Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on what date the Windrush landing cards were destroyed.

No decision was taken to destroy ‘Windrush migrant’ information specifically and records were not categorised as being related to a ‘Windrush migrant’ or the ‘Windrush generation’. Any Windrush papers would have been destroyed in line with the retention and disposal periods set for the wider records collections in which they were located.

In regards to landing cards specifically, although there was provision in the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 to make a requirement for Commonwealth citizens to complete landing cards, this was never implemented. Landing cards were not required for the vast majority of nationals of Independent Commonwealth Countries until the implementation of the Immigration Act 1971. A very small number of cards were completed by Immigration officers for small cohorts of these nationals.