Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the potential for the Windrush Compensation Scheme application form to serve as a barrier to people wishing to apply for compensation with particular regard to (a) its complexity and (b) the nature of information it requires.

In response to question UIN: 41960

Any information provided as part of a compensation claim is solely used for the purpose of assessing that claim. Information provided as part of a compensation claim is held on a separate system, and is not shared outside of the compensation team. Information provided as part of a compensation claim would never be passed on to Immigration Enforcement or used as part of enforcement action.

Immigration Enforcement have put in place safeguards to ensure members of the Windrush generation are not subjected to enforcement action. Whenever a person is encountered who claims to be a member of the Windrush generation or to be in the UK lawfully, they are referred to the Windrush Help Team to consider their case and, if appropriate, issue documentation under the Windrush (status) Scheme confirming their right to be in the UK. No enforcement action is taken against individuals whose status is under review by the Windrush Help Team, or who have an ongoing Windrush (status) Scheme application.

Anyone is free to submit a claim to the Windrush Compensation Scheme, irrespective of whether they are actually eligible for compensation. It is possible for a person who is in the UK unlawfully, and who is not a member of the Windrush generation, to submit an unmeritorious compensation claim. They may, rightly, be subject to enforcement action on the basis of information obtained by Immigration Enforcement independently. We do not hold data on how many compensation claimants have later faced enforcement action.

In response to question UIN: 41961

Since its launch, the Home Office has continued to listen and respond to feedback from affected communities and stakeholders about how the Scheme operates and its accessibility. In response to feedback, we have re-designed the primary claim form to make it easier to complete.

We have designed the compensation scheme to be as clear and simple as possible, so people do not need legal assistance to make a claim. We have published a redesigned primary claim form which now has a Crystal Mark from the Plain English Campaign, demonstrating our commitment to ensuring the scheme is accessible and as easy to use as possible.

The new form includes more targeted and closed questions to help people understand and provide the key information we need from them. We believe the new form will improve peoples’ experiences of applying to the scheme and help to speed up the processing of claims by reducing the amount of additional information and evidence we must ask people to provide.

We have made the evidential threshold as low as possible. Our intent is to ask for the minimum evidence necessary to reduce the burden on individuals, whilst maximising the offers we can make. In doing so we are seeking to strike the right balance between ensuring the scheme is comprehensive and covers the broadest range of circumstances, whilst also making it easy to navigate.

However, for those who want or need support to make a claim, the Home Office provides free assistance in making applications through our independent claims assistance provider - We Are Digital. The Windrush Compensation Scheme Help Team can also assist individuals should they have questions about the claim form or process.

We continue to work extensively with communities and stakeholders to raise awareness of the Scheme and encourage affected individuals to apply.