Windrush Day 2021

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Windrush Day 2021.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate today. 22 June 2021 was the fourth official annual Windrush Day, designated by the Government as part of the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks in 2018, and following a long campaign led by Patrick Vernon. I wanted to ensure that, to mark Windrush Day, Members from across the House had the opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of the Windrush generation in their communities, and I hope that that is what we will hear in this debate.

Windrush Day is a national day to celebrate the extraordinary and enduring contribution of the Windrush generation to the UK. I am proud to represent a constituency with a very direct connection to the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948. About 200 Windrush passengers travelled from the temporary accommodation provided in the Clapham Common deep shelter to Coldharbour Lane in my constituency, where many found work at the local labour exchange and settled in the surrounding area, putting down deep roots and helping to form and sustain the Brixton we know today. They include the late Sam King, who became the first black mayor of Southwark, and Aldwyn Roberts, the grand master of calypso, who performed as Lord Kitchener.

This Windrush Day, I joined members of the community in Brixton for a socially distanced celebratory lunch, and we were delighted that the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), was also able to join us at that occasion. We were privileged to hear a performance of a new song by the wonderful Pegasus Opera Company, “Rush”, which is described as a “Windrush anthem for Lambeth”. It is very moving, and I would encourage everyone to watch the recording on the Pegasus Opera website. The song captures perfectly the eager anticipation, excitement and aspiration of a generation who came to the UK at the invitation of the British Government as citizens of the mother country under the British Nationality Act 1948, and who met terrible adversity in racism, discrimination and poor housing, but nevertheless gave so much and became a part of our national DNA.

At the other end of Coldharbour Lane from the labour exchange lies King’s College Hospital. The arrival of the Empire Windrush coincided almost exactly with the founding of our NHS, and we know that members of the Windrush generation have been essential to our NHS from its founding until the present day. In 1948, there were an estimated 54,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS, and the Government worked actively to recruit nurses from the Caribbean and subsequently from across the Commonwealth. By 1965, it is estimated that there were about 5,000 Jamaican nurses working in the NHS, and there are more than 200,000 black, Asian and minority ethnic staff working in our NHS today.

We cannot let this year’s Windrush Day celebration pass without paying special tribute to the diverse workforce in our NHS and social care, public transport and other frontline roles, who have worked tirelessly through the covid-19 pandemic, often sacrificing their own health and wellbeing to provide treatment and care to others. We particularly remember those who have tragically lost their lives to coronavirus—including 28-year-old pregnant nurse Mary Agyapong and public transport worker Belly Mujinga—two thirds of whom were from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. We owe them all a huge debt of gratitude for their service. I hope the Minister will agree with me that no one who aspires to lead our NHS should ever suggest that those who come from overseas to work in our NHS are anything other than highly valued professionals without whom the NHS would struggle to keep going.

Windrush Day was established in 2018, in the same year that the horrors of the Windrush scandal were revealed—the appalling betrayal of so many of the generation who had come to the UK as British citizens, at the invitation of the British Government to play vital roles in our economy and public services, who were denied their status and suffered immeasurably as a result. A Windrush Day celebration that fails to acknowledge the ongoing hardship and injustice suffered by victims of the Windrush scandal would be sentimental, hollow rhetoric.

The Government promised to right the wrongs of the Windrush scandal, but are failing to do so. An evaluation of the Windrush compensation scheme published by the National Audit Office in May found that the scheme had paid compensation to fewer than 700 victims and had 2,000 claims outstanding. The report also highlighted mistakes and poor-quality assurance, the high proportion of the scheme’s funding that has been spent on staff, and the low number of victims who have come forward to make a claim compared with the estimated total number of victims. Appallingly, 21 victims have died while still waiting to receive compensation.

Listen to the words of some of the victims and their families. Natalie Barnes, the daughter of Paulette Wilson, who died in July 2020, says that the

“Home Office still operates the hostile environment policy which contributed to the death of my mother. Before she passed, she was struggling with the forms and lack of support and respect from the Home Office. The scheme needs to be moved so there is proper justice to families like mine.”

Stephanie O’Connor, whose mother Sarah moved to the UK in 1967 and died in July 2019, said:

“For my mum the compensation scheme has come too late, and I am so disappointed that it is still taking this long for people to get what is owed to them. I just hope that people get compensated fairly for everything that they have been through.”

Anthony Bryan, whose utterly devastating experience, including two periods of detention in Yarl’s Wood, was the basis for the BBC drama “Sitting in Limbo”, said:

“The Home Office took away my liberty, livelihood, sanity, and fellow friends and campaigners…as a result of the hostile environment. They have offered me a compensation package which does not reflect what I need to build my life again and to move forward with my family. We need urgently an impartial and independent organisation to support all compensation claims and to provide mental health and wellbeing support. The Home Secretary is not righting the wrongs to sort out the Windrush Scandal.”

Anthony Williams, who served for 13 years in the British Army and was forced to remove his own teeth as a result of being denied access to dental care due to the scandal, said:

“The Home Office have no experience or track record in running a compensation scheme for people traumatised.”

These testimonies point to the urgent need for the administration of the Windrush compensation scheme to be taken away from the Home Office and handed to an independent body. Will the Minister commit to that today?

Yesterday was the deadline for EU nationals living in the UK to apply for settled status. In that scheme, the Government have yet again put an administrative barrier in front of people who have made their home in the UK and contributed to our country in multiple different ways. It risks making them illegal, with all the appalling consequences that would bring. The Government have not only failed to address the hostile environment that led to the Windrush scandal or to deliver justice for its victims; they are laying the foundations of the next scandal.

In response to the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus pandemic on black and Asian residents during the first wave, the Government set up the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, chaired by Dr Tony Sewell. It had been hoped that the report would provide a rigorous analysis of racial and ethnic inequality in the UK and a detailed action plan that could be implemented with urgency to address it. Instead, the Sewell report left many black, Asian and minority ethnic residents, including many of my constituents who I have spoken to since it was published, feeling that their own Government were trying to gaslight them by denying that there is structural racism in the UK. The report has been condemned by respected organisations, including the Runnymede Trust and Black Cultural Archives, which I am proud is based on Windrush Square in my constituency.

Black Cultural Archives, the only organisation dedicated to the collection, preservation and celebration of black history in the UK, criticises the report for its absence of historical context and selective quoting of evidence and concludes that a report so lacking in rigour cannot provide the basis for meaningful action to address racism and racial inequality.

One of the ways in which we can stop a Windrush scandal happening again is by ensuring that our children are taught British history in an inclusive way that tells the story of our complex history of migration and the painful reality and legacy of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade. That is not rewriting history; it is our shared history. Many schools have already developed good curriculum content, including some in my constituency, but that now needs to be expanded to all our schools. The Government have, in accepting the recommendations in Wendy Williams’ lessons learned review, accepted the importance of the teaching of history in preventing a future Windrush scandal. The Government have accepted that as being necessary for all Home Office staff, so it follows that it is also necessary for our schools.

Finally, will the Government support the campaign to raise the anchor from the Empire Windrush, which currently lies off the coast of Libya on the Mediterranean seabed, so that it can be displayed as part of the 75th Windrush anniversary celebrations in 2023? It is a tangible piece of that famous ship, which could be used to tell the story of the remarkable Windrush generation for years to come.

We celebrate today the remarkable Windrush generation—British citizens and part of our national DNA—who have contributed so much and suffered such appalling injustice. Celebration, however, is hollow while injustice and inequality continue. I call on the Minister to mark this Windrush Day by committing to meaningful action.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

I extend my thanks to every right hon. and hon. Member who has spoken in today’s debate. It has been a celebration of the Windrush generation and we have heard again the inspirational stories of people such as Lydia Simmons of Slough, the first black person to be elected mayor in this country. However, much of this debate has rightly been focused on the injustices that so many of the Windrush generation continue to face, the inadequacy of the Government’s response and the work still to do. I welcome, in particular, the contributions of the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), and of the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), who both acknowledged the shameful, painful reality of racism still experienced today, and I hope the Minister took heed of their remarks. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) mentioned the important work of the Windrush Foundation and its chair Arthur Torrington, and I want to add my support, as I have done many times in this Chamber and in correspondence, to the calls for the national Windrush monument to be located in its rightful place in Windrush Square in Brixton, not at Waterloo station.

Disappointingly, the Minister refused to accept the need for the Windrush scheme to be independently administered. That is tone deaf to the experiences of many who have had to make a claim and completely ignores what victims of the Windrush scandal have said about the re-traumatising effects of having to engage with the same organisation that perpetrated the injustice from which they are seeking redress. I hope that when we celebrate Windrush Day 2022 we will be able to acknowledge meaningful progress in delivering justice for the Windrush generation and ending racism and racial inequality in this country. But there is much more to do and many of us will continue to fight for it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Windrush Day 2021.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I will suspend the House in a moment, but I just want to say, as we go on to the next debate, when Rosie Winterton will be taking over from me, that I am really proud that we have more openly gay LGBT+ Members of Parliament in this Parliament than any other Parliament in the world. We have fought and won many battles—we still have a bit to go—but when I look around the rest of the world and see so many people living in persecution, with stigma and in fear, I know that we also have a battle to fight for them as well. We have a very important debate to come, but we will now suspend for three minutes.