Windrush Scandal: An Unhealed Wound
Baroness Floella Benjamin has declared the Windrush scandal remains a profound stain on British society, speaking at a poignant event in the House of Lords. Campaigners used the gathering to demand the government commission a statutory inquiry into the Home Office's continuing failings.
Despite seven years of ministerial promises to rectify the catastrophic errors, Lady Benjamin stressed that the injustices are far from resolved. She highlighted that many victims remain trapped in an ongoing nightmare, their lives shattered by a system that wrongly classified them as illegal immigrants.
A Litany of Heartbreak and Systemic Failure
Powerful testimonies dominated the event, detailing how lives were destroyed by Home Office mistakes. These errors led to thousands of people from the Caribbean and Commonwealth being incorrectly deemed illegal. Alarmingly, many described being subjected to a second wave of trauma when their claims for compensation were rejected by the very department that caused their plight.
Campaigners pointed to the relative speed of compensation for victims of the Post Office scandal, demanding urgent reform of the Windrush redress scheme. There is mounting frustration at the refusal by successive governments to launch a formal Hillsborough-style inquiry into the causes of the Home Office scandal.
In the absence of official action, campaigners revealed plans to launch a 'people's inquiry' early next year. They argue that the need to scrutinise the Home Office's culture and the ongoing failures of the compensation scheme is now too pressing to wait for a formal government-led investigation.
Fighting for Justice and Systemic Change
Martin Forde, the architect of the original Windrush compensation scheme in 2018, announced he is ready to help campaigners suggest a radical redesign of the payment system. He noted feeling that officials had displayed a 'woeful lack of commitment' to his scheme. 'We have been too passive for too long,' he stated, adding it was time to 'shame and embarrass' the Home Office into paying the compensation owed.
Clive Foster, the Windrush commissioner, reported that in his first 100 days, he met over 700 affected individuals across the UK. 'Seven years on, sadly the Home Office Windrush scandal is not in the rear-view mirror,' he said. 'Every conversation I've had reinforces the need for urgency. Survivors shouldn't have to be retraumatised by the very process that's there to serve them justice.'
One Londoner, who asked not to be named, described a 13-year battle to prove he was legally in the UK. Having arrived from Nigeria as a child in 1978, he was educated in British schools and universities and built a successful career as a software engineer before being told he faced deportation. 'It's so difficult living when you're trying to tell the truth and nobody believes you,' he shared.
Hetticia McIntosh's story was equally harrowing. She came from Barbados as a child to join her mother, a nurse recruited as part of Enoch Powell's NHS drive. While serving in the British army in the 1970s, her UK status was revoked due to a Home Office error. Both she and her husband, Vanderbilt McIntosh, who had a similar history, were classified as immigration offenders. Despite having attended school, worked for years, and raised three children in the UK, they were forced to relocate to St Lucia for decades, cut off from their family. Their compensation claims were rejected three times between 2021 and this year. 'There was no humanity in the process,' she said, calling for systemic change and legal aid for applicants.
In a letter read out at the event, Home Office minister David Hanson, who was unable to attend, stated: 'The government is determined that justice is delivered for the Windrush generation and their defendants.' He said the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, was committed to embedding 'cultural change within the Home Office.'
