I’m victim of Home Office ignorance too, says Priti
PRITI Patel has revealed she was on the “receiving end” of Home Office practices slammed in the scathing Windrush probe.
The Home Secretary said her experiences in her own department mirrored some points raised by report author Wendy Williams.
Ms Williams blasted successive governments’ “hostile environment” policy on illegal immigration and said the Home Office had shown “ignorance and thoughtlessness” on race.
Ms Patel yesterday ordered a “full evaluation” of the policy which saw people from the Windrush generation wrongly facing deportation and losing the right to live in the UK.
She said the Windrush debacle “scars” the Home Office “significantly” and her commitment to changing the department was “fundamentally solid and firm”.
Ms Patel told MPs: “I have seen all sorts of practices, I have experienced all sorts of practices in the Home Office.
“I have been on the receiving end of certain practices in the Home Office as well, which quite frankly speak to some of the points that came out of Wendy Williams’ review.
“What happened to the Windrush generation is unspeakable and no one with a legal right to be here should ever have been penalised.”
Ms Patel has previously said Ms Williams was “just a fraction away from even calling the Home Office institutionally racist”.
She also described the scandal as a “stain on this department”.
The first Windrush migrants arrived from the Caribbean in 1948 on the Empire Windrush.