Two years on from the Windrush scandal, it's clear the Tories have learnt nothing

The hostile environment is more than just laws, it’s also a culture at the Home Office that seeks to bring down immigration numbers no matter the cost

The Liberal Democrats would take responsibility for immigration away from the Home Office altogether (AFP)

The Tories are doing nothing to prevent another Windrush Scandal

This Saturday is the second official Windrush Day. Last year, shamed by the appalling Windrush Scandal, the government issued a series of apologies and established a day to celebrate the Windrush Generation and their descendants.

The benefits they have made to our country are enormous. The 492 Commonwealth citizens who arrived on the Empire Windrush, and hundreds of thousands more like them, helped to rebuild Britain’s infrastructure after the Second World War, and to build our NHS and other public services. And they continue to contribute hugely to our society, our culture and our economy.

It is right that we celebrate those contributions today. But when it comes to actual government policy, nothing has really changed. A year on from the first Windrush Day, the “hostile environment” is as hostile as ever.

These policies, which turn teachers, doctors, police officers and bank clerks into border guards, are exactly the policies that led members of the Windrush generation to be deprived their rights, detained and even deported. The Windrush scandal should have been the end of them. And yet, for all the Conservatives’ apologising and hand-wringing, they remain in force.

Most outrageous is the Conservatives’ refusal to scrap their “right to rent” law. This requires landlords to check the immigration status of tenants or prospective tenants, with the threat of a criminal conviction if they rent to someone they shouldn’t.

When the Conservatives first tried to introduce this law in 2014, the Liberal Democrats in government blocked it. We argued that making landlords criminally responsible for immigration enforcement would lead to racial discrimination. The Tories didn’t listen. Once they’d gained a majority in parliament, they rolled out the policy across England in 2016.

Hundreds of people have been evicted under the law. That includes members of the Windrush generation, such as the 63-year-old man who was evicted by Haringey Council last year and had to sleep in a friend’s garden shed for six months. Just one of the many heartbreaking stories of the Windrush Scandal.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants has shown clearly, through a “mystery shopper” exercise, that the Liberal Democrats’ fears were well-founded. On the basis of that and other supporting evidence, the High Court ruled in March that the Conservatives’ “right to rent” policy breaches fundamental human rights because it essentially forces private landlords to discriminate against prospective tenants who are Bame or who don’t have a British passport.

That should have been the final nail in the coffin of the hostile environment. But, instead of accepting the evidence, admitting they were wrong and abolishing the law, the home secretary is appealing the judgment. The Tories are wasting taxpayers’ money on another legal case to let them keep a law that plainly and demonstrably causes racial discrimination.

It’s clear that the Conservatives have learned nothing from the Windrush scandal.

The Liberal Democrats demand better, both for the Windrush generation and for all the other victims of the Conservatives’ Hostile Environment. We have tabled an amendment to the government’s Immigration Bill that would end the “right to rent” policy, and we are calling for an end to the other hostile environment policies too.

But the hostile environment is more than just laws. It’s also a culture at the Home Office that seeks to bring down immigration numbers no matter the cost. It’s an attitude of “detain and deport first, ask questions later”. That, too, caused the Windrush scandal, and it’s still damaging our country today.

It separates families. It locks up vulnerable people indefinitely. It prevents employers like the NHS from hiring the workers they need. And it has shattered confidence in the system.

That’s why the Liberal Democrats would take responsibility for immigration away from the Home Office altogether.

The Departments for Business, Education and International Development should make policy on work permits, student visas and asylum respectively. And we would set up a new, arms-length, non-political agency to take over the actual processing of visa and asylum applications, with the training and resources to process applications quickly, decide cases fairly, and get them right the first time.

A celebration day, a statue and some apologies simply aren’t enough. If the Conservatives really wanted to mark Windrush Day properly, to repair the damage they’ve done and to prevent a future Windrush Scandal, they would finally and explicitly scrap the hostile environment.