not correct. We do not take this issue lightly, and we will continue to follow it and to put in place whatever measures we need to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

Not stately homes!

[Robert Jenrick]

The right hon. Lady says not stately homes. Unfortunately, there are stately homes being used for this purpose. That is an outrage and we need to change it. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) is absolutely right: these are the symptoms of the problem, but the cause is that far too many people are making these perilous journeys. We need to tackle the gangs that ensure that those journeys continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Home Secretary might not like it, but if I may give her some positive advice, when you answer a question you are meant to look to the Chair. That is all I will say.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary insists that the agreement announced today represents a step forward, but is she able to tell the House whether it will mean fewer small boats crossing the channel?

[Suella Braverman]

A large win from the agreement is that there will be more French gendarmes patrolling the French beaches. There is a 40% uplift to the number of personnel that the French are deploying. That must be a success, and I encourage the right hon. Lady to welcome it.

Asylum Seekers Accommodation and Safeguarding

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

It is essential that we accelerate decision making now within the Home Office. Over the summer, we piloted an approach that would very substantially increase decision making. That has been done in our Leeds office and we now intend to roll it out across the country as quickly as we can. That would take us from an average of around 1.5 decisions per caseworker per week to as many as four per week. We also want, in slightly longer time, to review all the red tape and bureaucracy that surround the process, so we can ensure our system is more streamlined, and to look at why, in the UK, we have a much higher approval rate for asylum than many comparable countries, such as France and Germany. That, at the heart of the issue, is why so many people choose to come here. They shop around for asylum and choose the UK when they are, in fact, economic migrants.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The House welcomes the fact that the numbers at Manston have gone down, but the Minister will be aware that the concerns, notably of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Neal, were about not just the numbers but the conditions. When he came to give evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, he told us that he thought there was a risk of fire, disorder and infection. Is the Minister confident that those risks no longer exist? On unaccompanied children, how many are there in Manston? What effort is being made to safeguard them? For instance, are they having to sleep next to males they do not know? When it comes to unaccompanied children in hotels, can he tell the House specifically how they are being safeguarded?

[Robert Jenrick]

There should be no unaccompanied children at Manston. Unaccompanied children are taken directly from Western Jet Foil. In some cases when they immediately arrive at Manston, they are taken to specialist hotels, where they are looked after with a range of support provided for them. As I said in answer to a previous question, that in itself is not a desirable outcome. We want to ensure that those young people are quickly taken to better accommodation, particularly foster carers. That relies on us being able to find more. There is a national shortage of foster carers, which is why we put in place a financial package to try to stimulate the market and encourage more people and councils to step up and provide that service.

The right hon. Lady makes an important point about conditions at the site. Conditions were poor when I last visited, but the primary reason for that was the sheer number of individuals there. The staff I met were providing a very good quality of care in difficult circumstances. The food was acceptable, and the health and medical facility was good. The clothing and other support that was provided was something I thought was acceptable and is certainly far in excess of that which would be provided in other European countries.

We have to remember that the individuals who arrive at Manston have literally been hooked out of the sea. We saved their lives just hours previously and many of them have come from significantly worse accommodation such as, for example, the camp at Dunkirk. I am not saying the UK should compare itself with that—we want to be better—but I think the right hon. Lady will find that the facility at Manston is now in a significantly better state and I would be interested in hearing her reflections when she returns.

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend again raises a very important feature that has emerged over the last six to nine months about the prominence of Albanian migrants arriving on our shores, and he is right. Albania is not a war-torn country, and it is very difficult to see how claims for asylum really can be legitimate claims for asylum. I would also note that we see a large number of Albanian migrants arriving here and claiming to be victims of modern slavery. Again, I really am circumspect about those claims, because Albania is, of course, a signatory to the European convention against trafficking—the original convention that underlies our modern slavery laws—and if those people are genuinely victims of modern slavery, they should be claiming that protection in Albania.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary will be aware that one of the problems with the asylum system is the unacceptably long time it takes to process claims. The Home Affairs Committee heard evidence from the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, and he told us that currently caseworkers or decision makers are making 1.3 decisions a week. The Leeds pilot, which has been referred to, has put the number of decisions up to 2.7 decisions a week. Does the Home Secretary not understand that that is far too slow, and what is she going to do about it? Is it not the case that if she spent less time playing to the gallery on immigration and more time dealing with the practical problems, this would be to the benefit of the taxpayer, the Home Office staff who work so hard and the asylum seekers themselves?

Metropolitan Police Service

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

The creation of police and crime commissioners was designed to provide a focused point of accountability for the electorate. They replaced police authorities, which were opaque organisations in which no one person could be held responsible at the ballot box. As I said, if I had been in that job—I had the privilege of holding the post of deputy mayor for policing for four years—and I had had it for six years when this situation occurred, I would consider my position.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware of the seriousness of the issues set out in the inspectorate’s report. He should also be aware that Londoners do not want to see us in this Chamber passing responsibility between ourselves like some grim game of pass the parcel. Nothing in the inspectorate’s report will come as a surprise to London MPs because, in one way or another, they have dealt with these types of issues, which have affected our constituents. The Minister can try to lay blame where he wishes, but he has not dealt, as all of us have dealt, with people whose lives have been ruined and whose children have been targeted. He has not dealt with those people; otherwise he could not be playing politics with this issue. There is no question but that the Met needs reform, and no doubt that this situation did not come about in a month or two. Will he confirm that the two short-listed candidates for commissioner are Nick Ephgrave and Mark Rowley, and does he accept that it is unlikely that the Met can be reformed by men who have spent almost their entire careers in it? Does he accept that many of us think that the selection process for the commissioner needs to be reopened?

[Kit Malthouse]

Let me be clear: I am not playing politics; I am telling the truth, and every Londoner knows it. When the Prime Minister and I were at City Hall, we stepped forward and took responsibility for what was happening in London on our watch. We fought crime. We sat with the parents of murdered children and took blame and responsibility for it in a way that the current Mayor does not. Opposition Members can spend all the time they want attempting to deflect and make this a political matter, but that is the truth. Those Members who represent Londoners, on both sides of the House, know inside themselves what Londoners think about the Mayor’s performance on crime. The reason that this situation exercises me so much is that I have been there and dealt with it. Contrary to what the right hon. Lady says, over the past couple of years in this job I have spoken to and dealt with lots of victims of crime in London. In fact, only a few months ago I met four mothers of dead children brought to me by the Met who talked about the failures of dealing with knife crime and their willingness to step forward and help us to improve. So I ask the right hon. Lady, please, not to try to teach me any lessons about dealing with victims of crime. In terms of her wider question, I cannot confirm who is in the selection process, but we can only interview those people who apply.

Windrush Review

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Marsha De Cordova]

She is soon to be right hon. [Laughter.]

It took many activists campaigning for justice. I first came to this place in 2017, and within a year, the scandal did really hit. I had to stand up in the Chamber and make so many representations for my constituents who were caught up in this scandal and genuinely could not believe what was happening.

Despite the impact of those cruel and inhumane policies, I do not think the Government have really learned the lessons of the scandal, because if they had, they would not have passed the inhumane Nationality and Borders Act 2022. What have they actually learned? If they had learned the lessons of Windrush, we would not have seen so many people waiting for compensation from the scheme. We know that many, many people have not received compensation and that when people do, it is so small that it really does not amount to much or compensate them for what they have endured. We also know that many people have lost their life before even receiving compensation.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the worst things about the Windrush scandal was that this was a very proud generation, and a generation who thought they were British? They had travelled here on passports that were from the United Kingdom and the colonies. We are here today talking about cash and compensation, but actually it is the emotional impact on that generation that is the worst thing of all.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention, and I could not have said it any better; she absolutely hits the nail on the head. They were British citizens when they came to this country. In fact, they call it the mother country—that is what my grandparents called Britain. That is how they saw it and they were British citizens, so then to be treated in such a way—it really was not right.

I strongly believe that the whole compensation scheme should be moved outside the Home Office. It should be an independent, fair, compassionate and accessible scheme that does not have the Home Office’s hands over it. Wendy Williams’s progress report highlights that many of her 30 recommendations have not been met, so my question to the Minister is: why? I am really concerned that the recommendation to have a full review of the hostile environment policy—it has now been called the “compliant environment”, but we all know that it is still hostile—has not been achieved.

Wendy Williams also called on the Home Secretary to commission officials to undertake a full review, designed in partnership with external experts, and evaluation of the hostile policy measures, individually and cumulatively. I do not believe that any work has been progressed on that.

Given the significant role that the hostile environment policy played in causing the Windrush scandal, I would have expected the Home Office to prioritise completing a full review in the last 18 months. I would therefore like the Minister, when he responds, to explain why the Home Office has not yet completed a full review in partnership with those external experts. When does it intend to do that?

Wendy Williams stated in her progress report that

“the results of the review of the…policies remain an essential element in the department’s efforts to demonstrate it is learning”.

However, legislation has been produced that shows that the Department really has not done so. For me, and I am sure for all of my colleagues, this process really is about righting these wrongs and bringing justice for those people caught up in the scandal, but it is also about ensuring that it can never happen again.

I come back to this question: have the Government learned? I ask that because they then introduced the Rwanda policy. I am genuinely baffled as to when this Government and the Home Office will finally begin to learn that their policies have consequences and that if they did some simple things, such as carrying out impact assessments, then just maybe that would highlight some of the problems with their policies, which are being implemented with hostility and have a hostile impact on our communities.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

As I said in my earlier intervention, my parents were of the Windrush generation. They came here in the 1950s and I remember how proud they were and how they believed that they were citizens of the United Kingdom. The whole Windrush scandal has been so painful and humiliating for them, and what has made the pain and humiliation worse is the very slow progress in handing out compensation. Only one in four of the applicants have got their compensation. One has to wonder whether the Home Office is not waiting for some of them to die, to rid itself of the obligation to pay compensation.

As the Minister will be aware, the Home Affairs Committee visited Sheffield, where the casework for the compensation scheme is done. He will also be aware that the Committee produced a report on the issue, in which we made a number of specific recommendations. One of the most important recommendations is that the whole Windrush compensation operation should be handed to an independent organisation, because one of the startling facts is that the number of people who have applied for compensation is much lower than was expected.

Those people do not want to go to the Home Office for anything—think about it and put yourself in their shoes—whereas if an independent organisation was responsible for the scheme, I believe that many more of the people who are entitled to compensation would come forward. I believe that an independent organisation would be speedier and more effective in processing the claims. The Home Office has rejected the suggestion out of hand, but I am bringing it forward once again. The delays, the incoherence and the unwillingness of possible claimants to come forward all point to the need to move this work to an independent organisation.

Another Home Affairs Committee recommendation that the Home Office rejected was to reimburse claimants for their legal costs. When we put that to the Home Office, it said, “It has all been devised so that people don’t need a lawyer,” but we need to tell that to the claimants. We have to remember that the Windrush generation are not necessarily used to doing things online. Many of them find that they have to use lawyers, some of whom are charging extortionate costs and might get a third of the compensation, if not half. It cannot be fair to offer compensation yet allow victims to be gouged by lawyers. The Committee has said that the Government should reimburse claimants for their legal costs. The other issue we have raised is how opaque some of the criteria are for the amount of compensation that claimants get, and we want to see more clarity on that.

The Home Affairs Committee went to Sheffield to see the unit that is dealing with this issue. They were very nice people, but one of the things that concerned us was what they told us about the backlog. The Home Office has tens of thousands of claimants in a queue, and they have not yet been allocated to caseworkers—the Minister is looking startled, so he needs to go to Sheffield and ask them for himself. There are tens of thousands of cases that have not been allocated to caseworkers, and nobody in Sheffield could tell me when they will be allocated. They are dealing with more recent cases, but they have a big queue. The caseworkers were very nice—we met them, their managers and all those people—but not one of them was from the same background as the majority of claimants.

[Marsha De Cordova]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I thank her for it. This really harks back to the issue of representation and leadership. The compensation scheme needs people who are compassionate and who can empathise, so does she agree that it is vital that those administering the scheme should reflect those who have been affected by it?

[Ms Abbott]

I agree with my colleague. It is very regrettable that none of the caseworkers, managers and advisers reflects the diversity of the claimants to the Windrush compensation scheme. It seems to me that if the Home Office were serious about running the scheme efficiently, it would have made more effort to ensure that the officials dealing with the scheme reflected the communities from which most of the claimants come.

We cannot overstate the sadness and disappointment of claimants who find themselves caught up in the labyrinth and waiting, sometimes for years, to understand what has happened to their claim. It is all very well and desirable that we had a Windrush monument unveiled last week, but nobody will take this Government’s concern about Windrush seriously until they make the compensation scheme much speedier, much more efficient and much more likely to reach the claimants before some of them pass away.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on securing this important debate. The points made this afternoon have been powerful and brilliant.

Last Wednesday marked the 74th anniversary of the Windrush migration. It was a journey that started with a call for help to rebuild Britain following the devastation of the second world war. To mark the anniversary, I attended the launch of an amazing new exhibition in Birmingham called “Home from Home: Wassifa’s 50th Anniversary at Birmingham Back to Backs”. The exhibition recreates a Caribbean household from the 1970s in Handsworth, which is where I grew up. It was very personal to me; the experience brought back so many memories of what our front rooms and our homes used to look like when I grew up. I will highlight the Blue Spot ’gram.

[Ms Abbott]

The cocktail cabinet!

[Mrs Hamilton]

The cocktail cabinet—they were all there and it brought back some lovely memories.

[Ms Abbott]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that in the Windrush generation there were many black women who came to work as nurses—my mother was one—and without those nurses from the Caribbean we would not have the NHS we have today?

[Mrs Hamilton]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. As my background is in health, I will also say that I would not have gone into nursing if it was not for my parents, and for other people from Caribbean heritage, who were so proud to be British. They are not immigrants or migrants; they came here on a British passport—they were British.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the Mykal Wassifa Brown Heritage Foundation, the Blackstory Partnership and the National Trust. It was great to see a major organisation such as the National Trust back this project and recognise the importance of black people in British history. I take this opportunity to thank everyone who was involved. At the launch, however, I also heard distressing stories about the treatment of British Windrush citizens, and some were at the event.

The Windrush scandal began to surface in 2017, after it emerged that hundreds of Commonwealth citizens had been wrongly detained and deported, and denied their legal rights. In April 2018, the Government were forced to apologise for the trauma they caused to so many people who made Britain their home for decades.

To fix the wrongs, the Home Office quite rightly introduced the Windrush compensation scheme but, to add insult to injury, the scheme has been a failure. It is complex to navigate. There is a lack of free legal advice. Claims take months to process and compensation offers are insultingly small. The vast majority of people who have applied for compensation through the Home Office, to its disgrace, have yet to receive a penny. As was highlighted earlier, sadly, it is too late for those who passed away before they could secure justice. Many people in this room have been to funerals where people have had to use GoFundMe, because the deceased could not afford to bury themselves because of what they had been through.

The Windrush generation have been failed by a deeply flawed and discriminatory immigration system, created by a hostile environment. Where once immigrants were welcome to work and live, today, Britain’s hostile environment has created a culture of fear and suspicion. The policies were introduced in 2012 by the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), with the aim of making life unbearably difficult in Britain for those who cannot show the right paperwork.

Three months ago, I was so proud to be elected as the first ever black Member of Parliament in Birmingham. As a child of the Windrush generation, it is painful to hear the harrowing experiences of people who still cannot get the respect and dignity they are entitled to. One constituent told me that they have struggled to make a successful claim under the Windrush compensation scheme. The burden of proof needed when a person is unable to get access to employment makes it very difficult for those affected.

The journey for many migrants began in 1948 but, in 2022, more than 74 years later, they are still fighting to be treated with the dignity they deserve. I urge the Minister to take these concerns and all the others that he has heard this afternoon on board and address the important issues. The Windrush generation built the foundations of the Britain we enjoy today. The least we can do is give them the justice they deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

As Members are aware, we are recruiting additional people into the compensation scheme team, so we are increasing the number of staff working on it. To be clear, despite recent pressures, the area we never took people from was Windrush work, because we thought it was appropriate that that was seen as a priority. It is important that our caseworkers can empathise with people’s situations, which is why we have programmes of engagement. We want them to work proactively with the community groups, hear their experiences, and listen and understand where people are coming from. I understand that this is about not just immigration status, but people’s very strong identity; they felt—this was eloquently put earlier—that they were British. We recognise that it is important to ensure that that experience is there for all caseworkers.

I want to address the idea that there are tens of thousands of applications outstanding. The number of applications received so far is just under 4,000, which would make that rather difficult numerically. There are not cases that are “unallocated”; we understand that that point arose from a misunderstanding. All cases are being worked on and pursued, and in some cases we are waiting for responses or, for example, for probate to be resolved so that we can take things further. I will be writing to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee shortly to confirm that.

[Ms Abbott]

Whatever the Minister has been told, the Home Affairs Committee obtained quite different figures when we went to Sheffield. I will be happy to write to him and set them out.

[Kevin Foster]

We had a letter from the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee following the visit. We will shortly be replying, and I will be happy to reply in further detail to those points when I receive them.

One of the points that has been focused on is whether the Windrush compensation scheme should be transferred to an independent organisation. I understand why that might sound appealing, but it would risk delaying payments to people even further, and many cases would have to come back to Home Office records and other parts of the Home Office, which would mean that we would still be heavily involved. I do not believe for one minute that anyone is suggesting that we should contract this out—that might have been partly suggested—to a private sector operator. It is right that we have a team who operate separately and independently from other areas of the Home Office and are able to take matters forward with clear delineation. Certain information supplied to the Windrush team is not available to wider Home Office operations. The focus needs to be on paying compensation and moving the scheme forward, rather than on who is actually administering it.