Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill
Debate between Steve Baker and Carol MonaghanMonday 10th February 2020
(4 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Baker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that, because it gives me an opportunity to mention an important book that I hope Ministers and officials will look at. It is a study by King and Crewe that is rather unfortunately, but necessarily, entitled “The Blunders of our Governments”. The book sets out how, in various instances of what the authors call cultural dissonance—in other words, a failure to appreciate who one is dealing with and how those people approach the measures that the state puts in place—successive Governments, of alternating parties, have blundered. The hon. Lady raises something that the Front Benchers should look at extremely closely. We do not want any more blunders affecting real people.
I pay tribute to the community in Wycombe. My staff were instructed, and we agreed together, to bend over backwards to make sure we found everybody who might have been affected. I am extremely grateful that the community worked with us to find every possible opportunity to reach anyone affected. I cannot say anything about individual cases, because the number of affected people was so very low and I would not want to identify anyone. I will just say that I am thoroughly ashamed that someone was so badly affected in the way that he was.
As someone who for 10 years has represented the diverse community of Wycombe—a place where, as a school governor told me this morning, 48 languages are spoken in one primary school—I have seen how we desperately need greater humanity in our migration system. I suggest three principles, although there will be more: consent, justice and equality. It is not enough to say that we believe in the moral, legal and political equality of every person. The systems we establish and the manner in which we treat people must bear witness to the fact that, in the core of our being, we recognise the worth and the value of every person.
On justice, we have long believed that justice delayed is justice denied, and that is true in immigration, too. Time and again, I have seen people be denied leave to remain but not deported—not forced to leave when they should. However much one might wish to be idealistic, there is no justice in letting somebody stay for 10 years, because they will inevitably fall in love, set up a life, get married, have children and then, 10 years later, find that they have no status at a moment when they need public services. Thank you for letting me dilate on this, Mr Deputy Speaker. It does not relate to Windrush—I am talking about different circumstances—but the point about humanity is the same. We need to take just decisions, and to do so swiftly. That goes to the point that has been made about making payments quickly to people who have suffered injustice.
Carol Monaghan
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech and showing great humility. With respect, however, the Government have said sorry to these people many times. Some people, like my constituent, have had their mental health so affected by the trauma of all this that they will be unable to hold down a job again. Compensation is one thing, but does he agree that it must take into account not only the physical money that has been lost, but other issues and future earnings?
Mr Baker
Yes. The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I noticed the length of the compensation scheme documentation, which I was going through this morning. Since she has raised the matter, I want to draw the Government’s attention to the provisions on interim payments. I wonder whether more could be done to make such payments early to try to address some of the points that she has made.