Windrush Scheme — House of Commons, 2019-02-05
Topic: Civil Rights
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): First, let me thank the right hon. Gentleman. At least he has raised this important issue of Windrush—it is good at any time to update the House on this, in many different ways—but I have to take issue with his tone. He does himself no good service—a huge disservice—in the way that he speaks and the tone that he has used to suggest that there is even an ounce of racism in this House, and to ignore the facts. He chooses to ignore—[Interruption.] He could have made this into an honourable debate by looking at the actual issues and thinking about how we can help people who have been affected. The right hon. Gentleman chooses to ignore that, for members of the Windrush generation who have been affected in a wrong way—as I have recognised and as many Ministers have recognised at the Dispatch Box—this began under previous Governments and continued under successive Governments, including the Government that he was part of, when he voted time and time again for compliant environment restrictions. He supported those restrictions on a number of occasions and now he chooses to speak out about some of the inadvertent effects of that The right hon. Gentleman also rightly brought up the issue that—as I have said before, including in the House—sadly, some people who were wronged are deceased, but he should know that a number of those people died under a Labour Government. The deportations took place under a Labour Government and he makes no apology for that. The right hon. Gentleman mentions the deportations of foreign national offenders. I think the information that he referred to, if I have understood him correctly, is about a charter flight to Jamaica of foreign national offenders only—every single one of them convicted of a serious crime. The UK Borders Act 2007, which he supported, requires that the Home Secretary issues a deportation order for anyone who is a foreign national offender. It does not matter which part of the world they are from, whether it is the United States, Jamaica, Australia or Canada. That is a legal requirement. If he does not want that to happen, he is asking me to break the law, and he is also saying that a person who is convicted of a serious offence as a foreign national offender should be allowed to stay in this country, so either he has changed his mind or he does not know what he is talking about Lastly, the right hon. Gentleman brings up the compensation scheme. He is right to raise that because we are absolutely committed to making sure that those who were wronged receive proper compensation. That is why I appointed an independent person, Martin Forde, QC, who has done an enormous amount of good work on this. He asked for an extension of the compensation scheme so that he could speak to even more people who were affected. I brought that to the House and I accepted that extension, and we are now working through what he and his team have done to come forward with a well thought through compensation scheme that is generous and supports members of that generation. In the meantime, we have put in place the vulnerable persons scheme that I referred to earlier, and an exceptional payments scheme, which has started making payments I just say this finally: if the right hon. Gentleman really wants to help, he should reflect on his tone and not use this as some kind of political football.