Rudd clings on by her fingertips as PM says Home Office should do more to help Windrush citizens

Amber Rudd is facing calls to quit after the Prime Minister said the Home Office should do more to help Windrush citizens and officials confirmed 113 people have already contacted an emergency helpline.

A spokesman for Theresa May told a briefing that the department "should provide more support" to people concerned about their status in the UK and Labour MPs called for Ms Rudd to consider her position.

More than 100 Windrush citizens have already called a special helpline set up to help them prove their right to stay in the UK after it was announced on Monday, officials confirmed. On Tuesday, 49 people had called to ask for help.

It comes as a mother of a Windrush migrant who died while he was waiting for his status in the UK to be approved claimed he had become depressed and anxious by his dealings with the Home Office, which contributed to his death.

Dexter Bristol had lived in the UK since 1968 and was sacked from his cleaning job last year because he did not have a passport. He was later denied benefits after officials claimed he was in the country illegally.  He collapsed outside his home and died aged 57 last month.

In a furious exchange with Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons Theresa May, the former Home Secretary, denied she was responsible for the Windrush row and her spokesman later appeared to pin blame on Ms Rudd and her team.

Mrs May revealed the decision to destroy the landing cards of Windrush migrants was taken under a Labour Government in 2009, not while she was head of the Home Office in 2010. 

However her spokesman later confirmed the operational decision to actually destroy the records had been taken in October 2010, as the Home Office initially stated. Mrs May was not involved. 

Ms Rudd has been under fire over how Windrush citizens have been treated for days, after it emerged some people who came to the UK legally in the 1950s and 60s and were granted the right to stay may have been deported after they were unable to prove their arrival date. 

The Home Office has been unable to say whether anyone has been deported, or left of their own accord fearing they no longer had the right to live in Britain. 

Issuing an apology, the Prime Minister hit back at claims that she was responsible after she implemented a "hostile environment" policy in 2012 during her time in the Home Office, designed to clamp down on illegal immigration. 

It made it difficult for people to live and work in Britain without formal papers stating their right to remain, which the Windrush migrants were never given. 

The Prime Minister hit back at Labour's accusations the Government had been "callous and incompetent", telling Jeremy Corbyn she would not take lessons "from a man who allows anti-Semitism to run rife in his party".

It followed a highly personal attack by the Labour leader who said it was her "pandering to bogus immigration targets" when she was home secretary that had cost people jobs, homes and pensions.

Mr Corbyn also accused the Government of destroying thousands of landing cards of Commonwealth citizens, which could have helped confirm their immigration status. 

Mrs May said: "These people are British. They are part of us. I want to be absolutely clear that we have no intention of asking anyone to leave who has the right to remain here," she told MPs.

"For those who have mistakenly received letters challenging them, I want to apologise to them and I want to say sorry to anyone who has been caused confusion and anxiety by this." 

However in a briefing afterwards her spokesman appeared to lay the blame at Ms Rudd's door, telling a journalist who asked who was responsible for the failure to help Windrush migrants: "Clearly the Home Office should provide more support". 

He added that nobody is "seeking to avoid their fair share of responsibility" for the problem and later confirmed that the Prime Minister has full confidence in Ms Rudd, but his remarks appeared to suggest the Home Office needs to do more to tackle the growing row. 

The shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott called for Ms Rudd to resign, but the Prime Minister is also under fire for her part in the row.

Sentina Bristol, Mr Bristol's mother, said: “I think Theresa May should resign. I don’t enjoy saying that. This situation has to be amended,” she said. “My son is British. We didn’t come here illegally.”

A Home Office spokesman said Mr Bristol made no applications to them and urged his family to get in touch. He added: “Our condolences are with Mr Bristol’s family and friends at this clearly difficult time." 

It came as Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, raised the Windrush issue with MEPs in Brussels and warned the EU must be "cautious" over new migration agreements.

His remarks follow a similar call from Guy Verhofstadt, who said the issue could raise concerns for EU citizens living in the UK who may be asked to prove their right to stay after Britain leaves the union.