Thread by @WindrushLives

🚨THREAD🚨: Everything you say is a lie, misdirection, wrong, stupid or pointless

@pritipatel and @MatthewRycroft1 appeared before @CommonsHomeAffs on Weds; also on Weds, @ukhomeoffice unveiled its latest "overhaul" of the Windrush Compensation Scheme.
1/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice The events of this week make it more important than ever that Windrush victims - *esp* those that have not yet applied for compensation - complete the survey we and @GoodLawProject have developed. windrushlives.goodlawproject.org

2/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject Because as you'll see down-thread, @ukhomeoffice, @pritipatel and @MatthewRycroft1 have proven (again, in a more cartoonishly calamitous fashion than usual) that they can't be held to account, won't tell the truth, and can't handle their basic job requirements.

3/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject I cannot face having to take you through what unfolded at the HASC in words, so I've just marked up the transcript.

Anything struck out is waffle or repetition; anything in blue is a lie, half-truth, misdirect, or inaccuracy; and purple denotes... Jesus-wept.
4/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject The HASC session opened w a simple q: could the Home Sec ensure, seeing as she has *learned the lessons of the Windrush Scandal*, that if a person hadn't applied to the EUSS in time, they wouldn't be cut off from the NHS and have to bear an UPFRONT cost for treatment?
5/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject The HO has been sitting on a report about the conditions of barracks accommodation - why, asked @Stuart_McDonald.

There are TWO reports - 1 by the Chief Insp of Prisons, and 1 by the Chief Insp of Borders and Immigrations. That's it. That's the level of complexity here.
6/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald Dame @DianaJohnsonMP, evidently aware of what she'd be dealing with, did ALL the groundwork and collated 4 separate sources showing @ukhomeoffice's Covid lab dormitories were opened before public health advice was implemented, then continued to be operated in contravention.
7/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP Absolutely scenes ensued.
8/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP I'm throwing this one in out of spite, because it appears to show the Home Secretary coming to grips with the concept that a judgment is based on events leading up to it, not events in the future, in the manner of an infant discovering its feet for the first time.
9/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP It gets (more) depressing from here.

@ukhomeoffice rolled out its nth "update" to the Windrush Compensation Scheme.

The headline is that there is no longer an end date (it was supposed to be 2021, then 2023). gov.uk/government/new…
10/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP There isn't any point in (re)moving a deadline if you're not going to do the thing for which you set the deadline.

It's a red, dead herring, because, as it turns out, the planning assumption - i.e. the Treasury budgeting assumption - for the Scheme has been revised.
11/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP At the start of the Scheme, 15,000 claimants were expected. Around October 2019, that was downgraded to 11,500 - **based on the fact that in Sep 2019, only 790 apps were received**.

That is now being downgraded to BETWEEN 4 AND 6 THOUSAND.

https://twitter.com/WindrushLives/status/1395633447020937219?s=20

12/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP The reason, each time, hasn't been based even *remotely* on anything like research into how many claimants there might be.

As someone cleverer than me put it, the HO has gone from marking its own homework to changing the answers in the rubric as well.
13/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP Bear in mind, the Windrush Scheme - which naturalised many (but by no means all, as we are finding) of those caught out, received 20k applications.

Questioned about this by @HackneyAbbott...
14/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP @HackneyAbbott Having said she's cut the assumption from 11.5k claimants to 4-6k, @pritipatel then implies she hasn't quite done it. It isn't easy. But also she's done it. But she didn't/doesn't (?) want to have done it.

Ultimately, it (planning assumption) doesn't mean anything anyway!
15/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP @HackneyAbbott Left to its devices, @ukhomeoffice will maintain this hot, putrid mess for eternity. There is nothing to stop it adding a sentence here and moving a sub-clause there once every 6 months and calling it "stakeholder engagement" through which it is "learning lessons".
16/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP @HackneyAbbott (We'll talk about these "stakeholders" and how they are working and ultimately informing @ukhomeoffice another time.)
17/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP @HackneyAbbott In this unusual political climate, there is nothing to stop someone like @pritipatel, happily unburdened by a moral core, from letting the Windrush Compensation Scheme drag fruitlessly on for long enough that the problem takes care of itself, i.e. victims die of old age.
18/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP @HackneyAbbott The Home Sec has made clear her view that the Compensation Scheme must stay with @ukhomeoffice.

She is wrong about that (and so much more, often with such flourish). The Scheme must be independent from govt. #WindrushInjustice #BreakTheHE
19/20

@pritipatel @MatthewRycroft1 @CommonsHomeAffs @ukhomeoffice @GoodLawProject @Stuart_McDonald @DianaJohnsonMP @HackneyAbbott It is crucial that victims - which of course include children and family members of the first generation Windrush emigre in each case - come forth and make their views known.

If we let them, they will wait it out. windrushlives.goodlawproject.org
20/20