Victims of the Windrush scandal have expressed frustration at the slow progress of the compensation scheme at the first national conference of a coalition of grassroots organisations fighting for justice for those affected.
The newly appointed Home Office minister Simon Murray stressed that improvements have been made to the compensation scheme for the Windrush scandal, which saw thousands of British people wrongly classified as illegal immigrants. However, he acknowledged that there was more work to be done to ensure swift payments were made to people affected by it.
Lord Murray, who was appointed by the former prime minister Liz Truss three weeks ago and given responsibility for the Windrush compensation scheme as part of his portfolio, said he embraced “the determination of the department to put right and terrible injustices faced by members of the Windrush generation and the wider Commonwealth”.
Errol Taffe, 66, who came to the UK legally from Jamaica aged three, told the conference he was still waiting to be granted a British passport, about 14 years after being mistakenly told he was not eligible for one.
“I am frustrated by how slow it has been,” he said, adding that he had originally travelled to the UK on a British passport in 1959. “I’m being very patient, but it’s hard to understand why it has taken so long.” Home Office staff promised to help him after hearing his account.
Lord Murray described some recent improvements to the scheme, including increasing the amount of compensation available for those who were made homeless or became destitute when they were miscategorised as immigration offenders. He announced the appointment of an “ethics adviser to champion ethical behaviour” within the Home Office, and also the appointment of an “independent examiner of complaints, to allow customers to have their complaints independently assessed”.
He said he was concerned by the number of people affected who had died before receiving compensation; at least 23 people are known to have died while their claims were being processed. “Careful thought is being given by the Windrush team as to steps they can take to speed up the process. It’s something we’ve got to work on,” he said.
Some of those affected by the scandal expressed concern that Lord Murray, a former barrister, had acted for the Home Office on at least one legal challenge to the Windrush compensation scheme before his appointment to the government.
Anthony Brown, co-founder of Windrush Defenders, an organisation set up to help victims of the Home Office’s mistakes, said he was weary of the repeated commitments to speed up the pace of compensation.
The minister said he had not yet had an opportunity to speak to the new home secretary, Suella Braverman, about the government’s response to the scandal; Braverman has not yet made any public comment on the issue.
Nigel Hills, the Home Office official appointed as director of the Windrush compensation scheme, in February 2022 acknowledged that the scheme had struggled with staffing resources. He said 124 caseworkers were working on the scheme, and he hoped to increase that to 150.
He said progress was being made with the speed of payments, highlighting that £48.64m had been paid to 1,213 people. The number of people that the Home Office expects to claim compensation has been revised down from a preliminary estimate of 15,000 to between 4,000 and 6,000, although the decision to reduce the estimate remains controversial. “It’s important we have these uncomfortable conversations. If people don’t engage with us, how can we pay compensation?” he said.
Bishop Desmond Jaddoo, a co-founder of the Windrush National Organisation, hosting the conference in Birmingham, said he had been heartened at the Home Office’s willingness to listen. “We want to encourage more people to come forward to apply for compensation.”
