Windrush Generation

Ten years ago when Labour was going to introduce ID cards for everyone, they were expected to cost £100 or more. Not cheap for many people.
I think that if ID cards were introduced and to be made compulsory then they should be free.

My main objection at the moment is that the HO couldn’t organise the proverbial in a brewery let alone a national ID card system??????

I have lived in a place where ID cards were introduced, the registration process wasn't too much of an issue it involved fingerprint and passport image.
The benefits were that included it driving license, work permit details, health insurance details and meant no waiting at immigration, no carrying photocopies of documents which had to be shown for just about everything, emergency situations could be dealt with promptly. In this particular country it was a good thing and it could be here. Most of the things that people express concerns about are generally in the public domain already or are of little security significance.

Whatever the merits of ID cards I'm deeply suspicious of them. Things have such a tendency to be used for the wrong ends; look at the way that the internet has been a malign force instead of the world shrinking, caring, sharing place it was forecast to be. (I'm not saying that it's all bad but it's certainly given free rein to a lot of things that we could wish it hadn't - like porn accessible by children, violent intolerance and hate speech on social media)

ID cards have so much potential for government misuse...

BBC website in 2006:
The UK's national ID scheme will cost £5.4bn to set up and run over the next 10 years, the Home Office says
Probably a lot more expensive now.

I believe that the Windrush children could have got British passports in the past welshwife but many didn’t apply, presumably because they thought they didn’t need a passport and the high cost.
ID cards are unlikely to be “given” to people. Ten years ago when Labour was going to introduce ID cards for everyone, they were expected to cost £100 or more. Not cheap for many people.

I agree with you loopyloo I think the remit of the Home Office has become too big and needs splitting into component parts for it to operate more effectively, and yes to ID cards

The Home Office covers so much. Perhaps there should be a separate Department for British Citizenship Status and Immigration. And yes we should have I D cards. There is a voluntary scheme, I think. Must look into that.

Interesting about other Commonwealth citizens who were legal immigrants for many many years - these people should have been given a U.K. passport years ago when the rules changed. The same goes for the EU immigrants - they are legal still and should be given some form of paper to show they are legal whether they have been here a few years or many - or indeed if they move to U.K. within the dates of Brexit.

I've never agreed with ID cards but, since so much information is in the public domain anyway - and probably in the hands of dishonest and unscrupulous people and organisations, perhaps that is now the way forward.

I can’t see life being easy for people without U.K. passports post Brexit. Even if they do automatically have “settled status” how do they prove that to employers, landlords etc?
ID cards anyone?

You'd be surprised by what goes on in local and national government. We've had a Planning Examination recently and certain papers proving land ownership by ordinary people get "lost" by the Council, trees get felled when they shouldn't be - all to grab land.

The pressure might well have been put on May by Cameron but she's had nearly 2 years as PM and she could have relieved the pressure if she'd wanted to. Rudd's letter to her about the targets makes it quite clear that the pressure was still there and was what May wanted. She created the situation in which the HO civil servants were actively looking for 'illegal' immigrants and catching anyone in their net because they had targets to achieve. The WG was nice low hanging fruit.

None of this seems very clear. My GS has a British passport - does that mean he is a British citizen or a British subject as he was not born here? Could he live here or would he be deported at 18?

What is not clear is what is proof that you are a legal UK citizen. Is it your passport? Is it proof of residency? I think it about time we had a citizenship database and I D cards. And clear information about it.
My DH came from New Zealand but applied for British Citizenship around 1980. Might he be deported???

I think T May will be able to ride this out.What about HO officials who should have spoken to A Rudd before she answered questions?I think it best that she did resign after all, and think Javid will get cracking on this very complicated HO policy for dealing with immigration ( which the WG children should never have been lumped in with all others.)
There should be no problem with having targets for deporting illegal immigrants, it’s a completely different thing,as Barry Gardiner said on the DP at lunchtime.

The pressure on Theresa May was put on her by David Cameron who is no longer to be found.

I hope the Home Office pull their socks up because there are three million EU citizens who are eligible to apply for “settled status” after Brexit.
They could well fall into a similar Home Office quagmire of lengthy application forms, dodgy IT systems, requests for ID checks, lost paperwork, HO officials with targets to meet and the fact that many (stay at home mums and carers for example) may not have enough documents to prove their length of residence.

Botch up no.1 the WG and their descendants are here legally, surely. No question of illegality should have arisen in their case.

Botch up no 2, it strikes me that the HO has no systems for dealing with or indeed identifying potential illegal immigrants. They don't know who they are, where they are or how many there are.

That needs sorting before any action can be taken.

Well, the new Home Office SS is Sajid Javid. A safe pair of non dissenting hands. But people will be watching to see that he doesn't try to cover up for May? Will the 'hostile environment' policy be somewhat modified now, I wonder?

I don't think it can take pressure off Theresa May lemon; the letter published by the Guardian is evidence that TM knew that Amber Rudd was lying when she said she knew nothing of any targets. I think TM is now utterly compromised.

I think it takes pressure off May, which is probably why Rudd has resigned.
What it needs now, even more than a resignation,is that things change and all the WG get the status they need, and where applicable, compensation.

Amber Rudd has just “reluctantly” resigned over the Home Office deportation targets that are thought to have contributed to the Windrush debacle.
Does this put pressure on Theresa May? Or let May, the previous Home Office minister off the hook?

It makes you wonder what next will be found. Britain still behaving like 150 years ago when we had an Empire.

But it was cosy not having to have an identity card, when I took over my mother's council house after her death I produced a postcard from Whitby adressed to me at that address. This was enough proof although I had left home and lived in a flat for a year.
Surely a NI card must do for proof of indentity but actually it only works if there is computer recognition of all the millions of cards.
I can't imagine Europeans in the UK feeling safe now after I have read this long but very interesting thread. But that is in the future, I just hope that WCs people get justice and that it is not too late for those seriously ill,

I have not been proud of being British for years since I have lived abroad where you realise what an old fashioned idea it is. We can only be proud of what we have personally achieved and need not beat ourselves up about the government's behavior.

From Hansard for 27 April-

Hon. Members

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 11 May.

British Indian Ocean Territory (Citizenship) Bill

Motion made,