Nottingham City Council calls for government action in supporting Windrush victims

Nottingham City Council has renewed its support to residents from the Windrush Generation looking for advice and compensation and called on government to fully address the scandal.

Cllr Leslie Ayoola spoke about the issues facing the Windrush Generation at a Full Council meeting this week, while City Council Leader, Cllr David Mellen, has written to Home Secretary Priti Patel calling for swifter action in tackling the ongoing implications for those affected.

In 2018 the government accepted full responsibility for failures by the home office, after people were wrongly threatened with deportation, and set up a compensation scheme for those effected.

But, as of September 2021, out of the 15,000 people eligible for the scheme only a quarter had received compensation.

Nottingham City Council has confirmed it will continue to run an annual civic event to commemorate the Windrush Generation on June 22.

Last year, a series of events took place across the city to celebrate the those who emigrated from the Caribbean to the UK, with speeches and live music.

Cllr Leslie Ayoola spoke about the historical context of the Windrush Generation at the meeting: ‘They moved in order to rebuild the shattered country following the Second World War and to fill post-war labour shortages. When they came, they came with full citizen status. These rights were there indefinitely – or so they thought. This was not the case, children of the Windrush Generation would have to prove to the UK Government that they had the right to live and remain in the country that they had lived in for as long as they could remember.

‘Many of these people are still alive in Nottingham today and have experienced first-hand the horrors of their lives being turned upside down and being stripped of their citizenship and being sent back to a country that many of them only knew as a child and was therefore ‘foreign’ to them.

‘The scandalous failure of the Home Office has meant that many have been unable to prove their lawful status to continue to work, access services or even remain in this country, years after making it their home.

‘We agreed unanimously, across political parties, to call on the Government to help advice agencies to gain justice for all Nottingham residents affected by the Windrush scandal, not to cap compensation amounts payable to victims and waive fees for naturalisation and provide legal aid for all who have been affected.’

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