Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress she has made on implementing the 30 recommendations in the Windrush Lessons Learned Review independent review by Wendy Williams published in March 2020.

Since the injustices of Windrush came to light, there has been a concerted effort across the Home Office to right the wrongs suffered by those affected. This work continues and the department is making sustained progress to deliver on the recommendations of the Lessons Learned Review (2020) and the commitments made in the Comprehensive Improvement Plan (2020).

In her report last year, Wendy Williams concluded that 21 of her recommendations have been met or partially met. She acknowledged that the scale of the challenge she set the department was significant and that change on this scale takes time.

We have made real progress in delivering against Wendy Williams’ recommendations:

• In October 2022, the Home Office established the Office for the Independent Examiner of Complaints, and followed a public appointment recruitment process, Moiram Ali was appointed as the Independent Examiner.
• The Home Office has also held over 200 engagement and outreach events across the country and the Windrush Help Teams have attended over 120 one-to-one surgeries to help people apply for documentation.

As of the end of October 2022, the Home Office had paid out or offered £59.58m in compensation to Windrush victims. In June 2022, the ‘Serving Diverse Communities – Acting on Our Values’ learning package was launched across the Home Office, starting with Recommendations 24 and 29. The learning package for Recommendation 6 has been designed and will undergo final review prior to implementation.