AS Sajid Javid was unveiled as the UK’s new Home Secretary, the SNP warned that blame for “toxic Tory immigration policies” lay at the feet of Theresa May.
Javid took over at the Home Office after Amber Rudd was forced to stand down amid a scandal over deportation targets.
READ MORE: UK should aim for the same ‘hospitable environment’ we have in Scotland
Speaking in the Commons less than 24 hours after her resignation, he said he would end the “hostile environment” immigration policy.
However, the SNP have warned that the deportation targets and Windrush scandal stem from the Prime Minister herself, and argued wider changes were needed.
SNP MP Joanna Cherry said: “I welcome Sajid Javid to his role but the UK Home Office needs much more than a change of personnel. The blame for the Windrush scandal lies firmly at the door of Theresa May and her toxic Tory immigration policies.
Profile: Sajid Javid and his ‘dreadful record on immigration’
“The Home Secretary must immediately undertake a root and branch review of UK immigration policy, scrap the UK Government’s damaging arbitrary net migration targets, and end its inhumane hostile environment approach.
“The SNP has consistently called on the Tories and Labour to ditch their toxic anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, and instead back a sensible, evidence-based immigration policy that recognises the huge benefits to our economy and society.
“UK Government immigration policy is failing Scotland. In addition to UK-wide reforms it is vital that immigration powers are devolved to the Scottish Parliament so that we can create a fair system that works for Scotland and the specific needs of our economy.”
READ MORE: Tory immigration policy has failed – we need to attract foreign workers
Javid started his tenure with a “pledge to those from the Windrush generation who have been in this country for decades and yet have struggled to navigate through the immigration system”.
He told MPs the phrase “hostile environment” was “unhelpful and does not represent [our] values as a country”.
Though Rudd’s exit on Sunday night spawned from the Windrush scandal, where men and women from the Caribbean who arrived in the UK between the 1940s to 1970s were caught up in the “hostile environment” and told to prove that they had a right to be here, it was, in the end, questions over targets for enforced removals of illegal immigrants that brought her down.
The former home secretary last week told MPs her department could “sometimes loses sight of the individual”.
Over the next few days, officials in the department leaked a series of damaging memos, emails and letters showing the Tory politician had either purposefully, inadvertently or incompetently, misled parliament.
Rudd had told MPs that she was not aware of Home Office set targets for the number of people to be removed, but an official document leaked to the Guardian, originally copied to Rudd, showed 12,800 enforced returns, then on Sunday the paper had a letter written by Rudd to May in January 2017 about increasing enforced removals by 10 per cent.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Rudd had been the “human shield” for the Prime Minister.
But during a local election campaign visit to Greater Manchester, Theresa May, Britain’s home secretary until two years ago, attempted to distance herself from the bourach in the Home Office.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to Brooklands Primary School in Sale, Greater Manchester, May was asked three times if the Windrush scandal was a resignation matter for her or if she should take responsibility for it. She did not answer.
May said: “The Windrush generation are British, they are here, they are part of us and what we have done is, in recognising the concern that has been raised, put a team in place that will be working with people to ensure that they get the documents that are necessary.”
Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said it should have been May and not Javid facing MPs.
She said: “We want to talk to her about the aspects of the so-called hostile environment which she was responsible for and led to the Windrush fiasco.”
Abbott added later: “All roads lead back to Theresa May and her tenure as Home Secretary.”
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