Call for Home Office reform after scandal

The Windrush scandal has exposed the need for “root-and-branch reform” of the culture, policies and approach to immigration of the Home Office, which Theresa May ran for six of the last eight years, MPs said.

They questioned whether the “hostile environment” approach promoted by Mrs May should be allowed to continue.

THE WINDRUSH scandal has exposed the need for “root-andbranch reform” of the culture, policies and approach to immigration of the Home Office, which Theresa May ran for six of the last eight years, MPs have said.

A report by the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee questioned whether the “hostile environment” approach promoted by Mrs May as Home Secretary should be allowed to continue in its current form.

It blamed the “appalling” treatment of longstanding UK residents of Caribbean heritage on political decisions which created an environment in which they were treated with suspicion and scepticism.

And it warned that unless lessons are learnt, the Home Office may repeat the same mistakes with the three million EU nationals in the UK who must take on a new migrant status after Brexit.

Some 8,000 people who arrived in the UK as long ago as the 1950s have contacted the Home Office Windrush taskforce, with more than 2,000 receiving documents confirming their right to stay in the UK.

But the committee said it was “unacceptable” that the Government was still unable to say how many people were unlawfully detained, ordered to report to Home Office centres, lost their jobs or were denied access to healthcare or other services.

Processes were put in place which appeared designed to set people up to fail, independent checks and balances were removed and there were repeated failures in oversight at senior levels of the Home Office, said the cross-party committee.

Enforcement targets for immigration officers may have led removal teams to focus on people like the Windrush generation because they were “easier to detain and remove”.

The report called for an immediate re-evaluation of the “hostile environment” promoted by the Prime Minister.

It came as Yorkshire Windrush citizen Joseph Bravo called for compensation promised by Ministers to be paid out as soon as possible so he can use the money to visit his daughter in Australia, whose wedding he missed as a result of the scandal.

Mr Bravo missed the wedding in April after being told he would have to pay hundreds of pounds for citizenship before he could get a passport – even though he was legally entitled to one having lived in Leeds for decades.

The 62 year-old electrician received his certificate of naturalisation on Thursday and he is due to receive a passport free of charge within days.

But he highlighted the need for quick payouts given the age of many victims, telling The Yorkshire Post: “I don’t want to be in my Zimmer frame before I get compensation.

“Whatever I get is a bonus, the passport was my objective.

“If I get (the money for) my flight to Australia and back I’ll be over the moon with that.”

Compensation is being delayed while the Home Office is prepares the second stage of a consultation on how it should work, which is designed to give victims of the scandal some input.

But Home Secretary Sajid Javid rejected the committee’s call for a hardship fund to tide victims over until payments arrive.

He told committee chair Yvette Cooper in a letter that “making interim compensation payments now would undermine that process”.

I don’t want to be in my Zimmer frame before I get compensation. Joseph Bravo, a Leeds-based victim of the Windrush scandal.