Under-fire Home Secretary Amber Rudd faces a fresh grilling from MPs over the Windrush scandal
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Under-fire Home Secretary Amber Rudd faces a fresh grilling from MPs over the Windrush scandal.
The top Tory, who has faced repeated calls to quit over the fiasco, is set for a two-hour roasting in front of the Commons Home Affairs Committee.
Labour MP Stephen Doughty, who sits on the Home Affairs Committee, said: “It is becoming very clear that the shocking Windrush scandal is just the tip of an iceberg for a department and ministers in chaos.
“When you introduce an extreme set of policies while slashing budgets, it is lawful decent British people and those who have the full right to be here who suffer.
“It also begs serious questions as to how on Earth they will manage to register 3.5 million EU nationals for Brexit .
“The Home Secretary and officials will have serious questions to answer from MPs tomorrow - but where is the Prime Minister?
“She’s in hiding attempting to divert from her own responsibility in pushing the policy to its extremes during her time at the Home Office.”
Ms Rudd has apologised for blunders which triggered heartbreaking confusion for hundreds of Caribbean migrants wrongly threatened with deportation.
(Image: PA)
She has promised compensation for those who suffered, as well as waiving fees and language tests for anyone from the Windrush generation who wants to apply for UK citizenship.
Ms Rudd admitted moves to curb illegal immigration had triggered “unintended and sometimes devastating” consequences for Windrush migrants who came legally between 1948 and 1973.
Leading Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg blamed “the state” for the scandal.
“The Windrush issue came about because the state put the interests of the collective ahead of those individuals who had come here perfectly legitimately prior to 1973, and that it was more convenient for the Home Office just to make them prove who they were and show their papers,” he told the Open Europe think tank.
“I do not believe that the interests of the collective allow you to crush individuals who may get in your way.”
Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon told the Commons: “The Windrush scandal is one of the cruellest examples of unaccountable state power targeting the vulnerable, the defenceless and the innocent that I can ever remember.”