Windrush

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I want to make every effort to enable as many colleagues as possible to speak, so I shall now reduce the speaking time limit to four minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

The Windrush scandal has sent shockwaves through this country, and so it should. British citizens, men and women who were raised here, who built their lives here, who helped to rebuild this country—their country—after the devastation of the second world war, have been denied their basic human rights. They have been denied their rights as citizens to healthcare, housing, their pensions and social security, and in some cases they have lost their jobs. Some have even been deported in error—an error that has ripped apart lives, families and friendships.

Up to 50,000 British citizens have been too fearful of being deported or detained to even attempt to clarify their status. The Home Office does not even know the number of people it has wrongly deported, but even one person deported in error is one too many. So I ask the Minister to say in responding to this debate how many British citizens from the Windrush generation have been detained, and how many have been deported.

Whatever the answer, we know that a gross injustice has been committed against the Windrush generation, and those responsible for it must be held to account. The Windrush generation are owed more than that, however; they are owed the full restoration of their rights and compensation for the wrongs committed against them. But they are also owed a national discussion of how their country came to treat them with such inhumanity—a discussion of the history that led to the present day.

It is a history that my family knows well. My grandparents came to Britain in the 1960s. They were part of the Windrush generation, and their history and the history of the British empire are inextricably tied together. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) so proudly said, it is a history that begins in the 17th century when the European empires enslaved millions of Africans, taking them to the Caribbean in brutal conditions, subjecting them to cruelty and murderous exploitation and building the wealth of the British ruling elite on their enslaved labour. In the eyes of the British colonial rulers, they were unworthy of having rights. That is the Caribbean history just as it is the British history.

When my grandparents left Jamaica for Britain, they knew that history. When they arrived here, they were truly welcomed by some, but not all. They were confronted by fascists and racists, and they faced Conservative election posters that said “If you want a coloured for your neighbour, vote Labour”, signs in shop windows reading “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish”, and politicians such as Enoch Powell who whipped up racial hatred, blaming migrants for economic and social problems. Still my grandparents persevered. They built their lives here and raised their family here. By right, they are British citizens, but in the eyes of some, the colour of their skin says otherwise. By right, they are citizens, but they are not seen as such.

As a society, we must reflect on how we have allowed the British state to detain and deport wholly innocent British citizens and allowed our Government to pursue a “deport first, appeal later” policy. We must reflect, we must learn and, first and foremost, we must ensure that the Government give justice to the Windrush generation. Justice means compensation for the harms committed, the details of which the Government must fully spell out—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.