Responding to the release today (Monday) of the Human Rights Watch report into the Home Office’s management of the Windrush compensation scheme, Black Equity Organisation’s Chief Executive Dr Wanda Wyporska said:
“The report confirms the worst fears of the Windrush victims and survivors, that the institutional prejudice, ignorance, carelessness and inhumanity that drove the scandal, would resurface if the Home Office were allowed to manage the compensation scheme, and sadly, that has proven to be the case.
“The Department has created a process that is so bureaucratic and complicated that some Windrush victims have died before they could successfully complete it. To add insult to unimaginable injury, surviving claimants have been prevented from getting the legal aid they urgently need to help complete the process and begin to rebuild their lives.
“The Home Office must be stripped of the administration of the compensation scheme. We are calling for an independent body focused on the needs of victims to be appointed and Windrush survivors must be able to access legal aid. It is unforgiveable that the horrific damage done to the Windrush generation is being compounded by the gross mismanagement of the scheme created to help them.”
