A draft investigation into the causes of the Windrush scandal has allegedly found the Home Office failed in its duty to prevent racially discriminatory policies
A leaked copy of a draft report by Wendy Williams, an inspector of constabulary, and obtained by Channel 4 News in the UK highlights a reluctance of Home Office officials to acknowledge and learn from their mistakes. Instead Williams found the department was rife with a culture of self-justification, shifting of responsibility and blame and one that was unwilling to learn from past mistakes.
Williams had been commissioned to undertake the “Windrush lessons learned” review by the home secretary, Sajid Javid, last summer and focused her findings on the impact of immigration laws during the period when Theresa May held that position.
May had introduced a series of so-called hostile environment policies, through which she sought to make life difficult for persons who had illegally entered the UK in a bid to cut the numbers of migrants coming to and remaining in the country. As a result, thousands of people who had been living legally in the UK for decades were wrongly classified as illegal immigrants. Many lost their jobs, were made homeless or denied healthcare and some were detained and deported to countries they had left as children.
Draft extracts of Williams’ review suggest May’s policies were flawed on a number of counts, not least because they failed to adequately consider the past, their impact on people or to mitigate equalities issues including the potential for discrimination, particularly in housing. The document reportedly also suggests that the Home Office failed to evaluate the effectiveness of its policies and Williams has proposed that government ministers should admit they were wrong and provide an unqualified apology as an act of contrition.
The report has been called “extremely damning” by members of the Labour Party, who noted that the policies which created the framework for the hostile environment to operate were deliberately discriminatory and racist towards people who had been invited to migrate to the UK and were British citizens.
