PRITI Patel has issued an unqualified apology to the Windrush generation for the way the state treated it after a damning report said the Home Office showed “ignorance and thoughtlessness” on the issue of race.
In a Commons statement, the Home Secretary said, on behalf of the current and previous governments, that she was "truly sorry" for the "pain, suffering and misery" inflicted on those who came from the Caribbean to work in Britain in the 20 or so years after 1948.
The review, undertaken by Wendy Williams, an Inspector of Constabulary, on what lessons should be learned from the scandal, said the Home Office operated a “culture of disbelief and carelessness,” which led to British citizens being wrongly deported, fired from their jobs and deprived of public services such as NHS care.
It concluded the failings were “consistent with some elements of the definition of institutional racism”.
Ms Patel told MPs: “As this review makes clear, some members of this generation suffered terrible injustices spurred by institutional failings spanning successive governments over several decades, including ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the race and history of the Windrush generation."
The Secretary of State said there was an "ongoing mission" to put this right, adding: "Lives were ruined and families were torn apart and now an independent review has suggested that the Home Office's institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness to the issue of race and the history of the Windrush generation contributed to this. This is simply unacceptable.
"I have heard of people speak of decision-making as a process, a process that grinds people down to the extent that it makes you want to give up.
"I have heard of people speak of being dismissed, labelled as a group of people who just didn't matter and whose voice on this issue was irrelevant.
"People have spoken to me about the indignity and inhumanity they still feel today by the experience of being made to feel unwelcome in their own country.
"They have described their experiences as unthinkable and unimaginable, however there are people across the UK and even some members of this House - including myself and the Shadow Home Secretary [Diane Abbott] - for whom this is unfortunately all too relatable.
"There are lessons to learn for the Home Office but also society as a whole," declared Ms Patel.
She said Britons must all look to themselves to do better at “walking in other people's shoes”.
The Home Secretary explained how practical measures had been introduced to give those who were affected by the scandal the assistance, certainty and the support they needed.
Stressing how those eligible would receive full compensation, she acknowledged there were still people who had not yet been reached and who needed help and confirmed the launch of an expanded cross-Government Windrush working group to develop programmes to improve the lives of those affected.
Paying tribute to her predecessors, including Theresa May and Amber Rudd, Ms Patel said she wanted to make the Home Office a better place to work, stressing how there would be a clarification of its purpose, mission and values to put fairness, dignity and respect at its heart.
She added a detailed, formal response to the review would be published in the next six months, “representing a new chapter for the Home Office”.
Complaining that the Opposition was not given sight of a copy of the report before the Home Secretary’s statement, Diane Abbott for Labour said the Windrush scandal “wasn't just a mistake” but, rather, was “rooted in the systemic culture of the Home Office and failure of ministers to listen to the warnings they were given about what could be the effects of the hostile environment on people perfectly legally entitled to be here”.
She told Ms Patel: "For the Windrush generation, let me assure the Home Secretary of this; it isn't necessarily the money or the loss or the inconvenience or even the tragedy of being deported, it's the insult to people who always believe they were British, who came here to rebuild this country, but because of the insensitivity and the structural issues in the Home Office were treated in an utterly disgraceful and humiliating way."
The Shadow Home Secretary added: “So, I have heard her apology but people will believe her apology when they see her genuinely seek to implement the recommendations in this review."
Her Labour colleague David Lammy said the publication of the Windrush report could not have come at a "worse time" and that the Home Office needs to be rebuilt "brick by brick".
Mrs May, the former Home Secretary and Prime Minister, associated herself with Ms Patel’s unqualified apology and restated her own, telling the Commons: "This generation came here, they were British, they were here legally, they worked to build our country and they should not have been treated in this way, and I recognise the commitment [Ms Patel] has given to ensuring the Home Office learns the lessons set out in this review."
Labour’s Yvette Cooper, who chairs the Commons Home Affairs Committee, said "British citizens have been deported, been denied NHS treatmennt, lost their jobs, made homeless by the actions of the British Government that acts in all of our names."
She added: "So, all of us should be deeply ashamed of what has happened to the Windrush generation and all of us should be determined that this should never happen again."
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