Supporters of Windrush victims fear the Home Office is “planning for people to pass away so they pay less money” out of the compensation scheme.
Campaigners are calling on the PM to meet with victims after a Human Rights Watch report this week found the compensation scheme was “designed to fail those who were supposed to benefit”.
The scheme was set up after it emerged in 2017 that Black British citizens from the Caribbean, who had been invited to the UK to help rebuild the country after the Second World War, were wrongly deported or detained.
Former Royal Air Force serviceman of 30 years, Sidney McFarlane, 88, who came from Jamaica as part of the Windrush generation, condemned the findings of the HRW report as “appalling”.
The MBE award recipient said: “Had I not been in the military, I’d have been a victim of Windrush, it’s appalling.
“It’s as though they’re deliberately planning for people to pass away so they pay less money.
“If you think of people who suffered a lot of pain and heartache and those who lost their jobs and lost compensation, all they’ve been through is enormous and it would help if the Prime Minister became personally involved.”
Rules brought by Theresa May while she was Home Secretary required people to prove their UK citizenship or right of residency.
Many had arrived as children on their parents’ passports and did not have the paperwork needed to work, access services or remain in the UK under the “hostile environment” created in 2012.
The report came on the fifth anniversary of the day ex-Prime Minister Theresa May apologised. Five years later, only 12.8% of the estimated 11,500 eligible claimants have been compensated, according to the Human Rights Watch.
Jacqueline McKenzie, who represents victims and is a partner at the law firm Leigh Day, called for PM Rishi Sunak to speak out on the matter which left many without benefit entitlements.
She said: “What I’m hoping is that the Government will therefore take the report seriously. At the moment [the UK] is still a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it’s still a member of the European Convention of Human Rights.
“So why is a group of its population suffering so much as a result of a major human rights breach? We had a Prime Minister five years ago make a statement. Well, this Prime Minister should make a statement.”
A spokesman for the Home Office said: “We remain absolutely committed to righting the wrongs of Windrush and have paid or offered more than £68 million in compensation to the people affected.
The Mirror has approached Number 10 Downing Street for comment on whether the PM will meet with Windrush scandal victims.
