Windrush Day 2025

Debate between Lisa Smart and Clive Jones

Monday 16th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

There have been some incredibly powerful speeches this evening, and I feel really lucky to be participating in the debate. There is a lot to celebrate, but there is an awful lot to be really angry about as well.

We owe an enormous amount to the Caribbean and broader black-British community for their contributions to our society, not least the Windrush generation’s key role in building the NHS, and in my own region, the black-Caribbean community’s role in profoundly shaping Greater Manchester’s cultural landscape and social fabric. In 1966, Louise Da-Cocodia became Manchester’s first senior nursing officer, having come from Jamaica in 1955. Confronted with relentless racism in her role, she channelled her experiences into activism, becoming a key anti-racist campaigner, and her legacy continues through the organisations she helped to establish.

In 1980, Kath Locke, a pioneering mixed-race community activist, founded the Abasindi Co-operative, a black, women-led community organisation based in the Moss Side people’s centre. It offered essential services, including a drop-in centre for the elderly, a community health hub and a Saturday school to tackle educational underachievement and high youth unemployment.

In 1991, the NIA centre, now the Playhouse theatre in Hulme, opened as the first large-scale arts venue in Europe dedicated to African and Caribbean culture. Its inaugural event featured none other than the legendary Nina Simone. Today, the Chuck gallery in central Manchester continues that legacy by showcasing and celebrating Afro-Caribbean and African art. It works to foster greater understanding and appreciation of Caribbean artistic perspectives.

Here in the UK, far too many people’s lives are still blighted by prejudice, discrimination and inequality. Racism is still far too prevalent in our society. We all have a responsibility to recognise that reality, but also to recognise the role that we can play in challenging that injustice. I am proud that the Lib Dems are committed to fighting for racial equality, and that means unequivocally condemning racism in all its forms and tackling injustice wherever we see it.

In her opening, very powerful remarks, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) rightly laid out that the previous Government failed to deliver the justice that Windrush victims so deeply deserve. The Government dithered and delayed on implementing the recommendations of Wendy Williams’ lessons-learned review. Liberal Democrats will keep pushing the Government.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

The Windrush generation made a huge contribution to the life and the economy of the UK, but I want to pay tribute to the Hong Kong community in my constituency of Wokingham and across the United Kingdom, who I am sure will make the same contribution to the UK. I am deeply concerned that the Government are piling uncertainty and worry on British Hongkongers through their reforms to indefinite leave to remain. These people, who are living here in Britain, already fear retribution from China. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should have their back and maintain the five-year pathway for British national overseas status holders?

[Lisa Smart]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the huge contribution of Hongkongers in his constituency. I have asked the Minister before about some of the changes the Government propose to the time period for indefinite leave to remain. The Minister has answered that a consultation is under way, and I am sure that she will talk about that in her closing remarks. I feel that we need to value the contribution made by those who are new arrivals in our country, and I agree with my hon. Friend’s comments.

The Liberal Democrats will keep pushing the Government to right the wrongs forced on to the Windrush generation, including by urgently implementing the lessons-learned review in full and making the compensation scheme independent of the Home Office. Like the hon. Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), I hope very much that the Minister is in a position to update the House on the progress being made on righting those wrongs and delivering justice.

The Lib Dems have long pushed for the implementation of a comprehensive race equality strategy, which would include provisions aimed at reducing the disproportionately high and utterly shameful maternal mortality rates for black women and for eliminating racial disparities in maternal health, as other right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned this evening.

Children and Young People with Cancer

Debate between Lisa Smart and Clive Jones

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Clive Jones]

The hon. Member is absolutely right: we could save the NHS a lot of money, because a lot of appointments will be cancelled because people are getting used to the fact that their child has cancer, and that they have to make alternative arrangements in order to take them to the hospital where they will be treated. If they were able to get a payment straightaway, that would save the NHS money in the long term. The money that it might cost to make those payments could be recouped further down the line, so the hon. Member is absolutely right.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing today’s debate. He mentioned the impact of investing early and of people being able to qualify for payments from day one. Does he agree with me and with Teach Cancer a Lesson, a charity set up by one of my Hazel Grove constituents in Mellor, about the impact of ensuring that education continues when children have a cancer diagnosis? Teach Cancer a Lesson talks about making sure that local authorities have a responsibility to review the education provision for a child on day one, or within 28 days of a cancer diagnosis. Does my hon. Friend agree that the same principle applies—that it costs far less in the long term, in educational terms, if that review is done early, rather than waiting and waiting and allowing a child’s education to suffer?

[Clive Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If a child can try to have a normal life, which includes still going to school, seeing their friends and being educated, that will help them and their family to cope with their treatment. Schools and local authorities should work hard to ensure a normal life for that child very quickly.

One family supported by Young Lives vs Cancer received their first DLA payment only in January, after their child was diagnosed in July. In another case, a delay of four months from the start of a DLA application meant that a young cancer patient’s mother was left with no financial support, because her statutory sick pay ended before the DLA started. How the Government expect people to manage with those extra costs is beyond me.

This is the very worst form of bureaucratic inflexibility, and it leads to some people not applying for benefits because they see a system stacked against them, quite apart from the burden of applying during the most disruptive time of their lives. People are not going to prioritise form filling when they or their child needs radiotherapy. The process takes so long that sometimes children and young people have either finished their treatment or, most concerningly, passed away before the benefits have been awarded. A child being treated in Leicester sadly died before a DLA decision was made, leaving their family to go through the challenging conversation of wanting the claim form still to be reviewed because the family were owed a back payment. That is unacceptable.

The Minister responded to a parliamentary question by arguing that those nearing the end of life can apply for special rules. However, this simply does not work very well, because situations can change quickly and some who are not terminally ill can rapidly deteriorate. Some may still receive potentially curative treatment even if the risk of death is high, or some may wish not to know their prognosis. The Minister needs to urgently assess the benefits of changing to a medical evidence-based eligibility for these patients.

There is a precedent for medical evidence being used to expedite access to benefits. The existing special rules process for those with terminal illness definitions means that they do not need to meet the three-month qualifying period with medical evidence. That principle should be applied to all children and young people with cancer, to facilitate immediate access to benefits.