Thread by @WindrushLives

In a written reply to @Stuart_McDonald yesterday, @pritipatel made a number of startling revelations, documented here by @maybulman: [1/12] independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

As ever, there's more than one calamity to unpack here, so we'll limit ourselves to preliminary payments.

These are £10k awards that were rolled out in December to much self-congratulation as to how well @ukhomeoffice was listening to victims, how much it had achieved. [2/12]

Here comes the other shoe: when these payments were announced, @ukhomeoffice said - no equivocation - "We will ensure that [those with] pending applications will be considered for either a preliminary or final payment in the first 3 months of 2021." [3/12] gov.uk/government/new…

Fast-forward to yesterday, and there seems to be a whole new step in the process: [4/12] questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questi…

This might seem trivial, even sensible - shouldn't the HO check people are actually eligible?

Consider: 1,996 applications had been received as of the March WCS dataset. 112 claims have been rejected for eligibility overall, which is less than 6%. [5/12] gov.uk/government/pub…

By its own stats then [receipts unavailable], there aren't exactly many ineligible claims.

Let's say we let that slide.

The bigger problem is that not one claimant we know of has heard of this 'eligibility check'. [6/12]

I.e. no claimant we know has been contacted by phone, email, letter, smoke signal, pigeon etc, at any time before a full decision, to confirm/deny eligibility.

Which of course makes it impossible to scrutinise whether the HO makes those £10k payments within 6 weeks. [7/12]

This "eligibility check" appears to us to be - and I'm going to use the technical term here - bullshit, confected ad-hoc by a panicked policy bod to give @ukhomeoffice cover when it fails to do what it says it will do - pay the preliminary award - quickly, in good faith. [8/12]

Why are we making a meal of this?

It is part of a pattern of gaslighting, false promises and unabashed piss-taking.

Every passing week counts. This is an aging cohort. Many applicants are *right now* crumbling under mountains of debt and living on the edge. [9/12]

Every time this disingenuous, unfit-for-purpose department says or does something like this, it's another punch to the gut for the already marginalised people that it put in this position. Every promise is broken - the question is only how spectacular the deceit will be. [10/12]

Make no mistake - this IS the hostile environment, still alive, very much kicking people it has already ruined once again in the teeth.

We've tried - we really have - to cut them slack for operational issues, turnover of personnel, misalignment of chakras. [11/12]

There's only one explanation left: @ukhomeoffice has utter contempt for the Windrush generation.

It can't be trusted with the Windrush Compensation Scheme.

The Scheme must be taken away urgently, and we hope @CommonsHomeAffs (@Stuart_McDonald) sees that. [12/12]