Windrush Lessons Learned Review

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comment. This review gives voice to people from the Windrush generation, who, of course, not only came to the UK legally, but were part of our country. They contributed to our country, our economy and our public services in an unprecedented way.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Home Secretary has said, “We will continue to do everything possible to ensure that the Home Office protects, supports and listens to every single part of the community it serves.” I commend the work of Councillor Carole Williams in Hackney, who is doing amazing work, pulling together the community and setting a better model than the Home Office’s for how that engagement could work.

I also want to ask the Home Secretary about the other 160,000 Commonwealth citizens in this situation, which is something that the Public Accounts Committee raised. While she is on her feet, will she also tell us what she is doing about people with no recourse to public funds who are part of the community she serves, who will be facing very difficult circumstances if they are unable to work because of covid-19?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady raises a number of points. First, I thank everyone who is involved, and has been involved, in many of the outreach groups and the events that have taken place across the country. I have mentioned the stakeholder group in particular, which is something that I set up. I have spent a lot of time with volunteers and community activists, and their work has been remarkable and should be commended. There is much more that we need to do on that basis, and that equally applies to members of other Commonwealth countries. This report is very clear about that, and I am very clear about that as well. I said in my statement that we have not done enough yet to reach out to everyone, and that there is a lot of work to do in reaching out to other individuals and communities. I have asked other colleagues and Members of this House to work with us and their communities so that we can ensure that we reach the people who need help and support. That goes exactly to the point about recourse to public funds. I spoke about assistance with benefit claims and things of that nature. Again, we need to identify those individuals, and there is more we can do collectively.

The hon. Lady touched on the current crisis with covid-19 and how we will continue to do these things. That is a fair challenge to us all, because we will not be able to hold events in the way we had planned to. Much more work will now take place through media campaigns and our casework approach, but also through one-on-one communications. I would like the individuals she mentioned in her constituency, and other individuals who are working at the grassroots, to get in touch with me and my office. We will absolutely work with them to create a network locally.