Government issues apology after report finds Windrush scandal was 'foreseeable and avoidable'

British officials let victims down due to 'systemic operational failings' in immigration regime

Newly arrived Jamaican immigrants on board the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury, on 22 June 1948. Getty Images

An official report into the Windrush scandal has concluded it was "foreseeable and avoidable" and called for an unqualified apology to all those who suffered harm as a result of the deportations policy.

The Windrush Lessons Learned Review published on Thursday has revealed the UK Home Office demonstrated “institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issue of race”.

The Windrush generation, children of migrants brought over after the Second World War to plug labour shortages, were caught up in a tightening of immigration rules introduced in 2012.

Although they had the right to remain in Britain indefinitely, having arrived before 1973, many who arrived in the 1950s and 1960s had travelled on their parents’ passports and had never applied for any travel documents themselves.

It meant British citizens were wrongly deported, dismissed from their jobs and deprived of vital services as a result of the lack of documentation.

The report accuses the government of operating a “culture of disbelief and carelessness”.

"The sincerity of this apology will be determined by how far the Home Office demonstrates a commitment to learn from its mistakes by making fundamental changes to its culture and way of working, that are both systemic and sustainable," the reports author Wendy Williams said.

On Thursday, home secretary Priti Patel apologised in the House of Commons.

“There is nothing I can say today that will undo the suffering ... On behalf of this and successive governments I am truly sorry,” she said.

The report has called on the Home Office to "acknowledge the wrong" that has been done and to "change its culture".

"Some ministers and senior officials spoken to in the course of this review do not appear to accept the full extent of the injustice done to the Windrush generation," Mrs Williams said.

"While all are rightly appalled by what happened, and regard it as a tragedy, many gave the impression that the situation was unforeseen, unforeseeable and therefore unavoidable. Whereas, the evidence clearly shows that the sequence of events which culminated in the scandal, while unforeseen, was both foreseeable and avoidable. "Warning flags about the potential consequences of the policy were raised at various stages, in various ways and by various interested parties. Yet ministers and officials were impervious to these warnings because of their resolute conviction that the implementation of the relevant policies was effective, should be vigorously pursued and would achieve the policy intent.

"Efforts to address concerns were superficial at best and served to deal with the symptoms rather than the root causes of the problem."

She said the Home Office's failure to keep accurate records makes it impossible to say how many people the scandal affected.

Mrs Williams interviewed around 800 people during the investigation and examined 69,000 official documents.

She has also called on the Home Office to publish a comprehensive improvement plan within the next six months using the reports recommendations.