Windrush Day 2020

Debate between Steve Baker and Helen Hayes

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have sat with constituents and filled out the form with them, compiled the documents, gone through that process, submitted the application, and we are still waiting months and months to hear anything from the Home Office.

I welcome the establishment of the new, cross-Government Windrush working group, and particularly the involvement in the working group of the Black Cultural Archives based in my constituency. Black Cultural Archives is a trusted organisation with deep roots in the UK’s black communities, and it has done so much to support the victims of the Windrush scandal. I pay tribute to its work. It is absolutely vital that it is funded to continue to provide that support, yet it is still waiting for applications to open for the £500,000 fund that the Government announced to support grassroots organisations. I hope the Minister might mention a timescale for that fund in his response.

I also welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement today that she has accepted the recommendations of Wendy Williams’ lessons learned review.  However, the Government have been far too slow, not only in relation specifically to the Windrush scandal, but in delivering the much wider reforms that are needed to address structural racism, including implementing the recommendations of the Lammy review on the over-representation of black men in the criminal justice system. I hope that the Minister understands just how low confidence currently is in this Government to tackle racism and structural racial inequality, and that there will not be confidence until sustained and meaningful action is delivered.

This year’s Windrush Day is celebrated against the backdrop of a new and additional scandal: the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. The stories of the Windrush generation and the NHS are intertwined. The Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury just weeks before the founding of the NHS. In my constituency, that connection is embodied in a single street. At one end of Coldharbour Lane was the labour exchange; at the other end is King’s College Hospital, which was and is still substantially sustained by the commitment, skill and care of BAME nurses.

Yesterday, I took part in an event organised by the Runnymede Trust to mark Windrush Day by celebrating the role of BAME workers in the NHS. We heard from academic researchers who had captured the historic experience of migrant women working in the NHS. During the event, the chat bar filled up with devastating first-hand stories of racism and racial discrimination. They included the experience of migrant nurses who were prevented from training as state-registered nurses, meaning that they could only take the inferior career path of the state-enrolled nurse—effectively a structural limitation on promotion and pay—and stories of patients being allowed to wait to be treated by white staff instead of equally qualified BAME staff, reinforcing racist views.

In 2020, it is now BAME NHS workers who are dying from coronavirus in disproportionate numbers. The Government are once again being too slow to protect them: they have announced another review, which will report at the end of the year, rather than taking the immediate protective action that is needed and demanded now. Earlier this month, thousands took to the streets in a heartfelt cry for justice and reform in response to the horrific death of George Floyd in the USA, because his death resonated so powerfully with their own experience here in the UK.

This Windrush Day must be both a celebration of the contribution of the Windrush generation to our communities, culture, economy and public services in the UK, and a moment of deep national reflection. We must reflect on how, more than 70 years since those first Windrush citizens began to work in our NHS, BAME health workers have died in disproportionate numbers as they administered treatment and care during the coronavirus pandemic.

We must engage communities across the country in learning about their own history, even when it is painful, and find ways to ensure that our town squares and public spaces reflect the diversity of our communities, including by moving statues that glorify shameful periods of our history from public spaces to museums where they can be contextualised as artefacts from the past. We need reform of the history curriculum in our schools, so that every child is taught a truthful and inclusive version of British history, including colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.

The Government must deliver a functioning and effective compensation scheme for the victims of the Windrush scandal and urgently implement the recommendations of Wendy Williams and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). They must give confidence that such a scandal can never happen again.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am enjoying the hon. Lady’s speech. She mentions the Lammy review; I have just had an answer to my parliamentary question to the Lord Chancellor about the review, which I will tweet out in a moment. It tells me that

“of the 35 recommendations…16 have been completed … 17 recommendations are still in progress, of which… 1 recommendation is in the initial stages…11 recommendations aim to be completed within 6-12 months…5 recommendations will take longer than 12 months”.

I really think that the Government are making serious progress on the Lammy review, and I think that the Minister is to be congratulated.

[Helen Hayes]

I think the test of the Government’s progress in this area is the experience of BAME residents up and down the country, and the protests in recent weeks tell us loudly and clearly that they do not have confidence in this Government. I hope that the Government will start to rebuild that trust and confidence, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise exactly how far they have to go.

We must see urgent, meaningful action to protect BAME frontline workers from coronavirus and address the underlying health inequalities that left them at risk in the first place. The Government must end the hostile environment and reform the history curriculum so that every child learns about British history as a story of migration and is taught about the UK’s shameful role in the transatlantic slave trade. Windrush Day is a national celebration, but also a day for asserting the truth that black lives matter and for redoubling our efforts to create a society free from structural racism and discrimination in which everyone’s contribution is fully recognised.