Freedom of Information data obtained by Labour MP Kate Osamor has revealed that only 1 per cent of payout reviews under the Windrush compensation appeals process have been successful. Out of 3,479 claimant appeals in 2021, only 42 resulted in a settlement. The MP has said Windrush claimants are being told to “take it or leave it” when they receive offers. “The Home Office perpetrated the Windrush Scandal. Now they are deciding how much compensation should be awarded to their victims. The result is unsurprising – consistent and poor-quality decision making resulting in insultingly small offers of compensation.”

Read more and some individual claimant's stories here.
​Read here about the Home Office's refusal to speed up the case of a woman with terminal cancer.

Rev Guy Hewitt will take up this post in November and lead the Church’s Racial Justice Unit. It follows a recommendation from the unit in its April 2021 report 'From Lament to Action'. The announcement follows the resignation of the Archbishops' Adviser for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns, Dr Sanjee Perera who hinted a potential tension over her role's continued place alongside the Archbishops' Racial Justice Commission.

Ordained in 2005 Rev Hewitt has a background in social policy and development, working internationally on issues of marginalisation, economic enfranchisement, racial justice, youth empowerment, and gender equality. He is a staunch critic of the UK government over its handling of the Windrush scandal, saying in 2018: “The UK is still not at ease with race. Colonial history is still not taught here. The modern global Britain, with a multicultural society, is still an aspiration rather than a reality.”

Chair of MJR Rev Alton Bell commented: "Although MJR welcomes the appointment of the CofE's first racial justice director, we hope this is not just another PR exercise analogous to the shuffling of the deckchairs on the Titanic. We want to see concrete evidence of change. We want the CofE to take the lead in reparatory justice practices, such as: changing the way slavery is taught in schools, advocating for a national memorial to those who were enslaved, and returning stolen artifacts. We wholeheartedly welcome the new racial justice director if this new position is a catalyst for systemic change".

​Read more here.

The Queen has praised the Windrush "pioneers" for their "profound contribution" to British life as a statue to them was unveiled on Windrush Day at Waterloo Station. The Government funded £1 statue, designed by Basil Watson, depicts a man, woman and child standing on top of suitcases and pays tribute to the thousands of people who arrived in the UK from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1971.

However, there has been negative reaction to the statue. Activist Prof Gus John, in an open letter to Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, declining an invitation to the unveiling described it as "a monument to unforgivable political illiteracy and an entrenched colonial mindset. The entire Windrush narrative distorts the history of Caribbean engagement with Britain and of Britain's relentless efforts to keep us out".

Windrush survivor and campaigner Glenda Caesar said: “I knew nothing about the unveiling and wasn’t asked to attend. I can understand that it represents the people who came in via that station in 1948 but this does nothing to help the people, like myself, who suffered under this scandal and are labelled as the Windrush generation."

Jacqueline McKenzie, partner and head of immigration at Leigh Day, a firm representing more than 300 people affected by the Windrush scandal, decided not to participate in the Waterloo statue unveiling “whilst justice is being denied to thousands of victims.”

Read more here and here.

A Home Office commissioned paper that officials have repeatedly tried to suppress since it came out in 2021 concludes that the origins of the Windrush scandal lay in 30 years of racist immigration legislation designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population. The 52-page paper, which has been leaked to The Guardian states that “during the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK”. 

​The report, named 'The Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal', was commissioned by the Home Office as part of a commitment to educating civil servants about the causes of the Windrush scandal, which saw thousands of people wrongly classified as illegal immigrants by the department. Stating that “the British Empire depended on racist ideology in order to function” the report asserts that in the 1950s, British officials shared a “basic assumption that ‘coloured immigrants’, as they were referred to, were not good for British society.”

While circulated internally, a year on the report remains unpublished and a Freedom of Information request by The Guardian was turned down by the Home Office; a refusal described as "shameful" by Simon Woolley, the former CEO of Operation Black Vote and chair of the No 10 race disparity unit. “The government is hellbent in its denial of the systemic nature of racial inequality and in this climate historical facts have become uncomfortable truths that need to be hidden.” Read the full Guardian article here.

​Image by Steve Eason.

In our previous post we reported a main BBC news item on the Government Windrush Compensation Scheme, where a group of MPs were asking for it to be removed from the Home Office due to the low rate of payouts made so far. We have since been contacted by a member of the Windrush Cross Government Working Group who told us the data used by the MPs was "dated" and therefore now inaccurate.

The latest situation includes:

• 42% of those who have applied for compensation have received a final offer, while 29% of compensation claims have received a payment. 
• The 5% figure some news outlets have used is based on the number of payments made against old estimates on the number of people eligible for compensation (which estimated there were around 15,000 people eligible), which we have since revised (to 4,000-6,000) following analysis and insight from extensive outreach and engagement with people affected. 
• Since the changes the group made to the Scheme last December, the amount of compensation paid has risen from less than £3 million to over £31.6 million, with a further £5.6 million having been offered. 
• There is no cap on the amount of compensation that can be paid out and the group will ensure that members of the Windrush generation receive every penny of compensation that they are entitled to
• Over 13,800 people have been issued with documentation confirming their status or British citizenship.

  He went on to say: "The Working Group is a critical friend of the Home Office and Government and my main interest is accuracy of information to counter any attempts to either talk up or talk down the actual state of play. Whatever people make of the statistics the government put out – and part of my group’s work is to provide robust challenge internally – the latest information on the Compensation Scheme is available here". 

The main story on BBC News today was the continuing delay on compensation payments to victims of the Windrush scandal. The scandal saw thousands of UK residents - most of whom were originally from the Caribbean from back in the 40's, 50's and 60's, wrongly classed as illegal immigrants. The compensation scheme was started in 2019, but delays have meant that by September 2021, only one in five of an estimated 15,000 eligible claimants had applied to the scheme and only a quarter of these had received compensation. 23 have died before receiving compensation. Now a cross-party group of MPs have asked that the scheme be taken from the Home Office and recommended an "independent organisation" should be handed responsibility for running the scheme, to "increase trust and encourage more applicants". Read the full story and listen to interviews here.

Founding trustee of MJR Clifford Hill has written an article for Black History Month in Prophecy Today on his early ministry in London amongst the original Windrush generation, going back to 1952, just 4 years after the ship arrived.  Unlike many British churches, Clifford and Monica offered a welcome and support, so much so that "my church house became known locally as the ‘Jamaican Labour Exchange’ as so many came for help and friendly advice." This was a "massive indictment of British churches that were unable, or unwilling, to offer simple love and hospitality to the newcomers who all came from Christian backgrounds and were desperately in need of friendship and help." In a fascinating insight into the early years in the UK of these migrants, Clifford writes about his experiences and the growth of the all-black churches, showing that they did not lose their Christian faith. Download and read the full article here (with kind permission of Prophecy Today.)

We have been keeping a watch on the progress of the Windrush Compensation Scheme, and there is little sign of any progress on the part of the Home Office.

On May 1 this article reported that new figures showed 500 Windrush victims have been waiting more than a year for their compensation claims to be processed. Over 200 applicants have been waiting more than 18 months and five people more than two years. The scheme was set up in April 2019 but the latest official data shows that 409 – one in five – Windrush victims who have applied for compensation have so far received payments. Less than £6.2m has been paid out of the £200m promised to victims. Campaigners warn: “At this pace of resolution, a significant proportion of applicants will not live to see their claims awarded. There is an increasing sense in the community that the Home Office is counting on this to avoid paying out”. Read more here.

Now the monthly 'engagement meetings' are being criticised as a "waste of time" since going online. Campaigner Ngozi Chinegwundoh said: “There are new speakers we’re not familiar with, you can’t speak at the end, they don’t have the usual question and answer session where people can raise their hand and ask a question.” Attendees can submit questions during the sessions, but only some will receive answers at the end, leading to questioning whether the Home Office is deliberately screening queries to avoid proper scrutiny. Read more here.

Beyond the Hostile Environment is a new report by think-tank IPPR. It is the full report after the interim, Access denied. Over the past decade, the government has rolled out a series of measures with the specific aim of creating a ‘hostile environment’ for people who are currently residing in the UK without immigration status. These measures prevent people without the correct status from accessing employment, housing, public funds, free healthcare, and financial services, and are designed to encourage them to leave the UK of their own accord. In this final report, IPPR assesses six different policy options for addressing the adverse impacts of the hostile environment on individuals and communities and for reforming the current system of immigration enforcement.

Read more and download the report here.

In an interview, former Home Office immigration minister Caroline Nokes has called the her former department's approach to immigration “inhuman”, “profoundly depressing” and at times “hideously wrong", warning it will only cause further problems that will end up costing the taxpayer more money. Nokes accused ministers of “paying lip service” to Wendy Williams’ Lessons Learned report on the Windrush scandal – which broke while she was in office – and said they were failing to put people at the heart of Home Office policy, as was recommended in the review. Commitments to change the Home Office following the Windrush scandal had been “torn up, disregarded and rendered clearly completely irrelevant” when making decisions about asylum seekers. Read the full interview.