Two years after the Windrush Scandal, the independent report commissioned into the appalling failings that took place has finally been published. But with so much going on, we can’t let the lessons go unnoticed. The Home Office can no longer ignore the true scale of the scandal and its impact on people - from being made homeless or unemployed to being denied access to the NHS or unfairly deported. The Home Office must urgently stop any racial discrimination and to learn from the lessons published, so this never happens again. This includes full implementation of all recommendations - with an action plan to do this quickly, appointing an independent group to review progress, and doing more to support survivors now. You can read the full report here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/windrush-lessons-learned-review

Its Important to support Carlos & his daughter Myriam in their plight to remain together in Scotland as a family. Carlos needs his daughter since she is his main carer and he suffers with underlying health conditions, with no family ties in Chile that would be able to care for him in his elderly years. Carlos will have no access to the public purse. Deporting Carlos will be his death sentence. The Scottish people supports Carlos and his daughter. He has been welcomed in the past as a political refugee. Carlos has been tortured enough in his life time! The Home Office must learn to take into consideration relevant evidence supporting each application instead of "copying and pasting" refusals. NO MORE "One Glove Fits All" approach by Home Office.

In April 2019, the government launched the Windrush Compensation Scheme in response to the Windrush Scandal. According to the latest report from the National Audit Office The Home Office estimated it might pay out compensation worth between £120 million and £310 million to 15,000 people. By the end of March 2021, the Department had received 2,163 claims. The Home Office to date have paid £14.3 million to 633 people. The National Audit Office discovered that massive delays and back log of outstanding cases which many have been not being resolved in the last two years. They also found out they are only 6 full time case workers to support over 15,000 potential claims. Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: "The Windrush Compensation Scheme was rolled out before it was ready to receive applications and two years after it was launched, people are still facing long waits to receive their final compensation payment. Since December 2020, the Home Office has made some progress, but it needs to sustain its efforts to improve the scheme to ensure it fairly compensates members of the Windrush generation in acknowledgement of the suffering it has caused them". The compensation has failed the Windrush Generation during this time over 21 people have died without receiving compensation. One person is Paulette Wilson who died in July 2020. Her daughter Natalie Barnes said, “Home office still operate the hostile environment policy which contributed to the death of my mother. Before she passed, she was struggling with the forms and lack of support and respect from the Home Office. The scheme needs to be moved so there is proper justice to families like mine.’ Stephanie O ‘Connor is still mourning the loss of her mum Sarah who moved to the UK in 1967 and died in July 2019 as a child says: 'For my mum the compensation scheme has come too late, and I am so disappointed that it is still taking this long for people to get what is owed to them. I just hope that people get compensated fairly for everything that they have been through.' The compensation scheme was meant to help people get their lives back on track and for the government to acknowledge and apologise in how they abused the rights of Black British Citizens and other Commonwealth citizens But instead the scheme has been far too complicated for victims to use, with very little support for those making claims. Over the last two years there have numerous reports and news stories on the failure of the scheme. This has affected people's entire lives, like Michael Braithwaite who was born in Trinidad and came to Britain in 1961: ‘Over the last two years my life has been turned upside down. The mental stress and turmoil that caused me ill health still impact my daily life. The government compensation scheme has not been fairly documented, it was constructed behind closed doors, no public input and no one to represent the Windrush victims.’ Charlotte Tobierre has been advocating for her father Thomas said: "The Windrush compensation scheme must be moved to an independent organisation. Each category is a battle, You have to fight for every penny and it’s tiring. It is so damaging to a claimant to be asked to provide so much evidence to then be offered a small percentage of what they lost. My father worked for over 50 years, paid into a private pension, He was then caught up in the Windrush scandal and told he couldn’t work, He cashed in that pension for bills, rent and food. The compensation team asked for all documentation of the pension, which my father provided, He was then told they do not compensate pensions and would receive nothing for pension loss. All those years working, £14,000 lost just like that, He continues to work now at the age of 67."

My father and his brother were able to come here as child refugees in 1939 because of the generosity of Rydal School in North Wales, which hosted them. My uncle said later, ‘We came as strangers; you took us in.’ Today, boarding schools are making a similar generous offer to help some of the unaccompanied child refugees currently suffering appalling conditions in Lesbos, Calais and other refugee camps. Despite this offer being at no cost to the taxpayer, the government has failed to take it up.

There has been an increase in anti-choice protests across the UK, targeting women seeking routine reproductive healthcare. A BPAS clinic in Stroud Green, North London was the most recent target in this series of intimidating and increasingly organised protests. We also note that there are protests planned throughout Lent outside a clinic in Stapleford in Nottingham, and there have been similar protests outside a clinic in Liverpool. According to the Back Off campaign, there have been 44 such incidents across the UK since September 2018. Abortion Rights Chair Kerry Abel said: "This is not acceptable. If they want to protest long held law on abortion, they should take it to the government – not attempt en masse to intimidate women trying to access healthcare information. Healthcare is a fundamental human right." Women attending abortion clinics and pregnancy advice centres report feeling fearful and intimidating after being exposed to targeted harassment by these anti-choice activists. They stand outside these clinics in groups, often handing out leaflets containing misleading or inaccurate information about abortion, and they follow women as they enter or leave the clinics. Sometimes they carry cameras and film these women, who are simply trying to access routine and legal healthcare in confidence. These protestors also intimidate staff at clinics, who occasionally need escorting from the building by the police as they fear for their own safety. Dr Pam Lowe, who researches anti-abortion activism, has analysed comments made by women who have experienced this form of harassment: "They feel it's an invasion of healthcare privacy, so it draws attention to the space and it's a shaming position. It's drawing public attention to what's happening. "This is a very private decision, it's a healthcare decision, and we wouldn't normally expect our private decisions to be made public in the way that it is." Please sign this petition for Health Secretary Matt Hancock to take action. He has a duty to ensure everyone can access legal healthcare free from harassment and intimidation – which this clearly is. Abortion Rights offers its solidarity to the clinic staff and women attending the affected clinics.

The UK government are planning to deport dozens of people - including many who’ve lived in the UK since they were children - to Jamaica. This means ripping them from their communities and sending them to a country they don’t know and tearing their families apart. The government claim they’re doing it because all of these people are extreme criminals, but there's mounting evidence this isn't the case. And the ones who have been convicted have already served their time. Deporting them would mean punishing them twice - just because they weren’t born here. The Home Office is also facing legal action over a phone signal outage in the Heathrow detention centres. People detained there have been facing deportation without properly working phones, which are their lifelines to solicitors who could help them challenge wrongful removal.

The Metropolitan Police has started using live facial recognition cameras across London. This surveillance technology turns us into walking ID cards and treats members of the public like suspects in a high-tech police line up. These cameras are a threat to our privacy and freedoms – and they need to be stopped.  The police's own stats show live facial recognition to be over 70% inaccurate and more likely to misidentify innocent people of colour as potential suspects. A court even found that police had been using this technology unlawfully.  This Orwellian technology is used to oppress people in China and Russia. The Met would be the largest police force in the democratic world to roll out this dangerously authoritarian surveillance. This is an enormous expansion of the surveillance state and a serious threat to civil liberties in the UK.  The Home Secretary and Met Commissioner must stop using live facial recognition now.

As we approach the 2nd anniversary of the Windrush Scandal in April 2020 we must remember the public support where over 180,000 people signed my UK government petition and 100,000 38 Degree members who also signed petition demanding to establish an amnesty for anyone who was a minor that came to Britain between 1948 to 1973. The media stories of the victims sharing experiences of the hostile environment and the lobbying of Caribbean diplomats and race equality and migrant charities all contributed to a perfect storm to force the government not only to apologise but to publicly humiliated at an international level by causing one of the biggest human right abuses of British citizens since WW2. In April 2019 the government launched the Windrush Compensation Scheme. There are many thousands of people that have still not come forward to resolve their status as there is still lack of trust with the Home Office and public bodies who implement the hostile environment policy and procedures. In addition, many of the survivors are frustrated with the implementation of the Compensation Scheme. In the Big Issue in 2019 I interviewed several survivors to share their experiences: Michael Braithwaite who was born in Trinidad but lived in Barbados but came to Britain in 1961. After working for over 15 years as a teaching assistant in a local school in Islington he lost his job as a result of the scandal. After 12 months since the Windrush Scandal he is still traumatised, but he is now sharing his experience at through media interviews, community and trade union events to campaign for justice. Michael states: ‘Over the last two years my life has been turned upside down . The mental stress and turmoil that caused me I’ll health still impact my daily life. The government compensation scheme has not been fairly documented , it was constructed behind closed doors, no public input and no one to represent the Windrush victims.’ Stephanie O ‘Connor and her siblings are still coming to terms as result of the death of their mother Sarah O’Connor who at the age of 57 died of hypertension in September 2018 as result of the stress involved in losing her job and facing bankruptcy. Sarah came to Britain in 1967 as a six-year-old and worked for most of her life till losing her job in 2017. Stephanie states: ‘The Windrush scandal impacted my mum, Sarah not only on her health but emotionally. Before the scandal was exposed, she felt on her own and like she had done something wrong despite contributing to the country for many years. For my mum the compensation scheme has come too late and I’m so disappointed that it is still taking this long for people to get what is owed to them. I just hope that people get compensated fairly for everything that they have been through. This scandal has ruined people’s lives and in today’s world it is terrible that we have allowed that to happen to this extent.’ We now need MPs to lobby Priti Patel MP when it comes to the 2nd Reading of the Windrush Compensation Bill in Parliament in February to make the following amendments for restorative justice and fairness below for proper compensation to the survivors of the Windrush Scandal. 1.The Compensation Scheme needs to be managed by another government department or independent body along the principles of restorative justice and fairness as the Home office is still implementing the Hostile which is a conflict of interest which is clearly inherently racist in nature and breaches the Public Sector Equality Duty. 2. The Home office needs to create immediately easy read and make accessible Windrush Compensation forms application forms for survivors of the Windrush Scandal and community organisations in line with best practice under the Equality Act. The current forms act as deterrent to the vulnerable and family members who are traumatised. In addition, the scheme should not discriminate with anyone who has a criminal record. 3. Home Office to fund community groups, faith and small civil society organisations to support ongoing or planned outreach and advice work intended to help people affected by the Windrush crisis. 4 Anyone that has been directly affected by the Windrush Scandal should have an automatic payment of £10,000 without proving any documentary evidence of hurt or financial loss 5.Remove all tariff and caps on all compensation claims and that all claims to receive interest payment as results of costs incurred for immigration and legal fees on the same basis as PPI awarded by banks for mis selling financial products. 6. All offer letters for compensation should contain have a full apology recognising the failure of the Home Office treatment as a result of the scandal. 7. It has been estimated that over 500,000 individuals were given wrong official advice regarding naturalisation and gaining British citizenship since the creation of the 1971 Immigration Act. The government needs to issue a formal apology and to repay back with an interest the costs incurred to legal and immigration fees. 8. The government should fund a Windrush Endowment Fund of at least £1 billion to support the preservation and legacy of the Windrush Generation and the history migration. The Fund Provide could provide core funding to organisations like Black Cultural Archives. 9.The current Windrush Day Grants and Memorial Committee which is sponsored by the government department DCLG needs to be an independent organisation like the Holocaust Memorial Education Trust. A £5million to support Windrush Day activities, develop learning resources for schools and to influence the national curriculum. 10. We require a nationally funded health and wellbeing programme programme on post traumatic impact of the hostile environment on the Windrush Generation and their descendant for culturally relevant and specific organisations who can provide range of therapeutic, art therapy and counselling services.

The future of our existence as a race is at stake. False news is clouding people's judgement. Tell the truth. No more lies.

This is a real situation that requires knowledge as we are trying our best to met our disabled daughters needs who suffers a extremely rare gentic disorder fumarase defincey she is only uk case with this strain and with less than 20-25 cases worldwide she suffers global development delay seizures drop attacks and requires 24 hour care we are sleeping on sofas in living room to met our daughters needs As we had adaptations 9years ago and at that time it suited her needs but unfortunately her needs have changed and this home no longer suits her needs she is unable to get up and down stairs for a bath that she absolutely loves so untill we can have a bath fitted she only as a bath at respite as parents we are trying our best to get things right so we can keep caring for her into adult hood but with out the right home this is putting our daughter and ourselfs at risk and causing a lot of strain on our family the home is totally unsuitable we can't fit wheelchair through doors which our daughter needs daily we have watch meltdowns temper trantrums due to her not understanding why she can't have bath this is heartbreaking to watch please take time to support our daughters voice we need it to be heard we need to find a forever home

It is important that we make the government aware of the depth of our feeling within our community. We need to ask why the government has introduced this apparent measure to scrap a scheme designed to enable refugee children and young people the opportunity to be reunited with members of their family here in the UK. This proposal adds more confusion and uncertainty to an already confusing situation. It will not stop young refugees from trying to come to Britain, but is likely to result in them taking increasingly dangerous routes to do so, putting them at the mercy of traffickers and people smugglers. This certainly feels like an extension of the hostile environment which we had hoped was a policy of the past.

Children are being left stranded all over Europe, living rough on the street, after fleeing their homes and being separated from their families due to war and violence. But it doesn't have to be this way - many of these children have aunts, uncles or grandparents in the UK that are desperate to take them in. But these family reunions are under threat. The Prime Minister’s new Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which sets out plans for the UK’s exit from the EU, has scrapped a previous commitment to protect child refugees after Brexit. The previous commitment stated that: “an unaccompanied child who has made a claim for international protection in a member state can come to the UK to join a relative” - and this has been recently dropped. We need to make sure that in amongst the Brexit chaos and political infighting these children don't slip through the cracks.