Home Office failings

Among the many post-brexit policies still to be worked out is control of immigration. This is the responsibility of the Home Office, which over the years has not been up to the task. It is 12 years since John Reid, then Home Secretary, said his department’s immigration arm was “not fit for purpose”. Judging by today’s report from the Commons home affairs select committee into the Windrush debacle, not much has changed since that time.

The findings of the MPS are damning. Hundreds of people living lawfully in this country were threatened with deportation or denied their rights as citizens because the Home Office was simply dysfunctional. The politics of curbing immigration also led to officials treating people with suspicion and scepticism, forcing them to follow processes that “appear designed to set them up to fail”.

The sub-text of this report is that it is all the Conservative Government’s fault. Yet the problems in the Home Office and the political pressure to curb immigration date from Labour’s time in office. In addition, while applicants should of course be treated humanely, this must not be used as an excuse to return to Labour’s open-door approach. Campaigners are trying to use the Windrush saga to demand the removal of controls that remain necessary to address public concerns about levels of immigration.

Nonetheless, the problems previously identified remain and the consequences for many of the Windrush generation have been serious. When the Government comes to publish its plans for a new post-brexit immigration policy, it needs to explain why it thinks the Home Office is now capable of delivering one.