Photos: PA
Only five per cent of Windrush victims have been compensated, four years since the scandal emerged, according to a report by cross-party MPs asking to shift responsibility away from the Home Office.
A home affairs select committee report found that out of up to 15,000 people qualifying for compensation, 3,022 applied by October 2021, and only 864 received a payout. In addition, 23 applicants eligible for a payout died before receiving it.
The Home Office identified lack of trust is behind the small number of applicants, with 12 per cent believing the schemes were established to send them back to their countries of origin.
It comes after, in 2017, it emerged that the government wrongly classified thousands of legal UK residents who arrived from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1971 as “illegal”.
Meanwhile, the new report is the fourth major investigation into Windrush compensation delays, and found long processing times and an excessive amount of paperwork required from claimants. It also criticised the “bureaucratic insensitivities” and the lack of “culture change” of the Home Office since the scandal emerged.
Most applicants are currently waiting over a year before being fully compensated, with 214 claimants having been waiting for the final payment for over 18 months.
A Home Office spokesperson said taking the compensation scheme out of the department’s hands would potentially delay “vital payments to those affected”.
“The home secretary and the department remain steadfast in our commitment to ensure that members of the Windrush generation receive every penny of compensation that they are entitled to.
“The home secretary overhauled the scheme in December to ensure more money is paid more quickly – since then 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 we will pay out,” the spokesperson added.
Earlier this year, MPs warned the Home Office “appeared to be failing” the Windrush generation a second time through its compensation scheme.
They said the remuneration scheme is too complex, too slow to hand out money and understaffed, with only six people at first hired to deal with a predicted 15,000 claims.
Many of the victims were wrongly detained, deported or threatened with deportation, despite having the right to live in Britain, lost homes and jobs and were denied access to healthcare and benefits.
The Public Accounts Committee, after reviewing the Home Office’s progress, said in July: “The Home Office promised to learn lessons from the Windrush scandal, but having failed the Windrush generation once, it appears to be failing them again.”
Committee chairwoman and Labour MP Dame Meg Hillier reminded people at the time that because of the scandal, “lifetimes in this country were discounted, people’s homes, families and livelihoods were interrupted and uprooted, some were forced from the country.”
Related: Windrush victim denied NHS care forced to ‘pull his own teeth out’
