Yvette Cooper
Main Page: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley)Department Debates - View all Yvette Cooper's debates with the Home Office
(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend is right to point out that many thousands of people have received their documentation. We should be pleased that that has occurred, and in the vast majority of cases it has occurred very swiftly after they have provided details to the taskforce. That is crucial, so that they can access the benefits and services to which they are entitled. The taskforce has received well in excess of 8,000 calls, but only a proportion of them will be part of the Windrush scheme, and there is very careful triaging so that people receive calls back and the correct information is identified at that time.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
We will publish today the Home Office’s response to our Select Committee’s Windrush report. The response rejects our cross-party recommendation to reinstate immigration appeals. Does not the Minister recognise that, in Windrush cases, people lost their homes, their residency and citizenship rights, their healthcare rights and their jobs because the Home Office got decisions wrong and there was no right of appeal and no independent checks and balances? Does she not recognise that, if we are to have any chance of preventing Windrush injustices from happening again, there needs to be the restoration of immigration appeal rights?
Caroline Nokes
I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. The Windrush taskforce and the review processes that are commencing and, indeed, will be ongoing for a considerable time show that, yes, absolutely, mistakes were made over a long period, for which this Government have apologised and continue to apologise, because we are very sorry for those to whom wrong was done. It is absolutely imperative that we learn those lessons, which is why Wendy Williams has been commissioned for the independent review, and that we make sure that we take account of the recommendations that come forward from that review and make appropriate changes.