THOUSANDS of victims of the Windrush scandal are to share in a £100million compensation scheme, the Sun can reveal.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid is finally ready to unveil details of the redress programme after months of internal wrangling in Whitehall.
PA:Press Association
Sources said an announcement detailing the application process for Commonwealth-era citizens affected by the immigration chaos would come as early as this week.
Home Office officials claim at least 15,000 may have a right to compensation for being wrongly deported, forced out of their job or losing access to benefits.
The Sun last month revealed the Home Secretary had warned Treasury that the bill could cost anywhere between £150million to £310million.
The Chancellor earlier this month agreed to hand the Home Office “around £100million” to get the scheme off the ground.
A Whitehall insider said: “The Home Office got about £100million for this as part of a bigger package of money. Sajid had been warning the scheme was unaffordable without the extra money.
“In a way the cost will depend on how many have a claim but the good news is that it’s finally ready to go.”
The move comes almost a year after the Home Secretary vowed to “do right” by the Windrush generation – who arrived in Britain between 1948 and 1973.
Thousands who never ‘regularised’ their status in Britain were caught out by Theresa May’s crackdown on illegal immigration when she ran the Home Office.
The Home Office launched a consultation on a compensation scheme in July but was forced to rush out a small scale hardship fund offering a maximum £5,000 per person in December while the plans were thrashed out.
Recent figures revealed just TWO people had been awarded money under the hardship fund.
Officials feared the delays to a full blown compensation scheme would force the Windrush generation to seek redress through the courts, handing the Government an even bigger bill given the legal fees.
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