Compensation for victims of the Windrush scandal, which saw UK residents wrongly classed as illegal immigrants, is set to cost the government £200 million.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid promised on Wednesday there would be no limitations placed on the scheme to offer recompense to those whose lives were impacted by the government’s error.
In a statement to MPs, Javid said the “unacceptable treatment” experienced by members of the Windrush generation – many of whom lost their rights to secure benefits, work and housing – was a “terrible mistake and it should never have happened”.
Announcing details of the compensation scheme, he acknowledged it had “taken longer than I would have liked”, but added it was “vital that we get this right”.
Amber Rudd resigned as home secretary as a direct result of the error uncovered last year, which saw British citizens who came to the UK from the Caribbean after the Second World War from the Caribbean at the invitation of the British government threatened with deportation if they had not formalised their residency status and did not have required documentation to prove it.
The total number of people affected by the scandal is unknown, but more than 5,000 people have been granted documentation by the Windrush taskforce in the past year, confirming that they have a legal right to live in the UK. According to the Guardian, which broke the story, 3,674 people have been officially granted British citizenship as a result.
But as the long-awaited scheme for recompense was announced, there was criticism from some victims and campaigners, who said the government had been “secretive” in its plans to launch the scheme, and that it had excluded some victims from attending a meeting to discuss it.
Vernon Vanriel was one of dozens wrongly stripped of their rights by the Home Office. The 63-year-old was flown by the UK government from Jamaica back to England last September, marking the end of a 13-year battle to return to the country he’d lived and worked in for decades earlier.
He claimed he was not officially made unaware of the compensation scheme. “The government has not once been in touch with me. Would you believe it? The lack of communications that I had is sickening really. It makes me feel abandoned, unwanted, unloved and uncared for,” he told HuffPost UK.
“I don’t know how the compensation scheme is going to work. I’ve got no address of where the meeting is taking place, what time... I wasn’t invited. I am in the dark, really.
“The Home Office have not even said sorry for the inconvenience they’ve caused me. It’s pathetic. Everything that has happened to me, the 13 years that I spent trapped in Jamaica has slaughtered me. It has done my brain in, it really has.”
Windrush lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented several families in their fight for justice, said: “It has been launched some 12 months after the scandal hit the news – that’s a very long time for people who have been suffering and destitute to have waited and this must surely act as aggravating feature of any claims.”
She added: “I don’t think £200m is anywhere near enough. Just this morning, the Ministry of Defence was criticised over the £500m cost of storing obsolete submarines.
“We’ll have to see how the scheme works, but our evidence from the failure of the hardship fund [set up to help victims left out-of-pocket] has me extremely worried and I have seen, first hand, in the past few days, the incompetence of Home Office staff.
“The lack of respect for those affected by the scandal which has me even more concerned than I had been a few weeks ago.”
Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said the scheme had “fallen woefully short of its expectation and of what is fair”.
“British Citizens have been wrongly deported, prevented from returning home and have lost their jobs at the hands this government,” the Labour MP added.
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.