Windrush victims in line for £10k payout as Priti Patel due to announce bump in minimum compensation

Priti Patel today insisted Windrush scandal victims had been ‘badly let down’ as she prepares to unveil ‘turbocharged’ compensation payments of at least £10,000.

The Home Secretary  is set to announce that the minimum payments will be increased from £250 to £10,000 – and the maximum to £100,000.

In exceptional circumstances the figure could be even higher. 

Writing in The Times, Ms Patel and Bishop Derek Webley – co-chairs of the Windrush cross-government working group – said that, having listened to complaints about the scheme across the country, they recognise it is ‘crucial that we go further and faster to help those who need it’. 

Payments begin this week and will be applied retrospectively. 

Compensation for Windrush victims, who came to Britain from the Caribbean to work from the 1950s onwards, has been criticised for being too slow. 

Last month Alexandra Ankrah, the most senior black Home Office official working on the scheme, quit, saying it was not fit for purpose.

Under the expected reforms, those who can show an ‘impact’ on their life from the scandal will get £10,000 immediately.  

They can then launch a full application which could lead to them being handed larger sums. Payments will be made starting this week and the changes will be applied retrospectively.

The final payments could total somewhere between £90million and £250million.

Victims of the Windrush scandal are to be handed ‘turbocharged’ compensation payments of at least £10,000 as Home Secretary Priti Patel is due to announce a rise in the minimum and maximum compensation amounts. Pictured: Sabtir Singh of the Windrush campaigners delivering a petition to Downing Street signed by more than 130,000 people in July 2020, calling for action to address failings which led to the scandal [File photo]

Ms Patel is set to announce the details of the overhaul later.

But in the joint article with Bishop Webley she wrote: ‘We want these changes to make a real difference to people’s lives, and urge everyone who may have been affected to apply.

‘While nothing can undo the suffering that some members of the generation and their descendants endured, we hope these changes will go some way to ease their lives, and enable them to move forward with hope and determination.

‘We are determined to ensure those who were so badly let down get every possible support and fair compensation.’

Many of those caught up in the Windrush scandal arrived to the UK as children on the passports of their parents aboard the Empire Windrush (pictured) [File photo]

The Windrush scandal came about as a result of the government’s ‘hostile environment’ policy, which was brought in by then home secretary Theresa May in 2012.

It was intended to stop illegal migrants settling in the UK but ended up causing profound problems for entirely legal migrants from the Windrush generation.

Many of them arrived as children on the passports of their parents – who had the legal right to settle at the time – but then lacked the documentation to prove their right to remain in the UK decades later under the ‘hostile environment’ policy.

Many were wrongly deported, detained or stripped of their homes and jobs.

A compensation scheme was launched in April last year and has already made payments of more than £2million but the system has been criticised by claimants for being too slow.

Figures published in October showed only 12 per cent of victims received the money they were owed.