Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how he plans to define serious criminality when determining whether to reduce or withhold an award under the Windrush compensation scheme.

The Windrush Compensation Scheme rules are available on the government website at www.gov.uk/windrush-compensation.

Paragraphs 4.5 and 4.6 of the rules set out the provisions around criminality. This provides that the Home Office may reduce or decline to make an award under the scheme to a claimant who has been convicted of an offence in respect of which they have received a sentence of imprisonment of four years or more and their offending was of such a nature that it makes it inappropriate to make an award in whole or in part. This provision does not apply to a conviction and sentence outside of the UK for conduct which on the date of the conviction was not an offence in the UK.