Windrush — House of Commons, 2018-05-02
Topic: Immigration
Margaret Olivia Hillier (Labour, Centre-left): Tackling that is a huge challenge for the Department, and I agree with my hon. Friend. This was not just an administrative error. Dealing with the administration of immigration with never enough resources has been a challenge for the Home Office for years The hostile environment has bitten hard in my constituency. Discretionary leave to remain was reduced from five years to three years, meaning that people had to apply twice before they could get citizenship, and is now reduced to two years, meaning that people have to apply three times. The fee is £800 a time—it keeps going up; I lose track—before they pay over £1,000 for British citizenship. The costs are bankrupting my constituents who are working hard in this country, paying their taxes and paying their dues. They are being treated like second-class citizens. They are not yet citizens, but they aspire to be and they are doing everything right Turning to the people who are citizens, the Government have in effect declared an amnesty for those people from the Commonwealth who arrived here between 1973 and 1988, and I have another word of advice for the Minister. In declaring an amnesty—officials will be quavering at my use of that word, because they hate it in the Home Office—will she be clear, as other hon. Members have asked, about whether it applies to all members of the Commonwealth? Will it cover my west African constituents who are in exactly the same position? If I only I had the time, I would tell her about some of the horrific cases. One man is homeless, and another is about to lose his home because it belongs to his partner. They are frightened about ringing the Home Office helpline in case it causes them problems Those people are from the Caribbean, but I also have Commonwealth citizens who are in the same position. They are originally from Africa, but they are British, and yet they do not have the paperwork to prove it. The little paper Immigration and Nationality Directorate letters that people come to our surgeries clutching have been enough to get them a job and their entitlements, but their employers have suddenly said, "But you need a biometric residence permit." Why did the Home Office—this happened strictly under this Government when they changed the rules—not write to everybody on the immigration lists and say, "You now need this new document in order to hold your job and keep your rights"? Had it done so, those people who are not yet citizens—those who have not chosen to go down the citizenship route, but have indefinite leave to remain—would have been in a better position The issue goes wider than just the Windrush generation, and let us hope that there is not just a quick fix for them, but a much wider review of the system. Let us not forget that this Government chose to abolish identity cards, which were being rolled out on my watch in the Home Office. They would have made a big difference to many of my constituents who very much wanted to prove that they had the same rights as other citizens I have little time to cover compensation and legal aid, but good-quality legal advice saves time and money for everybody in the long run, and justice is denied if justice cannot be accessed because someone cannot afford it. I am afraid to say that we have a real dearth of good-quality legal advice with legal aid—it is a desert in some areas—and many lawyers are charging high fees for, frankly, poor service. The Minister needs to take that into account, or we will see further such problems along the way.