Windrush Generation: 75th Anniversary

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 7th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in the gap, having given notice. I was inspired to do so by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, who made a passionate and at times justifiably angry speech, and who was herself very properly recognised and made a member of the illustrious Order of Merit. There can be no better example of the Windrush generation and what we are talking about today.

It was also appropriate that the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, talked quite considerably at the beginning of her speech about the National Health Service. It really is a happy coincidence that we were celebrating the 75th anniversary of the health service on Wednesday and we have this debate today, because, without the contribution of the Windrush generation and their families, the National Health Service would not be what it is. We owe them a very great debt.

There has been an underlying theme to this debate that I want to dwell on very briefly. It is that cruelty never pays and “Do to others as you would be done by”. We have to remember that, not only as we think back with shame to what happened a few years ago but as we look at the way we are tackling problems today.

I was deeply disturbed to read in the i newspaper this morning of the painting over of Mickey Mouse pictures and other things that had been put into centres where there are unaccompanied children. Whoever is to blame for their being here, they are not. It seemed a deeply unfortunate and frankly rather cruel gesture. We have to remember that, as we remember and repent for the way Windrush generation descendants were treated a few years ago.

Kindness may not get you everywhere, but it gets you a long way and it helps to make a cohesive society. If this debate is to have any legacy, it must be to make our society more cohesive, more united and more—if I dare use the word, and I do so with pride—patriotic.