(1 year, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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I remind the hon. Lady of what I said a little while ago. The Government are not finishing a project; they do not have an end date. They continue to work on it. They are certainly not abandoning people who are part of our community and as British as everyone here. The number of claims received by the scheme was 4,558, so there is statistical analysis and proper knowledge of what is happening with the scheme. But I welcome the hon. Lady’s input. I would meet her at any time, as would the Minister who holds the brief, to discuss that further. I am very grateful to her for her question.
Five years on from the outrage of the Windrush scandal and the hostile environment, these reports of scrapped commitments and the cases of so many of my constituents, who are still harassed and persecuted by this Home Office, make it clear that this Government never had any intention of cleaning up the hostile environment towards migrants and minorities in this country. At the very least, will the Minister accept the reality that the Windrush generation, migrants and minorities have lost all confidence in this Home Office and this Government?
I respectfully suggest that the hon. Gentleman is mistaken. I have been a junior Minister in the Home Office for just a few months, but I have not witnessed that hostile environment he speaks of. Mistakes have been made historically, but I have witnessed civil servants working together to put right this wrong. I will work hard to make sure that we continue, so that each and every citizen of our country is treated with fairness in the same way.