Windrush: 70th Anniversary — House of Commons, 2018-06-14
Topic: Immigration
Diane Julie Abbott (Labour, Centre-left): That is an excellent point, and many of the Windrush generation people I have met or tried to help have been completely frustrated by the fact that they had a whole ream of paper showing that they had been paying tax for all these years, but still the Home Office rejected their claim that they had been legally here I am afraid to say that this is a product of a system put in place by this Government, and if anyone doubts that, they have to answer this question: who was it who said we would deport first and ask questions later? Was that not announcing in advance that people who were entitled to be here may well be deported and treated as if they were here illegally, and then they could appeal? Anyone who has ever dealt with Home Office appeals procedures must know what that means: the chances of the removal decision being overturned are vanishingly small. Of course, it was the Prime Minister who said we would deport first and have appeals later. Why she was speaking in that mode I cannot say, but some say it was all about chasing UK Independence party votes In any event, the Windrush scandal was the consequence. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central has, I think, written to the Prime Minister asking whether she was warned. She was warned: I warned her here in this Chamber when we debated the Immigration Act 2014 that the consequence of an Act designed to catch illegal immigrants in its net would be that people who just looked like immigrants would be caught up, and that is what we are seeing with the Windrush scandal Looking ahead, the new Home Secretary clearly does not want to go the way of his predecessor, and he clearly wants to put the scandal behind him, but it is a product of policy, not accidents, and that policy will continue to generate scandals for the waves of migrants who came after 1948, all the way up to 1973, and it will draw in broader and broader categories of people from the Commonwealth. This policy will continue to do that until it goes The Windrush generation came here to see the mother country. Some came to rejoin the RAF. Others just wanted new and more prosperous lives for themselves and their families, and they were what are now sometimes called economic migrants. In coming here, they enriched this country in so many ways: culturally, socially and economically. In our own cafeteria here, one of the most popular dishes, week in and week out, is jerk chicken with rice and peas. I could never have imagined that I would live to see that In general, a more diverse society is a more interesting one, a more challenging one and a more prosperous one. There is, however, an unfortunate aspect to this history, as some of my hon. Friends have mentioned. Despite being invited here—my own mother was recruited in the Caribbean—the Windrush generation did not always receive a warm welcome. There is an unfortunate history in this country of sometimes defaulting to seeing categories of good immigrants and bad immigrants. For a long time, anyone from the Caribbean tended to be treated as a bad immigrant, with all the stereotypes that were ascribed to black Britons. I have lived long enough to see things move on, however, and we now sometimes hear people who are happy to say the most vile things about Muslims and eastern Europeans exempting black people from their vitriol. History takes some surprising turns The Windrush generation—including people from the Caribbean as well as people from Poland by way of Mexico, and all the people from other countries who got off that ship in 1948—came here for a better life for themselves and their families, and they all made a contribution to our society and our prosperity. We were literally better off because of them, and that is what their modern-day counterparts are also doing Before moving to a close, I want to mention someone who has not received enough public tributes. Patrick Vernon is a social historian and grassroots campaigner, and he has led the campaign for a Windrush Day. I also want to add to what my hon. Friends have said about the importance of establishing a hardship fund. I have met members of the Windrush generation who have had to live off the charity of friends and family and who have run up debts because of all the uncertainty about their immigration situation. We really need a hardship fund to be put in place now. Those people cannot wait for the conclusion of the consultation on compensation. We also need to look at the workings of the Windrush taskforce, to see whether it is meeting the targets that it set itself to resolve cases. Some of the cases that I and my hon. Friends are dealing with seem to suggest that that it is not. Again, I join other hon. Friends in calling for an official Windrush Day Everyone in this House thinks fondly of their parents, but I can speak with confidence on behalf of myself, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham when I say that if it were not for the courage, the hard work and the vision of our parents, none of us would be in this Chamber this afternoon as Members of Parliament. The Windrush generation has had a number of important effects, but none has been more important than forcing people to look at migrants as people—people with families, people with histories and people just like other people. If we could only extend the humanisation of the debate on migration from the Windrush generation to migrants of all generations and all times, we would achieve what I am committed to seeing—namely, a very different type of conversation on migration. We could achieve a change in the debate on migration. It should not have to take 60 years for people to recognise the contribution of a group of migrants to this country. I stand here bearing witness, and hoping for a better future when we come to discuss issues around migration.