MPs accuse home secretary of protecting PM over Windrush

Amber Rudd has been accused of protecting the prime minister over the Home Office’s failure to get to grips with the Windrush scandal, after she refused to identify the “hostile environment” strategy as a major factor.

The home secretary said she deeply regretted not spotting the problem of a generation of Britons being wrongly targeted by immigration authorities, vowing there would be a culture change in her department.

However, there was immediate confusion over whether she had sanctioned regional targets for deporting migrants, with Rudd at odds with the head of immigration service union who claimed they appeared on posters across the Home Office estate.

Rudd came under continued pressure over the Windrush debacle at prime minister’s questions when Jeremy Corbyn accused her of inheriting a “cruel and misdirected” policy from Theresa May and making it worse.

The prime minister struggled to get the upper hand in a series of tetchy exchanges with the Labour leader during which she insisted the government was committed to making sure those who were entitled to be in Britain could remain.

May added that it was also right to clamp down on illegal immigration. “Up and down this country people want to ensure the government is taking action against those people who are here in this country illegally,” she told MPs.

The prime minister denied the hostile environment had affected the Windrush generation, saying: “The problem at the time is that they were not documented with that right, and that is what we are now putting right.”

Earlier this week, Rudd unveiled an emergency package of measures in an attempt to draw a line under the affair, but the Home Office has remained under pressure as new cases continue to emerge.

Under the government’s plans, thousands of people will be offered the chance to obtain British citizenship free of charge and without the requirement to take language tests. A compensation scheme for those affected by the failings will be introduced within weeks.

During her grilling from the home affairs select committee on Wednesday, Rudd remained steadfastly loyal to May.

The home secretary, who Tory ministers expect to survive in her role as long as no new scandals emerge, was accused of protecting the prime minister, her predecessor at the Home Office, after refusing to say whether May was responsible for the department ending up too focused on policy, rather than people.

“I think the Home Office needs to have a more human face ... I’m trying to look forward to make those changes now. I want the Home Office to have more personal focus,” she said.

However, asked whether the fault lay with changes that she had implemented, rather than her predecessor, she said: “That would be for others to judge ... I don’t think I can give a clear answer to that.”

Labour’s John Woodcock, who sits on the committee, told Rudd: “You could give a clear answer but you’re choosing not to because you’re choosing to protect the previous incumbent of the home department, who is the prime minister.”

The home secretary also refused to identify the so-called hostile environment immigration policy brought in by May – which requires people to proactively prove their status – as a specific failing.

Rudd again appeared to deflect blame from the current government, saying the Windrush problem had been around for decades, and it was “disappointing no previous governments saw this coming.”

Lucy Moreton, the head of the ISU immigration workers’ union, told the commitee that the changes introduced by May in 2011 had made a difference.

Before then, she told MPs, immigration case workers dealing with a Windrush generation person could assess their case by checking their knowledge of events such as the 1977 silver jubilee and the the 1976 drought, adding: “That level of discretion is no longer permitted.”

Rudd later said she hoped to give immigration staff more discretion to assess people’s cases to prevent anything similar happening again.

She also told the MPs that the government was still checking to confirm no Windrush citizens had been wrongly deported, and had not yet begun to assess how many might have been detained over their supposed immigration status.

Asked by the committee chair, Labour’s Yvette Cooper, when she first learned of the issue, Rudd replied: “I became aware over the past few months, I would say, that there was a problem of individuals I was seeing.

“This was covered by newspapers, and MPs bringing it forward anecdotally over the past three or four months, and I became aware that there was a potential issue.”

She continued: “I bitterly, deeply regret that I didn’t see it as more than individual cases gone wrong that needed addressing. I didn’t see it as a systemic issue until very recently.”

The home secretary paid tribute to the “extraordinary job” done by the Guardian’s Amelia Gentleman, who had been highlighting the issue for more than six months.

Rudd caused confusion over the existence of regional targets for deportations, which she claimed to be unaware of, prompting Cooper to suggest that she might “lack a grip” on the system.

She confirmed she had asked for more removals to take place generally, of around 12,000 people a year, adding that there was “nothing wrong” with trying to remove people who were here illegally.

However, after the hearing, Moreton said: “Net removal targets certainly do exist, and I’m somewhat bemused as to why the home secretary would say they do not.”

The home secretary denied that the Tories’ target to bring net migration below 100,000 – which she has previously refused to say whether she would stick to – had fuelled the saga.

“I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it. It’s wrong to think the net migration target is the problem here. The problem here is that people were not properly documented,” Rudd said.

She denied she had discussed the net migration target in the context of the whole Windrush scandal with May, but refused to be drawn on “private conversations” they have had more generally on the issue.

Satbir Singh, chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, told the MPs there was now a “decision-making culture of suspicion”, based around “inflexible and unrealistic evidentiary burdens”.

Singh said that even though he is a UK national born in the country, he was recently asked to prove his immigration status when renting a flat. As his passport was at an embassy to get a visa he missed out. He said: “That, for me, was a clear coalface indictment of how this works.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We want immigration enforcement to deport more people who are here illegally and tackle illegal immigration which puts pressure on taxpayer-funded public services and exploits the vulnerable. But it’s never been Home Office policy to take decisions arbitrarily to meet a target.”