Windrush Scheme

Viscount Waverley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Certainly, there has to be a co-ordinated approach to this whole Windrush issue, as the noble Baroness said, and quality assurance is absolutely paramount given what some of these people have suffered, some for many years. So she is absolutely right. The DWP is certainly one of the referral routes for the Windrush generation because some of them may have lost or not been able to receive benefits to which they are entitled. I totally take her point. Yes, my right honourable friend did say when he became Home Secretary that a humane approach was definitely the new culture within the Home Office.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords, I have learned about midnight flights for deportees to the Caribbean. I do not wish to interfere in any way with judicial processes, or even to suggest that, but would it not be a gesture of post-Brexit good will to declare what some countries have done: a carefully constructed amnesty leading into our next-stage immigration policy?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Viscount should be clear about what and whom he means when he talks about midnight flights. I do not know that they take place at midnight, but the people who are set to be deported to the Caribbean are rapists, murderers and people involved in drugs and firearms. Does the noble Viscount really mean an amnesty for serious criminality?

[Viscount Waverley]

No, I was talking about a more general point that possibly, going into a post-Brexit situation, the Home Office might wish to consider amnesty for certain types of individuals. It may find that helpful. That is all.