The government has halted its “hostile environment” policy for anyone over the age of 30 to prevent more people being “wrongly and erroneously impacted” by the measures following the Windrush scandal, the Home Secretary has said.
Sajid Javid said data-sharing between the Home Office and other government departments such as HMRC and the DWP, as well as banks and building societies, had been suspended for all nationalities over 30 years for a period of three months.
In a letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee, Mr Javid said the department was also looking at the best ways of evaluating the effectiveness of the policy – which he has renamed the “compliant” environment – to ensure there is “no adverse impact on individuals who have a right to be here and to access those services”.
The Home Office has so far issued documentation confirming a right to live in the UK to 2,125 people who contacted the Windrush hotline. Of these, 1,014 were born in Jamaica, 207 in Barbados, 93 in India, 88 in Grenada, 85 in Trinidad and Tobago and 638 were from other countries.
The department is only in touch with 14 people who were wrongly deported, and no details have been given about their nationalities or about whether any of them had been allowed to return to the UK. Contact has not been made with the majority of those wrongly deported or removed, the Home Office has said.
Labour MP Yvette Cooper, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said she was disappointed that there was still no clarity about the number of people wrongly detained and that the Home Office had “still not managed to make contact with the majority of those who were wrongfully deported or removed”.
“It is very disappointing that we still do not have information about the number of people wrongly detained, and that the Home Office has still not managed to make contact with the majority of those who were wrongfully deported or removed,” she said.
“The Committee is awaiting more information from the Home Office which is expected by the end of this week and will be asking further questions to follow up the information in the Home Secretary’s letter.”
Mr Sajid said officials were also reviewing cases where the Home Office has ordered other departments to deny or revoke services to an individual, or taken action to penalise a third party for employing or housing an unlawful migrant.
A final figure of those affected will not be available until this review is complete, he said.
It comes after a damning report by the Home Affairs Select Committee said that unless the Home Office was overhauled the scandal “will happen again, for another group of people”.
The committee expressed concern for the children of EU citizens, saying the government should ensure they are not “locked out of living a lawful life as we have seen happen to members of the Windrush generation”.
The MPs also said that recent attempts by the Government to rebrand its so-called “hostile environment” policy the “compliant environment”, were “meaningless”.
