Brendan Clarke-Smith
Main Page: Brendan Clarke-Smith (Conservative - Bassetlaw)Department Debates - View all Brendan Clarke-Smith's debates with the Home Office
(3 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Priti Patel
As I have said, I will return to the House to outline how we will be implementing the recommendations from the lessons learned review.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
The UK has always welcomed those from other nations, and we can rightly be proud of our open and inclusive society. [Interruption.] We can also be thankful for the contribution of those who have chosen to make the UK their home and who add greatly to our society. I speak as somebody who is married to one such person who emigrated here to work for our fantastic NHS. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that improving the uptake and awareness of the schemes supporting those who were directly affected is a priority for her Department? Will she outline the steps she is taking to achieve that?
Priti Patel
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and his questions, and he is right. I am really sorry that Members on the SNP Front Bench want to belittle my colleagues when they are speaking on these very important and sensitive issues.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right when it comes to the compensation scheme, which is complex. The Home Office is spending resources and time looking at how cases can be delivered and dealt with in a respectful way to ensure that individuals’ situations are fully assessed and that there is an accurate assessment of how they themselves experienced the injustices that took place through the Windrush scandal. It is right that we treat everybody with respect and dignity in the handling of their case. That is my objective, and he will have heard today that the money that has already been offered has now reached £1 million. Significant sums of money are being offered to individuals.
It is right that we take the time to provide the compensation in the right way. We have a good scheme in place. We have a scheme that was developed by Martin Forde, QC, in consultation with other stakeholders, and many of those stakeholders suffered the injustices of the Windrush scandal themselves.