Windrush

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s warm remarks. I very much agree with him that our first priority is to help those members of the Windrush generation who have been affected. I also remind people that there is a separate issue of illegal immigration, and everyone in the country expects us to deal with that.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I welcome the Home Secretary to his place and congratulate him on his appointment. It is only right to acknowledge the fact that he is the first person from a black and minority ethnic background to hold the office of Secretary of State for the Home Department.

I also acknowledge that the Home Secretary’s predecessor has done the right thing in resigning, given the circumstances in which she found herself. It was her misfortune to preside over a mess of the Prime Minister’s making. Although I have my political differences with the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), I wish her all the best for the future.

A mere change of personnel at the Home Office will not resolve the underlying causes of the Windrush scandal. What has happened to the Windrush generation is not an accident, nor is it a mistake or the work of overzealous Home Office officials; in fact, it is the direct result of the unrealistic net migration targets set by the Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary and of the “hostile environment” created on her watch. It is the Prime Minister who created the fundamental reasons for the Windrush scandal. If the policies that she put in place are not changed by the new Home Secretary, we will have more disgraceful instances of maltreatment of people who have every right to be in the United Kingdom. EU nationals in particular are concerned about what awaits them after Brexit, for all the fine words of assurance.

I therefore have the following questions for the new Home Secretary. Will he commit to a root-and-branch review of the immigration policies that have led to this disaster? Will he commit to an evidence-based immigration policy that, in the words of the director general of the CBI, puts people before numbers and works to benefit our economy and society? Will he look seriously at the concerns of EU nationals living in the UK? And will he look at the clear evidential case for the devolution of powers on immigration to the Scottish Parliament, in recognition of Scotland’s particular demographic needs?

[Mr Speaker]

While it is always a pleasure to listen to the mellifluous tones of the hon. and learned Lady, who is a distinguished practitioner at the Scottish Bar, I hope I can be permitted gently to point out that she has nearly doubled her time allocation.