The government defeated a Labour motion in the Commons seeking access to documents laying out the policies behind the Windrush crisis, promising instead to allow independent oversight of an internal review into what went wrong.

Labour had put down the same type of “humble address” procedure it used last year to force ministers to hand over their Brexit impact assessments, to seek documents and memos connected to the affair from 2010 to now.



But after an often passionate five-hour debate about how some citizens of Caribbean origin who arrived in the UK from the 1950s onwards were wrongly targeted as part of the “hostile environment” immigration policy, a three-line Conservative whip saw the government win by 316 votes to 221.

After the vote, the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, called the result “a betrayal of the Windrush generation”.

She said: “After losing her human shield with the resignation of Amber Rudd, the architect of this scandal, Theresa May, ordered her MPs to vote to cover up the truth of her involvement.”

In an attempt to derail the Labour motion, May had used prime minister’s questions earlier in the day to say home secretary, Sajid Javid, would be “announcing a package of measures to bring transparency on the issue”.



Speaking at the debate, Javid said this would involve “independent oversight and challenge to a lessons-learned review already under way in my department”.

Javid said: “This review will seek to draw out how members of the Windrush generation came to be tangled in measures designed for illegal immigrants, why that was not spotted sooner, and whether the right corrective measures are now in place.”

He called the Labour request for the Windrush information, to be passed to the Commons home affairs committee, “some massive, open-ended fishing expedition” that would require 100 officials to fulfil.

The new home secretary, appointed after Rudd resigned over Windrush on Sunday, again promised a change in tone from the “hostile environment” approach, but was repeatedly challenged on whether this would amount to any real shift in approach.

Opening the debate, Abbott had challenged Javid on his stated intent to move to a “compliant environment”, saying she could not detect any real change.

The hostile environment “swept up perfectly legal British citizens with it”, Abbott said. “Unless and until the prime minister announces the abandonment of the form of hostile environment policy which she instituted, and demonstrates that that is the case, then we should all understand that the policy remains in place.”

The Labour MP David Lammy, who has campaigned consistently on Windrush, told the Commons that real progress could only be made if the government changed its broader approach to immigration enforcement.

“The home secretary has committed himself to a fair and humane immigration policy, and in my view it’s not possible to have a fair and humane immigration policy alongside the hostile environment. That is a paradox, and a total contradiction in terms,” Lammy said.

Lammy likened the use of the phrase “compliant environment” to the language used in slavery. The Tottenham MP, whose father came to Britain from Guyana in 1956, said compliance was “written deep into our souls and passed down from our ancestors”.

Closing the debate for Labour, the shadow home office minister Afzal Khan served notice the party would keep up the pressure on the government, asking dozens of detailed questions on how those caught up in the crisis would receive help, and what reparations they could expect.

Responding for the government, the immigration minister, Caroline Nokes – who apologised in person on Tuesday to some of those affected – again said sorry, but spoke of the “failure of successive governments” as being the cause.

Asked by the SNP’s Joanna Cherry in an intervention whether she also apologised for the hostile environment policy, Nokes said only “how sorry I am that people have been affected.”

The government has tended to order its MPs not to vote on opposition day debates in recent months, in part to prevent possible defeats. The decision to whip MPs on the Windrush vote was a sign that the government believed it would be discomfited by having to hand over details about ministerial decisions, especially those connected to May.

A Labour spokeswoman said: “If the architect of this cruel farce, the prime minister, is ordering her MPs to vote to keep her role in this mess hidden from the public, it exposes the Tories’ crocodile tears on the Windrush scandal as a sham.”

Labour used a “humble address” to force a vote late last year that obliged the government to allow MPs to see what had been described as 58 papers detailing the impact of Brexit on sections of the economy – though they turned out to be less thorough than billed.