Windrush: 75th Anniversary

Question for Short Debate

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Windrush and the contribution made by Caribbean people to Britain.

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who will take part in this important debate. In 2018, to celebrate Windrush’s 70th anniversary, I had a vision of creating a Windrush garden for the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show. The RHS was fully behind the idea, and I set about trying to raise sponsorship for the garden. I spoke to numerous large companies, banks and supermarkets, but I got nowhere. They would ask, “What is this ‘wind rush’? We know nothing about it”. Then came the press revelations of the Windrush scandal, which shone a spotlight on that terrible injustice. Suddenly everybody in the country knew what Windrush was, and people were scrambling to be involved.

I believe out of bad comes good. Not only did we receive an RHS gold medal for the Windrush Garden, which was eventually sponsored by Birmingham City Council, but the then Prime Minister, Theresa May, decided to create an annual Windrush Day on 22 June, a dream of the late Sam King, with the commitment of £500,000 each year for community projects. Most importantly, she committed £1 million to erect a national Windrush monument to recognise the contribution made by Caribbean people to Britain. She asked me to chair the Windrush Commemoration Committee and gave me the responsibility of overseeing this historic creation.

This task took four hard, challenging years, littered with obstacles and setbacks but, with total commitment and dogged determination, a magnificent 12-foot high monument, designed by the world-renowned Jamaican artist Basil Watson, was delivered and unveiled at Waterloo station last year, on Windrush Day, by Windrush pioneers and their descendants and in the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales. It is now part of British history, and millions of people will see it, including schoolchildren when they pass through Waterloo station on school trips. The monument has quickly become a landmark, and Network Rail plans to hold a 75th commemoration event there to celebrate its links with the Windrush generation.

My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. I am grateful for all the work she has done in making sure that the issue of the Windrush generation is high up the political agenda. I associate myself with her words and would be happy to work with her in the future.

We in this country owe a great debt of gratitude to the Windrush generation. When the United Kingdom faced a post-war labour shortage, it was people from the Caribbean and the wider Commonwealth who saved our public services. The noble Baroness and others speak of Afro-Caribbean people, but on the “Empire Windrush” there were also Indo-Caribbean and Chinese-Caribbean people. They also played their role.

On my phone, I keep an early 1950s press clipping from a local newspaper in Guyana about two young men, Muntaz Kamall and Vincent Wong, who were sailing on the MV “Wiruni” to Trinidad and then catching another ship, the SS “Colombie”, to England. Muntaz Kamall was my father. He was part of the Windrush generation and came to work on the railways and then as a bus driver. His brother joined the Post Office and his sister was an NHS nurse—a story so typical of many families from the Commonwealth and their contribution to this country.

When the “Windrush” docked at Tilbury in 1948, many of its passengers were veterans who had fought for Britain in the Second World War against the spectre of fascism in Europe. But how did we repay their loyalty and willingness to rebuild post-war Britain? While calypso artist Lord Kitchener sang

“London is the place for me”,

neither the Labour Prime Minister nor the Conservative leader wanted the “Windrush” to dock here.

In later years, as members of the European Union, we had so-called freedom of movement—an immigration policy of discrimination making it easier for mostly white EU citizens than for mostly non-white non-EU citizens. Whenever anyone suggests that the UK rejoins the EU single market, they should be reminded that it would mean returning to a discriminatory—many would say racist—immigration policy.

My Lords, I thank my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for this short debate. It is very significant at this time as we recognise the rights of workers and the importance of the National Health Service, both of which were fought for and built by the Windrush generation.

In 1948, as has been mentioned, there was a labour shortage in the United Kingdom following the end of the Second World War. On 22 June 1948, His Majesty’s Troopship “Empire Windrush” travelled back to the UK from the Commonwealth with hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean and other parts of the Commonwealth to fill this labour shortage. Many such passengers continued to arrive in the UK until 1973. These people were popularly referred to as the Windrush generation. The adult passengers had immigration papers, but children travelled on their family members’ passports and did not have their own. The adults went into industries such as the buses and railways, and those who were qualified went into the NHS, which began on 5 July 1948.

A report published by the National Audit Office in 2018 found that the Windrush generation, who were given the “right of abode” in the UK under the Immigration Act 1971, were adversely affected by immigration legislation from subsequent Governments. This was because, in many cases, the Government did not provide documents or keep records confirming their status. These people who did not have UK passports or sufficient documents to prove their right of abode have been subjected to detention, deportation, loss of employment, homelessness, loss of access to healthcare and benefits, and being unable to return if they left the UK. The Windrush scandal came to light in 2018 but was happening as far back as 10 years prior to that.

For a nation that has records of all slaves and was able to compensate each slave owner for the loss of their “property” in the slave owner compensation scheme—the collection of such compensation went on until 1943—I find it disappointing that the Government and the Home Office claim not to have kept records of those who have been caught up in this scandal.

Perhaps the noble Baroness could draw her comments to a close—we are rather over time.

Wendy Williams made 30 recommendations. In conclusion, on behalf of those who have been affected, I ask the Government to help right those wrongs by implementing Wendy Williams’s recommendations in compensating all affected by the Windrush scandal.

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for this important and timely debate. I thank other Members who have spoken so eloquently about the contribution of Caribbean people to this country.

In 1948, we invited Caribbean people to come to this country to help rebuild after the terrible devastation of the war. Some were welcomed; indeed, I have an auntie and uncle who, for 40 years, offered accommodation to people coming from the Caribbean. They did it joyfully and gladly and introduced them, wherever possible, into their Methodist church. However, at the same time there were many instances where they were not welcomed and, sadly, not even welcomed into some of our churches. They experienced appalling racism, which was simply shameful.

We in the Church of England have expressed our regret and shame at the treatment of many people of that Windrush generation. Three years ago, we voted unanimously in our General Synod to apologise for any racism and to give joyful thanks for the wider contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants to British life and culture. Last week, my most reverend friend the Archbishop of Canterbury announced that the Church Commissioners are setting aside £100 million over the coming years to work with those communities adversely impacted by historic slavery—which, of course, goes way back beyond the specific point on the Windrush generation but is nevertheless part of the same phenomenon.

It is important that we, both as a Church and as a nation, continue to put right the wrongs of history. Perhaps the simplest and most effective way we can do that now is to celebrate the contribution of Caribbean people to Britain. Indeed, a large part of that contribution is seen in the many Caribbean Christian communities we have here in the UK. They have made a unique contribution to the Christian culture of our country, providing pastoral care for a little over half a million British-Caribbean people. They have championed numerous social causes, including the fight against racial injustice and knife crime. With almost three-quarters of under-25s killed in London last year coming from the Afro-Caribbean community, it is important that Caribbean churches continue their important work. We need to challenge our history of racism and celebrate the Windrush generation and Caribbean people in Britain. That is an important first step.

My Lords, the celebration of the Windrush generation is long overdue. Just think of all those men and women who were born thousands of miles away in a land they loved and left their friends and loved ones behind, making their way to the shores of this sceptred isle, seeking a better life. It was not an easy move, but they did it. It takes courage and fortitude to leave everything behind and start a new life in another country. You have to be in that situation to understand the feelings of loss you suffer in those early days and months, not to mention the slings and arrows of racial discrimination. This happened to me. I was only 14 when I came to join my father here. I remember to this day how I cried in the early weeks and months before I settled into my new life in this country.

I have great admiration for the Windrush generation, who made their way here to work in British industry and help to build this country. This celebration of them is long overdue. In acknowledging and appreciating the contribution of the Caribbean people, we should recognise that Britain owes so much of what we take for granted today to the contribution of people from across the world, particularly the Commonwealth countries, including the south Asian communities who came here after the war, seeking a better life. These were men like my father, who came to Britain in 1957 and worked in the foundries of the West Midlands, along with other immigrants who worked in not just the foundries but other heavy engineering industries as well. You have to work in those places to know what heavy and dirty work it was. It was soul-destroying. We must remember their contribution. We must also celebrate the unity among all the diverse immigrant communities at the time of the Windrush generation, who toiled alongside each other to make Britain great. Unity is a lesson we must never forget.

Once more, I congratulate the noble Baroness on organising this debate on the 75th anniversary celebration of the Windrush generation. I sincerely hope that the Government will implement all 30 recommendations of the Wendy Williams review.

My Lords, the history of Afro-Caribbeans in modern Britain begins with the arrival of the “Empire Windrush” on 21 June 1948, which brought hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean to meet the labour shortage. They had been here before; what was new with the “Empire Windrush” was that they had arrived in this form, at this point in history and at this particular destination.

What has been their contribution during the 75 years they have been here? It is immense and best understood at three levels. The first level is what I would call moral and spiritual. They have forced us to recognise our racism. When we met them, we talked about human dignity but showed little of it in our behaviour. They forced us—sometimes patiently, sometimes through struggle—to recognise their fellow humanity. In so doing, they have allowed us to raise our level of moral consciousness and raised us as a people. One people’s ability to raise the moral level of another is a great contribution for that community to make.

The second level of their contribution is very considerable. It is that they kept us going as a society. There were lots of areas where we desperately needed their labour and that labour was available, from the NHS to transport, music, drama, sports and athletics. Mention an area and you see the beginning of a new energy, which activates not only them but a lot of the British people and begins to show the emergence of new traditions and new kinds of dance and music.

The third important thing that the Windrush generation did was to be readily available for any kind of work that British society expected of them.

I end by suggesting that the Windrush generation’s contribution would have been much greater than it has been so far if only they had not been subjected to what I generally call institutionalised racism. That is a concept that some people seem to resist but I want to push it because it is absolutely valid. One comes to it if one asks a simple question. Nobody seems to practise racism, yet still it happens. I do not see anyone discriminating against me, but the reality is that I am discriminated against. How do we explain this gap between my personal experience and what is happening? It is caused by the concept of institutionalised racism. Therefore, when one talks about institutionalised racism, the important thing is not to ask, “Who did it?”. It is like a man starving to death. You ask, “Who did it?” when nobody did it. Does it mean that it is of no concern? No. The question to ask is not who did it, but how did it happen? What were the processes in our society that allowed this to happen? What could we have done? I therefore suggest that institutionalised racism is an important concept.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for securing this debate and for her powerful, positive contribution in introducing it. The noble Baroness referred to the problem of amnesia, which has had so much impact on the Windrush generation and their descendants. In the interests of making a modest contribution to tackling an amnesia that goes much further back, I will look at the part of this debate that focuses on the Caribbean contribution to Britain before the Windrush generation.

I will start in Bristol in the 1640s with a woman called Frances. We do not know her surname or anything about her origins except that she was black and worked as a maid, and it is very likely that she was either from the Caribbean or came through the Caribbean. Remember that we are in the 1640s here. We know about her because she was a leader of a radical religious congregation there and one of the church elders in that congregation, Edward Turtle, wrote about her. We have only a trace of her but she was there, contributing to British society in the 17th century.

I come forward to London in the early 19th century, to a man we know rather more about, Robert Wedderburn. He was the son of an enslaved woman from Jamaica, but his mother was sold on so he was raised by his grandmother. To escape the plantation, he joined the British Navy and then became a campaigner against the abuse of sailors, the quality of the food and the living conditions. He then moved on to write a book in 1824, The Horrors of Slavery, a tract that was hugely influential with the anti-slavery movement. We have here a person from the Caribbean contributing very significantly to British intellectual life.

I will move forward a little further and invite your Lordships perhaps to wander down to the Royal Gallery and look at the painting of the Battle of Trafalgar. Wedderburn was a member of the British Navy in that era, and about a quarter of the Navy then was from minoritised communities; significant numbers would have been from the Caribbean. I therefore invite your Lordships to go down to the Royal Gallery to look at the painting of the Battle of Trafalgar there and see how representative you think it is of the Royal Navy of the time.