Windrush

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

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

Earlier this week, I welcomed the Home Secretary to his place and congratulated him on his appointment. I mentioned that it is a good thing he is the first BAME person to hold this great office of state, and I want to make it quite clear that the Scottish National party absolutely condemns any racist abuse he may have received from whatever quarter. As somebody who is on the receiving end of a daily diet of anti-Catholic and anti-gay abuse from the hard right in Scotland and across the UK, I know what it feels like to receive such abuse from whatever quarter, so he has my absolute support in resisting it. I thank the Home Secretary for his courtesy in explaining to me that he would not be able to stay for my speech because he has a very important Cabinet Committee meeting to attend. How much many of us would love to be a fly on the wall in that meeting.

The right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), for whom I have a lot of respect, resigned as Secretary of State for the Home Department on account of having misled Parliament about her knowledge of the removal targets, but nobody has as yet been held to account for the policies that led to the imposition of those removal targets and caused the Windrush scandal.

Others who have Windrush constituents will speak eloquently today about the details of their position. I want to speak about the real, underlying reasons why this scandal has occurred and to say to the new Home Secretary, as represented here by his Immigration Minister, that he will be judged by this Parliament, and by the public watching outwith this Parliament, on the degree to which he has the gumption to address the underlying causes of the Windrush scandal rather than just fiddle around with the outcome.

What has happened to the Windrush generation is not an accident, it is not a mistake, it is not an aberration and it is not the work of over-zealous Home Office officials. It is, in fact, the direct result of the Prime Minister’s imposition of a wholly unrealistic net migration target and of the contortions that have to be gone through to achieve that target, which, incidentally, has as yet not been achieved.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

There is another dimension to the hostile policy, which I have seen in fishing on the west coast. It is not directly impacting on Windrush, but it is a similar aspect of the mentality at the Home Office. For eight years, we have been waiting to get non-European economic area labour in. Everybody wants the Home Office to give us a piece of paper that will keep the Home Office happy, but we just cannot get it. That is symptomatic of the Home Office that has led to Windrush.

[Joanna Cherry]

I wholly agree with my hon. Friend. There are many people in the United Kingdom at the moment who make a great contribution to our society, but who are being made to feel very unwelcome at best and are being deported at worst, simply because they cannot evidence their right to be here.

These people have come to light as a result of another policy of the Prime Minister’s—the hostile environment policy, which is a racist policy. I say that quite clearly: it is racist. When people of a certain ethnic background, or with a name that does not look British, apply for a tenancy or a job, that is when they come to light, and that is when suspicion falls upon them. It is absolutely disgraceful. That is why, at Prime Minister’s questions this morning, despite the howls of derision from Conservative Members, I asked the Prime Minister to apologise for the policies that have caused this. I am still waiting for that apology, and I will be asking for it constantly. Policy has caused this problem, not mistakes—not mistakes by officials and not even mistakes by politicians. It is the direct imposition of policy that has caused this problem.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Does the hon. and learned Lady not agree that the Home Secretary must look at the issue of bonuses, because they create a culture? The buck stops at his door.

[Joanna Cherry]

It is absolutely astonishing that people should be given bonuses for the number of people they can boot out of the country. It is disgusting. What has the United Kingdom come to? I may be a Scottish nationalist, but I also consider myself British, and there are many aspects of the UK—[Interruption.] Yes, I am. Actually, I am half Irish as well—thank God, because I am getting an Irish passport. I am not one of those people who says the UK has never done anything good, but by God is this a smear on the UK’s reputation across the world.

Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister would not even speak to the heads of delegations from the Commonwealth about this issue; she thought she could get it swept under the carpet. Then she thought she could use the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye as her human shield. That did not work either. She thought she could come to the House this morning and get off the hook. Well, she is not off the hook. She needs to answer for the policies that have caused this problem.

We are hearing a lot today about how the Windrush generation will be sorted out. The previous Home Secretary gave us an undertaking that there would not be any more enforcement action against the Windrush generation. However, my question to the Home Secretary is this: if he cannot get the Windrush generation, which vulnerable group is he going to go after next to meet his targets?

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has the hon. and learned Lady seen the Financial Times today? There is an article about the test of English for international communication, which reveals that 35,000 people have had their status as students in this country revoked. In 20% of those cases, that was based on a system of voice recognition that has proved to be faulty. An estimated 7,000 Bangladeshi, Indian and other students, including my constituents, have been removed from this country, or are at the threat of removal at this moment, because of a policy introduced in 2014 by the then Home Secretary—now the Prime Minister.

[Joanna Cherry]

The hon. Gentleman is describing the results of this policy. The Government and the Home Office have to go after low-hanging fruit. They went after the Windrush generation, but they have been called out on that and they are embarrassed—hence all the shouting, the spurious points of order and the attempts to shut us up for calling them out.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

My hon. and learned Friend is making absolutely important points. This point about other vulnerable communities is hugely important, because more and more is coming to light. Does she agree that, in the light of the Windrush scandal, now is the opportunity for the UK Government to regularise the status of the Chagos islanders, who were forced off their land by the British state in the 1960s and 1970s? The second and third generations here are being denied British citizenship. This is an opportunity for the UK Government to put that injustice, along with so many others, right.

[Joanna Cherry]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. As I said earlier this week, and as I will be repeating this afternoon, what we need now is a root and branch review of the Prime Minister’s immigration policies, because they are not working—the Home Affairs Committee has heard evidence that they are not even working according to the Government’s internal tenets.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

The hon. and learned Lady is making a powerful case that the Prime Minister has many questions to answer. One of the key questions she needs to answer is: when was she told about the problems facing the Windrush generation? Was it when she was Home Secretary or Prime Minister? If it was when she was Home Secretary, she has many more questions to answer.

[Joanna Cherry]

The Prime Minister does have many questions to answer. My hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), as he said in a point of order, has laid down many written questions, which have yet to be answered. I suspect that the answers will be deeply embarrassing for the Government, and that is why those questions have not been answered.

I congratulate the official Opposition on having secured this debate on the Windrush scandal, but I make no apology for looking at the underlying reasons for it. I am afraid to say that they do not lie just with those on the Government Benches. There has been some unfortunate rhetoric from elements in the Labour party in the past. I realise that the Labour party is probably under new management now, and some of the new management had the gumption to vote with the SNP against the 2014 Immigration Bill. What I am trying to say is that a rather toxic rhetoric has grown up around immigration in both the Labour party and the Conservative party. It was, of course, Gordon Brown who famously spoke about British jobs for British workers, which the previous Home Secretary enthusiastically picked up on in a speech at the Tory party conference, promising tougher rules for foreign workers coming to Britain and taking our jobs. She suggested in an accompanying briefing that firms could be asked to publish lists of foreign workers. What kind of a union of nations are we becoming when it is seriously being contemplated that that sort of thing should happen?

[Anna Soubry]

The hon. and learned Lady is being very good in giving way. I agree with much of what she says, but she said that the Government “went after” the Windrush generation. The whole thing is a scandal, but would she agree that nobody has deliberately gone after the Windrush generation? She is right about a culture—I will dwell on that in my speech—but nobody has deliberately gone after the Windrush generation.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am sorry. Over recent months, I have found much about which the right hon. Lady and I can agree, but I cannot agree with her on that one. It was deliberate. There were targets; they were necessary to realise the Prime Minister’s policies. Until Conservative Members wake up to that fact and accept it, nothing will change.

As I said, the SNP position is that there should be a root and branch review of immigration policy and of the 2014 and 2016 Acts, and that review should be based on evidence—not on ideology and not on the need to blame somebody else for our problems. I say that because I have noticed since I have been a Member of this House that there is a tendency on the Government Benches to blame difficulties with public services in England and difficulties with the infrastructure in England on immigrants. In actual fact, the reasons—

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

[Joanna Cherry]

No, I will not give way. I want to finish my point—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. and learned Lady will finish her point. She will be heard.

[Joanna Cherry]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier today I was shouted down in this House and I have received an overwhelming number of messages from members of the public, and from some journalists, about how disgraceful that was. Many of them were not SNP supporters. I am very grateful to you for defending me.

My point is this: when somebody in England cannot find a home it is not because there are too many immigrants; it is because the Conservative party has not built any social housing. When somebody in England cannot get an NHS appointment or has to wait a ridiculously long time at accident and emergency, it is not the fault of immigrants; it is the fault of the Conservative party’s austerity policies. My goodness, earlier this week we heard that the Prime Minister would not even agree to pleas from her own Cabinet Ministers to let foreign doctors in to fill vacancies in the NHS. That is shocking.

[Bim Afolami]

The hon. and learned Lady said that there was a tendency by Conservative Members to blame the problems of the NHS or housing on immigrants. Will she please set out precisely to which speech of which person on this side of the House she is referring?

[Joanna Cherry]

That is a good try, but this is not something I thought up on the way into the Chamber. The toxic rhetoric around immigration in the United Kingdom is very well known. It is one of the reasons why there was a leave vote in 2016. Those on the Conservative Benches blamed immigrants rather than their austerity policies for the problems—[Interruption.]

I am calling for an evidence-based review of immigration policy. [Interruption.] I will very happily give evidence. [Interruption.] If I am allowed to speak, I will give Conservative Members some evidence. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. There is clearly disagreement about a particular point. That is why we have debates. The way in which we deal with disagreement is that one person puts their point of view and then a few minutes later someone else puts their point of view, but everybody must be heard and have their turn.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am very grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The evidence has been heard over a period of years by the Home Affairs Committee, the Exiting the European Union Committee, on which I sit, and the Scottish Affairs Committee. The weight of the evidence is that, in reality, immigrants are on average more likely to be in work, more likely to be better educated and more likely to be younger than the indigenous population. The overwhelming weight of the evidence heard by the Exiting the European Union Committee is that immigration is a net benefit to the United Kingdom. The director general of the CBI, no less—normally a great chum of those on the Conservative Benches—has called for an immigration policy that puts people first, not numbers. The CBI wants an evidence-based immigration policy, the Scottish Trades Union Council wants an evidence-based immigration policy and that is what the SNP wants.

In Scotland, historically our problem has been emigration—people leaving Scotland—rather than people coming into Scotland. By 2024—Madam Deputy Speaker, I guess we are both a part of the problem—the Scottish population is projected to grow by just 3.9%, as opposed to 7.5% in England. Some 90% of population growth in Scotland is projected to come from immigration. The time has come, in this review of immigration policy, to look seriously at the devolution of at least some powers over immigration to the Scottish Parliament, and to the English regions and Wales, to recognise the different requirements across the United Kingdom.

I know that these days we are, particularly those on the Conservative Benches, terribly inward-looking, but if we look outwards—

[James Cartlidge]

Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Joanna Cherry]

No, I will not give way. I am going to continue my point.

Canada, where its provinces have different immigration policies, is a shining example of what can be done in a federation. Conservative Members should leave England—if it will not turn them into a pumpkin—and go and have a wee look at what happens elsewhere in the world.

I am calling for the Home Secretary to do things differently from how they have been done before. He said that he does not want to use the phrase “hostile environment” any longer and I have heard people talking about a compliant environment. I would say to him that it is not the language that we need to change—although that would help—but the underlying policies. We need an immigration policy that works for the whole of the UK, taking into account national and regional differences. We need an immigration policy that works to the benefit of the economy and to the benefit of society.

We have heard a lot of Conservative Members challenge the Labour party, the SNP and other Opposition parties by saying, “What would you do about illegal immigration?” What I would say is that every country has to have a sensible system of immigration control, but it needs to operate in line with the law, it needs to be just and fair, it needs to be human rights compliant and it needs to take cognisance of the rule of law. We do not have a system like that in the UK at the moment.

Any Member who holds constituency surgeries can provide examples of constituents who have been treated unfairly by the Home Office. The auditor has pointed out that the Home Office makes an awful lot of mistakes: it is a very poor performing Government Department. We know that 50% of appeals are successful. We also know that, thanks to the Prime Minister, most people are bounced out of the country before they can actually make an appeal. To my mind, that is contrary to the rule of law.

The problem is that we have a system that has elided the difference between legal and illegal immigration. We have constituents who come to our surgeries whose husbands and wives are not able to remain in the United Kingdom. My constituency has a Kurdish community centre. I have numerous examples of members of the Kurdish nation—people who have stood by Britain, fought alongside the British Army, worked as interpreters and so on—who came here expecting to receive a welcome but have been treated as illegals. There is something wrong with our policy and I am not afraid to say that I think it is morally wrong.

United Kingdom immigration policy has gone off the tracks. We need to acknowledge our mistake and introduce an evidence-based ethical immigration policy. Conservative Members shout about evidence and examples. There is a huge weight of evidence that a devolved differential system of immigration could work across the United Kingdom. That evidence has been given to the Scottish Affairs Committee and, in very detailed submissions, by my colleagues in the Scottish Government to the Migration Advisory Committee.

Let us have the guts to admit that the Windrush scandal is not just a mistake or an aberration. It is the result of policies that are wrong. Let us change the names of those policies, let us change the policies and let us have an apology from the Prime Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

This afternoon, we have had thoughtful and passionate contributions from both sides of the House, which have reflected the public mood towards the Windrush generation, who have contributed so much to our country. We also had a debate on Monday, in which the tone was constructive; I listened carefully to Members’ contributions then, as I have today.

We know that the failure of successive Governments to ensure that individuals arriving before 1973 had the documentation they need is deeply regrettable. I have previously said that I am personally sorry, and I repeat that today, but I also repeat how important it is that we put this right, as a matter of urgency.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Caroline Nokes]

I will give way just once—to the hon. and learned Lady.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am grateful to the Minister. Will she apologise for the underlying policies that caused this scandal?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. and learned Lady made some comments earlier that I wish to respond to, but I really think it is important that I put on record how sorry I am that people have been affected, and how crucial it is to me that we make sure we get it right, and that, going forward, we make sure this cannot happen again.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said, putting this right must not mean taking resources away from the teams who are already working so hard to help those who have been affected. I have seen them working and know their dedication and commitment, which I saw this last weekend in Croydon and in Sheffield. That is why the Opposition’s Humble Address motion is not the right answer.

We have announced a package of measures today to bring greater transparency to Members of the House and to the public. I would like to remind the House of those measures. First, the Home Secretary will be writing each month to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) with an update on progress. I have little time this evening to comment on her significant contribution, but I would like to say to her that it is important to me that we provide her with the updates and make sure that her Committee is aware of the progress. It is seldom that I say this on the Floor of the House, but I look forward to being called to her Committee as early as next week.