Home secretary accused of trying to avoid blame for scandal that has ‘caused so much misery’

Amber Rudd should consider her position as home secretary given the scale of the mistreatment of the Windrush generation, Diane Abbott has said.

The Guardian view on the Windrush apology: overdue and inadequate | Editorial Read more

The culture secretary, Matt Hancock, admitted the government had to “put right” the system under which Caribbean immigrants who came to the UK as children had been unfairly pursued as pensioners.

“It’s very important our immigration system is robust, but it is also important it is fair, and that is the balance we have got to put right,” he said.

However, Abbott said she had serious doubts about the Home Office’s ability to meet its target of solving outstanding cases within two weeks, a day after it was revealed the department destroyed thousands of landing card slips recording Windrush immigrants’ arrival dates.

“What the Home Office must do is allow officials to use their discretion in ways they haven’t been allowed to use it before,” she said.

“There are cases where people have sent 30 years of tax records – the Home Office has rejected it. Ideally, there should be a group exemption of people who fall in this particular category – Caribbean migrants who came here as children.”

The shadow home secretary said it was “extraordinary” that blame had been put on Home Office officials. “There was a time [when] if something went wrong in your department, you as the minister took responsibility. The way Amber Rudd is attempting to avoid responsibility is concerning,” she said.

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“I think she needs to consider her position, so many things have gone wrong ... This has caused so much misery, ruined so many lives and there is so much unity on both sides of the chamber about this subject.”

Hancock said the government had been “very clear we have to put right the anxieties that many people of the Windrush generation have felt, and make sure we get those systems right”.

He repeated the government’s pledge that those who needed to formalise their status would have their cases settled in two weeks.

The row has cast a shadow over Theresa May’s Commonwealth summit, where leaders have been critical about how the cases were handled. May apologised to Caribbean leaders at a summit in Downing Street – a meeting No 10 had initially refused to hold, before backtracking on Monday.

“I take this issue very seriously,” the prime minister said. “The home secretary apologised in the House of Commons yesterday for any anxiety caused. And I want to apologise to you today. Because we are genuinely sorry for any anxiety that has been caused.”

Speaking after attending the meeting, the St Kitts and Nevis foreign minister, Mark Brantley, said the policies that led to the row had been “misguided” and the way the government handled the situation could have implications after Brexit for EU citizens.

“I felt Theresa May is perhaps best placed to deal with this fiasco, because clearly she was home secretary when many of the rules went into effect that now are having these disastrous consequences for so many people,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight.

“The way that the British government deals with the Windrush generation might have implications post-Brexit, in terms of how European living in England are to be treated and, vice versa.”

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The Jamaican prime minister, Andrew Holness, said he would be pursuing compensation for those affected.

“My interest is to ensure that the Windrush generation and the children of [the] Windrush generation get justice. We have to call it out for what it is, but we also have to ensure that those who have been deported get access to a process that gets them back,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

“That they get their citizenship, that they get their full rights and that [they] get access to benefits that their citizenship will entitle them [to].

“If there was an acceptance that a wrong was done, then there should be a process of restoration. I’m certain that the robust civil society and democracy that you have will come up with a process of compensation.”

He said he had first become aware of the issue after the Guardian story about Albert Thompson, a Windrush generation immigrant who had been in the UK for 44 years, but was denied NHS cancer treatment.

Holness said he was not aware of anyone who had been deported from Britain, but he knew of people who had voluntarily gone to Jamaica and were then unable to return.