Lord Dholakia
Main Page: Lord Dholakia (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Dholakia's debates with the Home Office
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in settling claims under the Windrush Compensation Scheme.
My Lords, the Windrush compensation scheme was established in April 2019 to compensate members of the Windrush generation for the losses and impacts that they suffered because they were unable to demonstrate lawful status. The first payment was made within four months of the scheme’s launch and, to the end of September, over £2.8 million has been paid or offered in compensation, including multiple offers of over £100,000. More payments and offers are being made every week.
My Lords, there are serious allegations of racism and racial discrimination against those who are dealing with outstanding Windrush compensation claims. The injustice has lasted for over 70 years. The evidence from Wendy Williams has been accepted. We deal with contracts on Covid, awarding millions of pounds, without proper scrutiny. The Home Office cannot be the fit and proper body to sort out these grievances. Many people have died awaiting their claims while the Home Secretary’s mind is on other matters. I ask the Minister to set out a date when all the outstanding claims will be resolved. Failing this, experience proves that the anger of the community will spill on to our streets.
I will not give some sort of defensive response to the noble Lord’s point because, if serious allegations of racism are being put out, we need to take that extremely seriously. If the noble Lord can provide me with further detail, I will take that back. He also asked whether the Home Office is indeed the right department to deal with this. I think it is the right department to deal with this in the sense that people’s identity needs to be established—which, of course, is the purview of the Home Office—before the claims are looked into. He is absolutely right to raise the issue of deceased people: first, it is tragic that someone is deceased before their claim is heard; secondly, it says to us that we need to be quicker at responding; but, thirdly, where someone is deceased, that claim can be dealt with in the appropriate manner with respect to their next of kin.