Britain will hear today the lessons to be learned in Windrush scandal

A LONG-AWAITED Government report into the Windrush scandal will be published today, the Home Secretary has confirmed.

Priti Patel had been urged by the report’s author to release it as soon as possible after an early draft, leaked last month, described the Home Office as “institutionally racist”.

Previous leaked extracts said the department had been “reckless” and maintained a “defensive culture” over how it handled immigration.

The independent review into the Home Office’s “hostile environment” policy – which was supposed to be published last year – was commissioned in the wake of the 2018 scandal in which it emerged Caribbean migrants to Britain after the Second World War were deported despite having the right to live in the UK.

Some had come to the country on board the Empire Windrush,

CONTROVERSY: Priti Patel has been told the report must be published in its entirety.

the liner that carried one of the first large groups of post-war Caribbean migrants in 1948.

The scandal led to the resignation of Amber Rudd as Home Secretary in 2018. Since then an internal Home Office survey found that its immigration staff were seeing rising levels of discrimination from colleagues.

The report’s author, inspector of constabulary Wendy Williams, submitted her final version to Ms Patel yesterday.

Ms Williams said: “I have today submitted my report into what lessons should be learnt from the Windrush scandal to the Home Secretary. I now encourage the Home Secretary to publish the Windrush Lessons Learned Review report as soon as possible.”

A Home Office spokesman said it was grateful to Ms Williams, adding it would publish it today, “subject to parliamentary time”.

The process has been dogged by controversy, with claims – not denied by the Home Office – that the early drafts had been “watered down”.

The Labour MP David Lammy, who has campaigned for the rights of Windrush migrants, previously demanded that the “truth must be published in full”.