THE Equality and Human Rights Commission is launching legal action to review the Home Office’s “hostile environment” policy, which led to the Windrush scandal.

The watchdog said that it was using its statutory powers to carry out an assessment of whether the Home Office complied with its public-sector equality duty in drawing up the policy, which was devised when Theresa May was home secretary.

The policy of deterring illegal immigration continued under her successor, Amber Rudd, who was forced to resign in April 2018 after the scandal was exposed and she admitting having misled MPs.