Stephen has criticised the Windrush Compensation Scheme after it was revealed that only 5% of Windrush victims had received compensation.
The Home Affairs Select Committee today issued a damning report on the Scheme. They called for it to be taken out of Home Office control.
The report found that the compensation scheme, for which up to 15,000 people were expected to qualify, had compounded injustices faced by the Windrush generation, with some applicants saying the process has become a source of further trauma rather than redress. The Committee discovered that twenty-three eligible applicants have died before getting a payment, the committee found.
The new report identified a “litany of flaws in the design and operation” of the compensation scheme including an excessive burden on claimants to provide documentary evidence of the losses they suffered. Claimants faced a "daunting application process", "unreasonable requests for evidence" and were "left in limbo in the midst of inordinate delays", the MPs said.
Following the publication of the report, Stephen, who Chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Immigration Law and Policy said: “In March last year, the Home Office published the Windrush Lessons Learned Review. It highlighted – very starkly – some of the deep problems which were pervasive in the Home Office. In the Foreword, the Home Secretary made some encouraging promises.
“Today’s report by the Home Affairs Select Committee shows that little has changed. Many of the Windrush victims are still being penalised by the systemic culture of failure in the Home Office. They are being asked to provide evidence via an onerous and lengthy application process which is causing great hardship.
“I remain hopeful the government will introduce a similar scheme to compensate victims of the Toeic scandal. However, the apparent indifference by Home Office Ministers to improve the current system is troubling. I hope any scheme that is devised is more flexible and efficient than what the Windrush claimants have had to endure.”