Home Office

7. Mr A complains about the Windrush Compensation Scheme (WCS) and its handling of his Deceased Estates ‘Impact on life’ Claim for his father’s estate. He says it has not considered the claim properly. Specifically, he says it: • failed to recognise the impact stemming from the Home Office’s administrative error in the 1980s when it mistakenly said his mother was born in Barbados.

• said his father was able to travel freely with his non-British passport, which he says was not the case.

8. As a result of WCS’ failings, Mr A believes it has made the wrong decision on his claim, ignored critical facts, and has dismissed his parent’s impact.

9. As an outcome of his complaint, Mr A would like WCS to reconsider its decision for the ‘Impact on life’ claim and introduce service improvements.

Complaint background

10. Mr A’s father, Mr B, was born in Barbados on 3 October 1931, which was part of the United Kingdom and colonies (CUKC) until it gained independence in 1966.

11. In 1957, Mr B moved to the UK but struggled to find employment and access services (housing, health, social care, and financial services). Mr A says a lot of Mr B’s difficulty was caused by racist systemic barriers.

12. On 1 January 1973, the Immigration Act 1971 was first enacted, and Mr B gained ‘Indefinite leave to remain’ (ILR) status. ILR status gives the holder legal status to live in the UK, which is the right to live, work, apply for benefits, and study in the UK for as long as the holder likes.

13. The Home Office’s records show Mr B travelled outside of the UK twice, using his non-British passport, before he got UK citizenship in 1987. He travelled to Barbados on 22 November 1973 and 21 July 1984. Mr A accompanied Mr B for the second trip, and witnessed his father being questioned by airport staff after they returned to the UK from their trip to Barbados.

14. In 1987, Mr B applied for citizenship and was successful. Mr A said Mr B had applied prior to 1987, but the Home Office has no record supporting this.

15. Mr B died on 24 October 2016.

16. On 8 January 2023, Mr A contacted the WCS to secure compensation for Mr B’s Windrush experience by submitting a claim form. He made a WCS Deceased Estates Claim for ‘Detention, deportation, removal and return’; ‘Loss of access to employment’; ‘Loss of access to benefits’; ‘Housing’; ‘Education’; ‘Homelessness’; ‘Discretionary’; and ‘Impact on life’.

17. In his claim form, Mr A described the ‘Impact on life’ claim as follows:

“The hostility, racism and inaccessibility to any services or benefits place a great strain mental, financially and physically on my father. His career aspirations were shattered. Moving from job to job with no employment security. His mental health was affected. which has never [been] discussed.

Anxiety levels were heightened once he married and became a father, as providing financially and securing a safe and secure home was difficult.”

18. WCS spoke to Mr A over the phone about the ‘Impact on life’ claim on 31 January and 9 February 2024. He talked about an issue he witnessed when he and Mr B returned to the UK in 1984 after visiting Barbados for his grandmother’s funeral. He says staff at the airport took Mr B out of the line of arrivals and questioned him ‘intensively’ before allowing him to re-enter the UK. He says Mr B was very upset by this experience, and it added to the distress he already felt at the loss of his mother (Mr A’s grandmother).

19. Mr B was able to get citizenship in 1987. The call handler asked Mr A if his father had applied before then, and Mr A said he recalled Mr B had made other attempts to get citizenship before 1987 (as highlighted above, we have seen no record evidence to support this).

20. Mr A said Mr B did not discuss the issues he experienced, such as the impact on his mental health, as this was considered a sign of weakness in their community. Looking back, Mr A reflects Mr B’s mental health was not right, and this impacted Mr B’s relationship with his children. He struggled to have a close relationship with Mr A and his siblings because of the issues affecting his life.

21. Mr A said he has no evidence to support what he told the call handler, and the call note suggested he was frustrated with WCS for requesting information for events that had occurred a long time ago. He told the call handler that the UK government had already acknowledged there was institutional racism, and his family had experienced this. He was sceptical whether there would be an award due to the lack of evidence available.

22. On 1 March, WCS shared its decision with Mr A, explaining it had decided not to award him with compensation. Regarding his ‘Impact of life’ claim, it said it was unable to determine the issues Mr B experienced were a direct result of an inability to demonstrate his lawful status in the UK.

23. Mr A requested a Tier 1 review on 10 March. He said WCS had failed to recognise Mr B’s impacts, which he says were directly linked to the systemic barriers Mr B faced. He said his family lived in constant fear of deportation, and were unable to access essential services, due to their legal status.

24. Mr A also raised a new issue about his mother’s experience (Mrs B). He said she received a letter from the Home Office about her citizenship that contained an error. Mr A said this caused confusion and distress for both Mrs and Mr B, as well as casting doubt on Mrs B’s legal status in the UK.

25. WCS reconsidered the case and came to the same decision. In its Tier 1 decision, dated 24 August, it said that Mr A had still not linked Mr B’s experience to issues with his legal status, it also explained it does not award compensation for impacts stemming from racial discrimination.

26. Mr A requested a Tier 2 review on 16 September, which meant the case would be looked at by the Adjudicator’s Office (AO). He said WCS’ position diminished Mr B’s experience.

27. The AO considered Mr B would have had ILR status following the Immigration Act 1971. It recognised he would not have been provided with documentation to demonstrate this immediately. However, it highlighted the Home Office’s records show he travelled outside the UK on two occasions, and it considered this evidence demonstrated he was able to return on both occasions without issue using his non-British passport. Given his immigration status and travel documents, it said it was likely the airport staff would have given his passport an entry stamp confirming his legal ILR status.

28. The AO also highlighted Mr B had demonstrated in his citizenship application that he planned to travel again, and this was his reason for initially not providing his passport which he needed to travel. It felt this evidence demonstrated Mr B did not have concerns over his ability to travel or at placing his status in the UK under scrutiny.

29. As such, the AO shared its decision with Mr A on 13 June 2025. It was not of the view Mr B held a fear of deportation based on the actions he took. It said the evidence suggested he was able to demonstrate his lawful status and his ability to live a normal life was not affected by his status.

30. Regarding the point made relating to Mrs B’s experience, the AO said WCS rules only allow it to make an award for detrimental impacts which are a direct result of the deceased parties’ inability to demonstrate their lawful status. As Mr A had submitted a claim about Mr B’s experiences, the AO said Mr A could only claim for impacts directly resulting from Mr B’s experience in this particular claim.

31. It said WCS had not considered the impact of fear of deportation on Mr B’s mental health and quality of life. It asked WCS to reconsider its decision to consider this issue.

32. WCS reconsidered Mr A’s ‘impact on life’ claim and concluded the evidence demonstrated Mr B was able to prove his legal status and live a normal life without being adversely affected by his immigration status.

33. It explained that Mr B acquired ILR by operation of the law, and the Home Office records show he travelled abroad without issue in both 1973 and 1984, using a non-British passport. It explained the procedure at the time was to allow re-entry after confirming immigration status and endorse the passport with a stamp confirming this. There were no time limit restrictions attached to Mr B’s permission to remain in the UK.

34. It also highlighted Mr B explained in his British Citizenship application that he had plans to travel and initially withheld his passport for this reason.

35. Taken together, WCS said this evidence proved Mr B had no concerns about his unresolved immigration status (ILR) being placed under further scrutiny. He was also able to demonstrate his lawful status and live a normal life without being adversely affected by his immigration status.

36. As such, it was not satisfied the conditions had been met to award compensation under the ‘Impact on life’ category.

Administrative background

37. There is no single or consistent picture of the loss suffered by those affected by issues demonstrating their legal status in the UK. The Home Office designed WCS to address potential losses under a range of categories and to take into account the impact of the losses in each case, as far as possible.

32.When it comes to compensation for ‘Impact on life’, the WCS’ criteria are set out in Annex H of the ‘Windrush Compensation Scheme Rules’. Under the rules, compensation can be considered for the estate of a person who experienced detrimental impacts as a direct consequence of being unable to demonstrate lawful status in the UK.

WCS failed to recognise the impact stemming from the Home Office’s administrative error in the 1980s when it mistakenly said his mother was born in Jamaica.

40. On 16 February 2026, Mr A described to us the traumatic experiences both Mr and Mrs B experienced after arriving in the UK. He told us about a series of terrible experiences Mrs B had. However, the focus of his complaint is about a Home Office error on 11 September 1987 where it mistakenly said in a letter that Mrs B was born in Barbados, when she was actually born in Jamaica. He says the impact of this is that it caused the whole family distress, and they feared she could be deported.

41. We can appreciate why Mr A raised this point in his ‘Impact on life’ Deceased Estate claim for Mr B, as he says Mrs B’s experience also impacted Mr B due to the distress it caused the whole family.

42. However, annex H, section H1 (a), of the WCS rules says that WCS will only award compensation under the ‘Impact on life’ category when the impact in question has occurred as a ‘direct consequence of [the deceased party] being unable to demonstrate lawful status in the United Kingdom’.

43. Applied to this case, WCS rules only allow it to consider impacts that occurred as a direct consequence of Mr B being unable to demonstrate his lawful status in the UK and this particular issue relates to something that directly affected Mrs B.

44. Mr A should have raised this particular issue in a separate claim for Mrs B. He explained to us on 1 April that he has made a separate Deceased Estates claim for Mrs B, which he says was successful.

45. As such, it is our view there are no indications of maladministration with WCS’ decision to not award Mr A with compensation for Mr B’s deceased estate claim for an impact which directly affected Mrs B.

WCS said Mr B was able to travel freely with his non-British passport, which Mr A says was not the case.

46. Mr A said WCS was wrong for saying Mr B could move freely, in and out of the UK, with his non-UK passport (a Barbados passport). He highlights a particular experience he witnessed when he travelled with Mr B to Barbados in 1984 and witnessed airport staff intensely questioning his father. While they allowed Mr B to re-enter the UK, the experience caused both Mr A and Mr B much distress, which added to what was already a sad event in light of the recent passing of Mr B’s mother.

47. Mr A says WCS did not consider the impact the uncertainty around legal status had on Mr B’s mental health. He says it impacted Mr B’s self-worth and capacity to live a normal life.

48. WCS’ records show it considered this evidence, but it highlighted the Home Office’s records show Mr B had legal status, which he should have been able to prove with his passport, and he was able to travel outside of the UK in 1973 and 1984 and re-enter the country. It also highlighted he had expressed his desire to travel abroad again when he applied for citizenship in 1987. On the basis of this evidence, it concluded Mr A was able to travel and there is no indication he felt he was unable to travel abroad.

49. Mr B would have had ILR status following the Immigration Act 1971, which gave members of Commonwealth countries, including Barbados, ILR status from 1 January 1973. WCS acknowledged Mr B would not have received his ILR stamp immediately, but it was likely he would have received this after returning from one of his trips in 1973 or 1984. It explained the procedure at that time was to allow re-entry after confirming immigration status and endorse the passport with a stamp confirming there was no time limit, and no restrictions attached to permission to remain in the UK. This process would have been in line with the Immigration Act.

50. Mr A has provided copies of Mr B’s passport that he used to travel in 1984 and 1987 (following his successful citizenship application). He questions whether the passport was stamped correctly, and whether Mr B did have freedom to travel. We can see that his passport was stamped on his departure and return in the UK, and there is no evidence he was refused entry which suggests his legal status was recorded on the Home Office’s system.

51. If we compare this process with the story Mr A shared about Mr B’s experience at the airport, it is possible the airport staff were verifying Mr B’s immigration status. We do not know for sure, but in any case, he was allowed to re-enter the country and planned to travel abroad again in 1987, the same year he applied for citizenship. We do not have enough evidence to comment on what the nature of the questioning was when Mr B returned to the UK in 1984, and whether airport staff were following the process at that time. We do not intend to dismiss Mr A’s account, but we consider the Home Office’s decision is reasonable and has taken into account all the available evidence to make a balance of probabilities decision.

52. Mr A acknowledges there is little evidence, other than what he witnessed.

53. The decision complied with our ‘Principles of good administration’, under our principle for ‘Getting it right’. Under this principle, we expect public bodies, like WCS, to effectively balance the evidence by taking into account the relevant legislation and considerations, while ignoring irrelevant considerations.

54. WCS have not discounted Mr B’s experience with his mental health, but these impacts are difficult to link. It is not our, or WCS’, intention to dismiss what Mr A has told us, but it is important to understand that WCS must be led by the evidence on the balance of probabilities. Their decision was that there was insufficient evidence that Mr B had issues proving his legal status which in turn made him fearful of traveling abroad, and it appears this decision was reasonable.

55. Overall, there are no indications that WCS’s position and decision was unreasonable.

1. We are sorry to learn about the difficult experiences Mr A and his family went through, which is reflective of the struggles of the Windrush generation.

2. The Home Office established the Windrush Compensation Scheme (WCS) in April 2019. It is designed to compensate individuals who have suffered loss in connection with being unable to demonstrate their lawful status in the United Kingdom.

3. Having looked at Mr A’s case, we have decided not to consider it further. While he has demonstrated that both his father and mother had very difficult and traumatic experiences following their migration to the UK, we have not seen that there are failings in the way WCS considered his Deceased Estates Claim for his father, Mr B.

4. The WCS Deceased Estates Claim is for people representing the estate of someone who has died who would have met the conditions for the WCS and whose life was affected because they could not prove their lawful status in the UK.

5. Mr A has highlighted the discrimination that impacted the lives of himself and his family, as well as other people from the commonwealth community. WCS’ decision is not intended to take away from this, but the scheme’s purpose is to remedy impacts relating a specific type of injustice stemming from issues demonstrating legal status (right to live in the UK) and Mr A had not demonstrated how his father’s experience fit its criteria.

6. We appreciate why this complaint is important to Mr A and we will explain our decision in more detail below. We hope our explanation provides him with reassurance about how carefully we have considered his complaint before reaching our decision.