Tax error is ‘terrorism’

SIR – The Windrush story roused outrage. But another story of injustice by the Home Office has ruined the lives of 1,000 skilled migrants such as teachers, doctors or engineers on the Government’s list of occupations in which Britain is short of skills. Many have lived here for a decade or more and have British-born children.

I cite three examples. One is a former health- and social-care inspector, who came 11 years ago as a student from Zimbabwe on a British Council scholarship. She has three children. The second is a highly paid computer programmer from India, married with two children, one born here. The third a lecturer at City College Plymouth, who taught engineers at the Ministry of Defence. He came as a student from Pakistan, married with two children, born here.

All three have been refused indefinite leave to remain, are barred from employment, renting property or using the NHS, and face deportation. All have spent their savings, mostly on legal fees, and face destitution. The lady from Zimbabwe dares not undress at night for fear an enforcement team will knock at her door to arrest and remove her. The lecturer’s wife suffers from a pulmonary embolism; a son has a hole in his heart. He has survived on support from former students and friends.

What crime justified such draconian punishment? They made legitimate amendments to their tax returns, mistakes which they legally corrected. HM Revenue and Customs found the mistakes were unintended and imposed no fines or interest charges. But the Home Office unilaterally decided their conduct made them a “threat to national security”!

The Home Office has acted with unbelievable inhumanity and has ignored a basic principle of law: that one is innocent until proved guilty.

Tax errors used to be dealt with under subparagraph 322(1) of the Immigration Rules, designed to deal with false returns. It required the Home Office to prove dishonesty. It kept losing cases and failed to achieve its removal targets, so turned instead to subparagraph 322(5), designed for serious crimes such as murder and terrorism – wholly inappropriate for legitimate amendments of tax returns.

Under this provision taxpayers must not only prove their innocence but also that the Home Office was perverse or unreasonable in deciding to remove them. This takes expensive appeals for which legal aid is not available.

Half a million Britons who annually make unintended errors in their tax returns are not fined; migrants who do so are treated as terrorists.

What has happened to us? We used to be admired for our respect for justice and the rule of law.

Lord Taverne (Lib Dem)

London SW1