Re: Windrush generation
 

Interestingly, despite saying in Parliament yesterday how terrible this situation was and how she will change things, it was under Theresa May (when she was at the Home Office) that the paragraph in the law that would have prevented all this was deleted :shocked:

Re: Windrush generation
 

Which paragraph was that? The date of destruction was linked to the moving of offices. That could just as easily have happened in 2000. It would have been initiated before May 2010. That sort of thing doesn't happen overnight, especially where new offices are being built.

Not sure I would get away with getting a passport simply on providing my name.

There are still plenty of people who NEVER had any landing slips because they came from elsewhere or by another method.

Re: Windrush generation
 

It would be pretty easy to solve this by granting anyone who had an arrival card as part of the Windrush programme automatic right to remain/citizenship. That was the point inviting their families over in the first place.

Re: Windrush generation
 

Yes, the Government in power at the time failed to dot the 'i's and cross the 't's.

Re: Windrush generation
 

According to Channel 5, the changes to the rules involved deleting a paragraph that would have covered these people. It was removed as it was feared that it could be abused by illegal immigrants to stay in the UK and it is claimed that it was never intended to include the Windrush generation, however, staff have been interpreting this as a way to include them.

I suppose we'll never know if the order to do this came from higher up, but if these people had never made a fuss it certainly wouldn't have harmed the Government's stats when quoting how many 'illegal immigrants' they had identified and dealt with.

As a former Government pen pusher I can say that the low hanging fruit is always picked first in order to get the stats up.

Just been reading that the children of these immigrants have also been caught up in this:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...drush-children

Re: Windrush generation
 

An old card with a name and date of arrival is not proof of anything. And as I've already pointed out, others have been affected long before 2010, because they had no landing card in the first place. Eg They came from Canada with their parents.

Re: Windrush generation
 

I'm assuming that the deleted part of the regulations enabled civil servants to take this point into account, but once it was removed there was no extra protection afforded in these instances.

Re: Windrush generation
 

Well, there's a turnup for the books! According to BBC News, at a heated exchange at PM's Questions, Theresa May responded that the destruction of the Windrush records took place under Labour's watch in 2009.

I bet JC wishes he had never asked! Egg on face for Lammy, too, after his outburst in the House of Commons!

So much for 'caring' Labour. It's now confirmed by the man himself that it was Labour that had proved to be 'callous and incompetent'!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43806710

Re: Windrush generation
 

Whole thing is a fiasco. Massive joke.

Re: Windrush generation
 

Absolutely as it has been a total debacle.

Re: Windrush generation
 

It's not a joke to those affected. I have just seen on South Today a British man born in Nigeria who because he's lost his birth certificate has been placed in the same position as the Windrush generation.That could be me because I too was born in Nigeria when it was a British colony. Luckily I still have my birth certificate. Those of us born in former colonies don't have an easy way to find lost documentation.

Re: Windrush generation
 

Fortunately, now that the government has been made aware of this problem, they have set up a task force to help these people.

Re: Windrush generation
 

Correct me if I'm just being thick here but...

The Windrush immigrants were invited over here to work therefore they would have been issued a National Insurance number which is traceable the same with tax records.

Add to that any spouse/child who sought medical services would a medical record linked to a medical number issued.

What am I missing???

Re: Windrush generation
 

All I can think of is that it sometimes poses the difficulty for some in proving that the NI number is theirs.

These days people who claim benefits are required to prove their identity and that their NINO actually belongs to them. There is a lot of NINO fraud in the system, particularly as there are more NINO's in circulation than there are people alive and living in the UK.

The most common ways to steal a NINO are to assume the identity of a child who died at birth/at a young age or the identity of someone who emigrated abroad.

Getting a job with a false NINO is much easier to do and is how some fraudsters manage to both work and sign on.

Re: Windrush generation
 

Same goes for ANYONE. I would be stuck if I hadn't found my birth certificate before I moved out. I wouldn't be able to obtain a duplicate because I had no idea which part of London I was born, or even if it was London.