Windrush Day 2020

Steve Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have sat with constituents and filled out the form with them, compiled the documents, gone through that process, submitted the application, and we are still waiting months and months to hear anything from the Home Office.

I welcome the establishment of the new, cross-Government Windrush working group, and particularly the involvement in the working group of the Black Cultural Archives based in my constituency. Black Cultural Archives is a trusted organisation with deep roots in the UK’s black communities, and it has done so much to support the victims of the Windrush scandal. I pay tribute to its work. It is absolutely vital that it is funded to continue to provide that support, yet it is still waiting for applications to open for the £500,000 fund that the Government announced to support grassroots organisations. I hope the Minister might mention a timescale for that fund in his response.

I also welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement today that she has accepted the recommendations of Wendy Williams’ lessons learned review.  However, the Government have been far too slow, not only in relation specifically to the Windrush scandal, but in delivering the much wider reforms that are needed to address structural racism, including implementing the recommendations of the Lammy review on the over-representation of black men in the criminal justice system. I hope that the Minister understands just how low confidence currently is in this Government to tackle racism and structural racial inequality, and that there will not be confidence until sustained and meaningful action is delivered.

This year’s Windrush Day is celebrated against the backdrop of a new and additional scandal: the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. The stories of the Windrush generation and the NHS are intertwined. The Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury just weeks before the founding of the NHS. In my constituency, that connection is embodied in a single street. At one end of Coldharbour Lane was the labour exchange; at the other end is King’s College Hospital, which was and is still substantially sustained by the commitment, skill and care of BAME nurses.

Yesterday, I took part in an event organised by the Runnymede Trust to mark Windrush Day by celebrating the role of BAME workers in the NHS. We heard from academic researchers who had captured the historic experience of migrant women working in the NHS. During the event, the chat bar filled up with devastating first-hand stories of racism and racial discrimination. They included the experience of migrant nurses who were prevented from training as state-registered nurses, meaning that they could only take the inferior career path of the state-enrolled nurse—effectively a structural limitation on promotion and pay—and stories of patients being allowed to wait to be treated by white staff instead of equally qualified BAME staff, reinforcing racist views.

In 2020, it is now BAME NHS workers who are dying from coronavirus in disproportionate numbers. The Government are once again being too slow to protect them: they have announced another review, which will report at the end of the year, rather than taking the immediate protective action that is needed and demanded now. Earlier this month, thousands took to the streets in a heartfelt cry for justice and reform in response to the horrific death of George Floyd in the USA, because his death resonated so powerfully with their own experience here in the UK.

This Windrush Day must be both a celebration of the contribution of the Windrush generation to our communities, culture, economy and public services in the UK, and a moment of deep national reflection. We must reflect on how, more than 70 years since those first Windrush citizens began to work in our NHS, BAME health workers have died in disproportionate numbers as they administered treatment and care during the coronavirus pandemic.

We must engage communities across the country in learning about their own history, even when it is painful, and find ways to ensure that our town squares and public spaces reflect the diversity of our communities, including by moving statues that glorify shameful periods of our history from public spaces to museums where they can be contextualised as artefacts from the past. We need reform of the history curriculum in our schools, so that every child is taught a truthful and inclusive version of British history, including colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.

The Government must deliver a functioning and effective compensation scheme for the victims of the Windrush scandal and urgently implement the recommendations of Wendy Williams and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). They must give confidence that such a scandal can never happen again.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am enjoying the hon. Lady’s speech. She mentions the Lammy review; I have just had an answer to my parliamentary question to the Lord Chancellor about the review, which I will tweet out in a moment. It tells me that

“of the 35 recommendations…16 have been completed … 17 recommendations are still in progress, of which… 1 recommendation is in the initial stages…11 recommendations aim to be completed within 6-12 months…5 recommendations will take longer than 12 months”.

I really think that the Government are making serious progress on the Lammy review, and I think that the Minister is to be congratulated.

[Helen Hayes]

I think the test of the Government’s progress in this area is the experience of BAME residents up and down the country, and the protests in recent weeks tell us loudly and clearly that they do not have confidence in this Government. I hope that the Government will start to rebuild that trust and confidence, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise exactly how far they have to go.

We must see urgent, meaningful action to protect BAME frontline workers from coronavirus and address the underlying health inequalities that left them at risk in the first place. The Government must end the hostile environment and reform the history curriculum so that every child learns about British history as a story of migration and is taught about the UK’s shameful role in the transatlantic slave trade. Windrush Day is a national celebration, but also a day for asserting the truth that black lives matter and for redoubling our efforts to create a society free from structural racism and discrimination in which everyone’s contribution is fully recognised.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate and the tone in which she has conducted it. I know that this issue is close to her heart. She laid out very eloquently at the start of her speech the story of how many of those who arrived on the Windrush took temporary shelter in Clapham South and then went to find jobs at labour exchanges, including, as she said, at Coldharbour Lane in her constituency. She raised issues that are so significant and so personal to Members of this House and to many of her constituents, and I congratulate her on the way in which she did so.

This is, of course, the second annual national Windrush Day, and the third year in which the Government have supported celebrations since the 70th anniversary. It absolutely right that the Government and this House celebrate the enormous contributions of the Windrush generation to our social, economic and cultural history. After the ship’s arrival back in 1948, those brave individuals helped to rebuild our country after the ravages of the war. They found work in sectors such as health and transport and formed the backbone of our national health service, as the hon. Lady said.

Today, as history repeats itself, we see a different threat, and many of the Windrush generation’s descendants continue to protect and rebuild our country in the midst of covid-19, carrying the legacy of many of their forebears. Their remarkable contribution to our national health service, to care and to many other key sectors during this crisis has been absolutely staggering—it has been integral to stemming the tide of this virus. The whole country is grateful for their contribution, and I certainly add my own tribute today. However, the hon. Lady is absolutely right that while we celebrate the Windrush generation and how they shaped this country, and most recently how their descendants have helped to defend it, we must candidly acknowledge the difficulties that many have endured. I wish to take this opportunity to explain how we have been working to try to right the wrongs.

Windrush Day this year did not look like Windrush Day last year. I thank the Windrush Day advisory panel for its support in ensuring that we could still mark the day with the enthusiasm and importance that it deserves. Preparations for the celebrations have of course been altered by the unique social and health challenges presented by the pandemic, but that has not stopped people and organisations holding events throughout the country and organising innovative ways to make sure that we can continue to celebrate the important contribution I referred to and the importance of this day, which has of course gained a huge amount of traction, interest and passionate debate. Most of the celebrations yesterday were digital—the hon. Lady talked about an event that she attended—but there were still plenty of them up and down the country. We had only to look at the media or social media yesterday to see the incredible variety of debates.

Our Department is still keen to support publicly the marking of the day: we provided a £500,000 grant to support some of the organisations that are celebrating and commemorating the Windrush generation, alongside educating people about them. Earlier this year, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government agreed that the funding would be distributed across 49 charities, community groups and local authorities. In the midst of some extremely challenging circumstances, that guarantee has demonstrated our willingness, passion, aptitude and innovation to deliver the events in the way that they have been delivered.

From Bristol, Birmingham, Leicester and Leeds, we have received some incredible feedback on the workshops, radio documentaries and Zoom meetings that have been held over the past couple of days. A children’s charity, Barnardo’s, launched an oral history project to celebrate the impacts of the achievements of the Windrush generation and their descendants, fronted by its vice-president Baroness Floella Benjamin.

Several projects funded by the Windrush Day grant were based in the hon. Lady’s constituency, including Reprezent Radio, which trains second generation Windrush individuals to develop a week of specialist radio programming shining a light on the impact of the Windrush generation. I have not managed to catch any yet but I will make an effort to do so in the next day. I know that that admirable local organisation is doing a lot of good work, and I was pleased to hear that Lambeth Council had its own itinerary to celebrate Windrush Day and get people involved locally. I commend it for that work.

The day was also very well recognised in local, national and international media, including on the BBC’s “The One Show”, and I think CNN was live in Brixton. There was a message from his excellency the high commissioner of Jamaica, and our great national institutions took up the call to commemorate the arrival of the Windrush generation. I believe that the National Theatre has made the adaptation of Andrea Levy’s “Small Island” free to view until tomorrow. I saw that the Church of England marked Windrush Day in an online service, I think very candidly reflecting on its troubling recent history, which once saw Anglican churchgoers barred from participating in worship due to the colour of their skin. I encourage anybody who is able to to head online and find out how they can continue to take part in some incredible celebrations.

[Mr Steve Baker]

I am very grateful for what the Minister has said. There was a fantastic virtual celebration in High Wycombe over the weekend, and I was absolutely delighted to join it. I put on record how very proud I am of the Windrush generation in High Wycombe and their descendants. They make a fantastic contribution to our community and my eyes have really been opened to how people do still face racism in their lives. I am very glad that the Government are taking steps to implement the Lammy review, but, of course, there is much more that we all need to do.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

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