Theresa May has said the decision to destroy the landing cards of Windrush migrants was taken under Labour.

The prime minister told MPs she was not home secretary when the move was approved, saying it happened in 2009.

She apologised for the distress caused to anyone told they must leave the UK.

Jeremy Corbyn said “vital historical records” were shredded and suggested the PM was trying to “blame officials”, suggesting Theresa May’s government had shown itself “callous and incompetent”.

During heated exchanges at a Prime Minister’s Questions dominated by the Windrush row, the PM said she would not take such comments from a man “who had let anti-Semitism run rife through his party”.

Asked by Mr Corbyn for “absolute clarity” on whether she had signed off the decision to destroy documents which could have proved Caribbean migrants’ arrival in the UK, she told MPs the decision was taken before she took office.

“The decision was taken in 2009. As I seem to recall, in 2009, it was a Labour home secretary who was in position,” she said.

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The children of Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK with their parents up the early 1970s were automatically granted leave to remain.

But some have recently lost their jobs and access to NHS services, or been detained in immigration removal centres, because a change in the law means they have to prove they have been living in the UK, even though they have been in the country legally for decades.

Issuing a fresh apology to those affected, the PM said Windrush migrants were “part of us” and that there was no question of forcing anyone who had made their life in the UK and was here legally to leave.

But Mr Corbyn said it was Mrs May who, as home secretary between 2010 and 2016, pushed through changes to immigration rules in 2014 designed to foster a “hostile environment” for migrants which he said had directly led to “such pain for a whole generation”.

“Isn’t it the truth that under her the Home Office became heartless and hopeless and does she not now run a government that is both callous and incompetent?” he said.

‘I have always thought I was legal’

Changes to migration rules introduced when Prime Minister Theresa May was home secretary mean those who lack documents are now being told they need evidence to continue working, access key services or even remain in the UK.

This is what happened to 60-year-old Anthony Bryan. He lost his job when he received a letter informing him he had no right to remain in the UK.

He says: “It was a shock because I have always thought I was legal, I was British. I have been here from when I was eight. I didn’t give it another thought.”

Mr Bryan, who came to Britain from Jamaica in 1965, was held in a detention centre twice for nearly three weeks last year.

He has since been given leave to remain, but is still waiting for legal paperwork to confirm his right to stay.

The landing cards, which were filled out by Commonwealth migrants arriving in the UK, a process which began with the Empire Windrush ship in 1948, had been stored in the basement of an office in Croydon.

Downing Street said their disposal was an “operational decision” taken by UK Border Force, to comply with data protection laws, which it did not criticise.

The Home Office says the cards were not definitive proof of continuous residence in the UK – it says things like employment and school records were a more reliable method.

Jacqui Smith, who was Labour home secretary until replaced by Alan Johnson in June 2009, told the BBC that it was “not a policy decision she had made”. Mr Johnson also said he “had absolutely no recollection at all of being involved” in the landing card decision.

The prime minister defended Home Secretary Amber Rudd amid Labour calls for her to “consider her position”.

Earlier Shadow Home Diane Abbott accused Ms Rudd of withholding information about how many people have been wrongly detained or deported.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today the criteria used by the Home Office to establish continued residency was “arbitrary” and officials should be allowed to use their own discretion to decide on cases.

• Windrush warning over EU citizens’ rights

And she said it was “extraordinary” that the home secretary had not taken responsibility for the scandal and blamed officials.

“It is not a new situation. It has been going on for years. She has information about who was deported and who was in detention and she needs to make that information public,” she told Today.

The Home Office has set up a task force to prevent the children of first generation Commonwealth migrants from being deported because they haven’t got the right paperwork.

It is looking at 49 cases relating to Windrush migrants as a result of calls received to a new hotline on Tuesday and has information for anyone concerned about their lack of documentation on its website.

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