UK Home Secretary facing legal action for Windrush compensation scheme

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel is facing legal action for the Windrush Compensation Scheme's failure to pay victims – with just five per cent receiving money in the four years since the scandal came to light.

Two groups, Windrush Lives and Good Law Project, are asking for control of  the Home Office-run scheme to be given to an independent organisation to ensure victims receive long-awaited justice.

Launched in response to the Windrush scandal that broke in 2018, the scheme has been hampered by extensive delays and bureaucratic hurdles.

In a 24-page pre-action protocol letter, seen by The Independent newspaper, the home secretary is given a December 23 deadline to cease operating the scheme.

The Windrush generation are people, including Jamaicans, who arrived in Britain between 1948 and 1973, many of  whom were later wrongly classified by the Home Office as illegal immigrants.

Many lost jobs and their homes, were denied health care and threatened with deportation.