Windrush

Alan Brown Excerpts
Monday 30th April 2018

(6 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Sajid Javid Portrait Sajid Javid
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Yes, I can give my hon. Friend’s constituents an assurance on both those issues. We will absolutely do everything we can, and go much further if we have to, to help in every way with the problems that some members of the Windrush generation are facing. At the same time, we will maintain our policies around illegal migration, because that is exactly what the British public wish to see.

Alan Brown Portrait Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
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The new Home Secretary does not like the phrase, “hostile environment”, but it came from his boss, the Prime Minister. It was she who presided over the immigration targets, she who introduced the “Go Home” vans, and she who allowed the Home Secretary’s predecessor to make a speech at the Tory party conference about targeting companies taking on foreign workers. That is the “hostile environment” that this Government have created. When will the Prime Minister accept personal culpability for Windrush and the net effect of the hostile environment?

Sajid Javid Portrait Sajid Javid
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I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the phrase “hostile environment” actually existed under successive Governments and began under a previous Labour Government. But this is not about which party introduced a phrase; my point was that I do not like the term, “hostile”, and I will not be using it.