The home affairs select committee is right: the scheme must be given to an independent body before more people are failed
Charlotte Tobierre is a friend of mine and a fellow Windrush activist. Her father, Thomas, is a Windrush victim: he lost his job, his pension and his dignity when the Home Office wrongly stripped him of his status, 60 years after he arrived and laid down roots, legally, in the UK. Earlier this year, Thomas accepted an insultingly low offer from the Windrush compensation scheme. He was exhausted, having fought the Home Office and undergone two stages of its independent review process for victims who are unhappy with their awards.
Thomas’s wife, Caroline, was also due to receive compensation from the scheme, having disrupted her life to support him. She was made a lowball offer, which she refused. Caroline was also fighting cancer, and passed away earlier this month. To defray the costs of Caroline’s funeral, the grief-stricken family were promised an “urgent and exceptional” payment – a type of emergency relief intended to support victims who have a “compelling” reason why they cannot wait for the Home Office’s parsimonious, time-wasting exercise to be completed.
Ramya Jaidev is a co-founder of Windrush Lives, an advocacy group and victim support network. In collaboration with Good Law Project, it is running a survey to gather data on victims’ experiences of the Windrush compensation scheme
