Lord Cormack: ...’ verdict last year that we should give an unconditional guarantee from the word go. They are now apprehensive and, although I believe that it is entirely unnecessary for them to worry about the Windrush effect, nevertheless they are worried. So I hope that, when responding to this debate, which I trust will be brief, my noble friend will be able to give comfort not only to the noble...
Lord Cormack: ..., but not the end for those who suffered—not the end for those who were told that here was a perfect digital system that could not conceivably be wrong; no, that was wrong. We should also remember Windrush—people put into a position of terrible distress because their bona fides were not accepted. Surely we can learn from these things. Surely we can learn from the experiences to which...
Lord Cormack: ...ago, a woman who has demonstrated that she does care. She has not been given a kind brief. She is acting as a mouthpiece for a government department that does not have a history of great humanity. Windrush was mentioned. If many of those people who suffered as a result of maladministration—and that is what it was—had had this sort of physical proof, we would not have gone through those...
Lord Cormack: ...friend accept that we are getting rather fed up with the tardiness of the payment of compensation, whether it is to postmasters, those who had bad blood products or this very important group, the Windrush people? Will he therefore not be complacent about saying that there are 41% still to be dealt with but rather say that the 41% will be dealt with well before the end of this year?
Lord Cormack: ..., who made a passionate and at times justifiably angry speech, and who was herself very properly recognised and made a member of the illustrious Order of Merit. There can be no better example of the Windrush generation and what we are talking about today. It was also appropriate that the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, talked quite considerably at the beginning of her speech about the...
Lord Cormack: ...more human and more humane. If there is a particular thing that illustrates what I am trying to say—and it was raised earlier this afternoon, and I raised it myself in the gap when we debated the Windrush generation on Friday—it is that this incident of the painting out of murals designed only to amuse unaccompanied children sends out a message that, frankly, is not worthy of our...
Lord Cormack: ...that an innocent man or woman is punished. But we have to recognise that this is not the only scandal. I suppose we really ought to urge ITV to do a series on the contaminated blood scandal and on Windrush. This is one of a number, although I believe it to be the worst, in both numbers and content—but it is not the only one. We in this House, and our colleagues in the other place, have...