Diane Abbott calls on Sajid Javid to ‘come clean’ on scale of Windrush crisis ahead of anniversary
2 min read
Diane Abbott has written to Sajid Javid urging him to lay bare the full scale of deportations and detentions connected to the Windrush crisis.
The Shadow Home Secretary called on her counterpart to live up to his pledge for a “review of lessons learned” at the start of May and detail the figures, including those who left “voluntarily” following threats of deportation and those refused entry when returning from abroad.
Changes to migration rules mean that some members of the so-called Windrush generation - who came to the UK from the Caribbean before 1971 as part of a post-war rebuilding effort - had been threatened with deportation by the Home Office and lost access to public services.
Ms Abbott also called for figures on cases being dealt with or which had been resolved by the Commonwealth Taskforce regarding citizenship - which the UK had promised those affected at the height of the scandal.
And she demanded a rundown of the number who had lost their jobs, been made homeless and been barred from accessing welfare benefits, the National Health Service and other public services.
The push comes as Theresa May unveiled plans to set aside £500,000 to mark an annual ‘Windrush Day’ on 22 June, as it approaches the 70th anniversary of the landing of the vessel in the UK.
The scandal prompted former Home Secretary Amber Rudd to resign and her successor Mr Javid to publicly disown the Government’s much-maligned “hostile environment” policy towards migrants.
Ms Abbott said while she welcomed marking an annual Windrush Day, “warm words… are not enough”.
“Our fellow citizens from the Windrush generation and their families have a right to know how many people have suffered at the hands of the Home Office,” she said.
“While the government celebrates the contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants, we still do not know how many of our fellow citizens have been hounded out of their country, detained in immigration detention centres and left jobless and destitute.
“It is unacceptable and frankly scandalous that the extent of the Windrush crisis is yet to be revealed and that the Home Secretary is still to publish these figures.
“As the Windrush scandal shows, the hostile environment inevitably catches our fellow citizens who are legally entitled to be here in its net.
“The government now needs to stop covering up the true human cost of the hostile environment.”
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