Select committee: Home Affairs Committee
Conclusion 31
Fifth Report - The Windrush Compensation Scheme
Published 24 Nov 2021
Paragraph 102
Addressed to Home Office
Home Affairs Committee The Windrush Compensation Scheme All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Home Office should provide the preliminary £10,000 impact on life award to all those the Department has previously acknowledged were wrongly subjected to immigration enforcement measures or were wrongly denied proof of their lawful status as a result of the Windrush scandal. The award should be issued irrespective of whether the claimant can evidence harm or financial losses caused by the Home Office’s failure to ensure that individuals could demonstrate their lawful status; it should be made in recognition of the Department’s appalling treatment of the Windrush generation when it lost sight of this cohort and in recognition of the fact that many of those affected are part of an ageing generation that has contributed heavily to this country, but that cannot wait many years for compensation to be calculated. The £10,000 should be paid within two months and any further calculated compensation entitlement must follow.
From: Home Affairs Committee, Fifth Report - The Windrush Compensation Scheme (HC 204), paragraph 102, 24 November 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 7 February 2022 (deadline 24 January 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response to the Committee's Windrush Compensation Scheme report sets out mixed positions, declining a transfer to an independent body while describing changes already made to the scheme and some further work it is taking forward.
- On moving the scheme to an independent organisation, it says this would bring "more delays in issuing payments", and points instead to the Adjudicator's Office review process and an Independent Person advising on the scheme.
- It does not widen the historical cases review, calling that approach "costly, inefficient" and unlikely to locate affected people, and says it has focused on outreach and engagement instead.
- On the £10,000 preliminary award, it says it will process and offer it where "it is clear that the Home Office has wrongly enacted an immigration enforcement action", and that it cannot identify those who have not made contact with it.
- On caseworker capacity, it says the team has 80 caseworkers, with 24 more due to join over January and external recruitment under way to reach 120.