Windrush Compensation Scheme Debate

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Department: Home Office

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts
Wednesday 6th May 2020

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Portrait Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
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My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for giving us this opportunity to discuss what was indeed a failure of British law, politics and bureaucracy. Tens of thousands of people’s lives were damaged or destroyed as a result. It is an even greater scandal because, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, these are the people contributing so greatly to dealing with the coronavirus epidemic at the moment. Indeed, they are more likely to catch the virus themselves, so they are putting their lives at risk. These are people who helped to build up our country after the Second World War and who are clearly British. They were put through a terrible time and it was exacerbated by the fact that Ministers in the Government had this policy of a hostile environment. That sadly did not help. I hope that the Minister will give us an assurance that this will never happen again.

A related matter that I want to mention is the freedom of the press. I did a report on this for the Council of Europe recently. It is so vital in our democracy. The Guardian needs to be commended for the way it highlighted this. One wonders what might have happened if there had not been such concentration on this by the media and the revelations that highlighted it.

I want to ask the Minister three things in relation to the scheme, which I hope she will deal with in her reply. First, the compensation payments seem to be calculated on the financial impact—loss of income, loss of access to housing and other things that people suffered. Can we have an assurance that there will be some compensation for the grief and the psychological effects? They can be assessed, so some assessment should be made and that must be included as well.

Secondly, the Minister said that there was no cap on the expenditure, but at the moment only £20 million to £30 million is allocated. Some 15,000 people have applied, but the Office for National Statistics thinks that six times as many could be eligible. Can we get an assurance that the money in the budget will be increased to take account of that?

Finally, can we get an assurance that any knock-on effect on the younger generation will be taken account of, to support the sons and grandsons of this generation and to make sure that this sort of thing does not happen again? We have a duty to learn from this and make sure that we, and future British Governments, never let this kind of thing happen again. I hope the Minister will give us some assurances in her reply.