Windrush Day 2020

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

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

In 2018, to mark the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury, 22 June was designated Windrush Day, an annual day of celebration of the enduring contribution of a remarkable generation to the UK. Yesterday saw the third national celebration. I want to start by paying tribute to Patrick Vernon, who led the campaign for Windrush Day for many years.

I am proud to represent a constituency with one of the strongest connections to the Windrush. Around 200 of the original Windrush passengers made their way from Tilbury to Clapham, where they found temporary accommodation in the deep shelter on Clapham common. From Clapham, they came to the labour exchange on Coldharbour Lane in Brixton in my constituency, where they found work in many different occupations, including with London Transport, in the construction industry and in the NHS. Many then settled in Brixton and a community grew, bringing food and music, and establishing local businesses and churches. Their identity is inextricably linked with the Brixton we know today.

It is easy for celebration of the Windrush generation to become sentimental, commemorating the positive story of people who came at the invitation of the British Government and helped to rebuild a country decimated by the second world war and to establish the NHS. Yet that is to ignore the hardship and racism the Windrush generation suffered: the signs in homes to rent that read, “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs”; the humiliation of bus conductors, whose passengers would leave their fares on their seat to avoid contact—the pervasive, oppressive, grinding discrimination encountered in so many aspects of life.

The first official Windrush Day took place against the raw open wounds of the Windrush scandal. The Home Secretary had resigned and the Government had promised to right the wrongs that so many have suffered.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this to the House for consideration. Does she feel the angst that many of us feel that in December last year only 1,108 claims had been made and only 36 people had received money from the £200 million fund? Does she agree with me and others that it is disgraceful that those who need the money most cannot get anything?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes the important point, which I will come to later, that as we celebrate Windrush Day we must also be mindful of the justice that so many of the Windrush generation are still waiting for. Two years on from that first Windrush Day, only 60 Windrush citizens, as he says, have received compensation from a Government scheme, which is complex and hard to access and far too slow to deliver.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for her powerful intervention. She makes a very strong and important point—that it is hypocritical for the Government to offer warm words in celebration of Windrush Day when, of the many thousands who were impacted by the Windrush scandal, only 1,275 have even applied for compensation so far, and of those, only 60 have received any money. There is still so much that the Government must do to put right the wrongs of the Windrush scandal.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady has just mentioned the figures for now. In the six months that it has taken for 100 claims to be lodged, only 14 have actually been processed. That underlines the issue, does it not?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have sat with constituents and filled out the form with them, compiled the documents, gone through that process, submitted the application, and we are still waiting months and months to hear anything from the Home Office.

I welcome the establishment of the new, cross-Government Windrush working group, and particularly the involvement in the working group of the Black Cultural Archives based in my constituency. Black Cultural Archives is a trusted organisation with deep roots in the UK’s black communities, and it has done so much to support the victims of the Windrush scandal. I pay tribute to its work. It is absolutely vital that it is funded to continue to provide that support, yet it is still waiting for applications to open for the £500,000 fund that the Government announced to support grassroots organisations. I hope the Minister might mention a timescale for that fund in his response.

I also welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement today that she has accepted the recommendations of Wendy Williams’ lessons learned review.  However, the Government have been far too slow, not only in relation specifically to the Windrush scandal, but in delivering the much wider reforms that are needed to address structural racism, including implementing the recommendations of the Lammy review on the over-representation of black men in the criminal justice system. I hope that the Minister understands just how low confidence currently is in this Government to tackle racism and structural racial inequality, and that there will not be confidence until sustained and meaningful action is delivered.

This year’s Windrush Day is celebrated against the backdrop of a new and additional scandal: the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. The stories of the Windrush generation and the NHS are intertwined. The Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury just weeks before the founding of the NHS. In my constituency, that connection is embodied in a single street. At one end of Coldharbour Lane was the labour exchange; at the other end is King’s College Hospital, which was and is still substantially sustained by the commitment, skill and care of BAME nurses.

Yesterday, I took part in an event organised by the Runnymede Trust to mark Windrush Day by celebrating the role of BAME workers in the NHS. We heard from academic researchers who had captured the historic experience of migrant women working in the NHS. During the event, the chat bar filled up with devastating first-hand stories of racism and racial discrimination. They included the experience of migrant nurses who were prevented from training as state-registered nurses, meaning that they could only take the inferior career path of the state-enrolled nurse—effectively a structural limitation on promotion and pay—and stories of patients being allowed to wait to be treated by white staff instead of equally qualified BAME staff, reinforcing racist views.

In 2020, it is now BAME NHS workers who are dying from coronavirus in disproportionate numbers. The Government are once again being too slow to protect them: they have announced another review, which will report at the end of the year, rather than taking the immediate protective action that is needed and demanded now. Earlier this month, thousands took to the streets in a heartfelt cry for justice and reform in response to the horrific death of George Floyd in the USA, because his death resonated so powerfully with their own experience here in the UK.

This Windrush Day must be both a celebration of the contribution of the Windrush generation to our communities, culture, economy and public services in the UK, and a moment of deep national reflection. We must reflect on how, more than 70 years since those first Windrush citizens began to work in our NHS, BAME health workers have died in disproportionate numbers as they administered treatment and care during the coronavirus pandemic.

We must engage communities across the country in learning about their own history, even when it is painful, and find ways to ensure that our town squares and public spaces reflect the diversity of our communities, including by moving statues that glorify shameful periods of our history from public spaces to museums where they can be contextualised as artefacts from the past. We need reform of the history curriculum in our schools, so that every child is taught a truthful and inclusive version of British history, including colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.

The Government must deliver a functioning and effective compensation scheme for the victims of the Windrush scandal and urgently implement the recommendations of Wendy Williams and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). They must give confidence that such a scandal can never happen again.