Windrush

Debate between Tom Pursglove and Anne Main

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), my fellow marathon runner. My remarks will share in the sentiment of the early part of hers, because I come at this debate considering myself very lucky to have grown up in a diverse community. In Wellingborough, I grew up with Afro-Caribbean families. I grew up with Asian families. They have played a huge part in our community; they have contributed so much. They are absolutely British, and they are here legally; let us be in no doubt about that.

I take great offence at any suggestion that not all Members of the House are concerned about this issue or that not all Members take the matter incredibly seriously or want it resolved as quickly as possible. I do not think that anybody would say that something has not gone seriously wrong here—it is impossible to deny that something has gone seriously wrong—but I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) that nobody has set about deliberately targeting the Windrush generation. Again, it is wrong to give the impression that that is the case, and I take issue with it.

It is right, therefore, that a full and frank apology is made, and we have seen a full and frank apology made on numerous occasions. What matters more than any of that, though, is action. This is about speedy action being taken, which is why I welcome the package of measures announced by Ministers in recent days, because they are comprehensive.

Having had constituents contact me who are concerned that they have been affected by this issue, my experience as a constituency MP is that they have been dealt with thoroughly and speedily to reach a resolution in their case. I have seen a system that has been put in place being responsive to dealing with these cases. Of course, this should never have happened, but these cases have been dealt with in a way that I would like them to be dealt with, and dealt with properly. I do not want anybody to be worrying about this for any longer than is necessary.

When the statement was made last week, I pushed the former Home Secretary on the two-week target. She was confident that it would hold, which is really important. I will certainly be monitoring progress against that.

I also welcome what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had to say today about the new measures around transparency that he is going to introduce. I welcome the fact that the Home Affairs Committee is going to be getting the information that it has requested, and when we look at my right hon. Friend’s record, certainly in dealing with the Grenfell issue, we can see that he has been incredibly sympathetic, incredibly thorough and always incredibly forthcoming in dealing with the issues—not just those raised by Members of the House, but those raised by the survivors. That is absolutely right, and I know that he will pursue this with vigour, robustly and thoroughly.

The truth is that the motion will do absolutely nothing to help any of that. This is a procedural motion. I wanted to intervene on the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), the shadow Home Secretary, to make the point that if we are serious about this, why refer to the date May 2010? The fact that certain policies were enacted under the last Labour Government has been well documented in the media, so why are Labour Members not interested in getting to grips with the information from before that date? It would have been a much more genuine attempt had that been the case.

[Mrs Main]

That is exactly the point that I was trying to make. This is quite obviously a fishing exercise between certain chosen dates, and I have to say that if Labour Members were honestly trying to get to the truth, they would be looking at the whole number of dates covered by this policy.