An inquiry by Britain’s Home Office of its use of an anti-terror rule to deny visas to highly-skilled workers who had made errors in their tax submissions has concluded that it was “reasonable” for decision-makers to adopt the approach they did but has acknowledged the need to overturn at least 12 rulings.

In a report published on Thursday, following a six- month review, the Home Office concluded that the use of the controversial Paragraph 322 (5) — used to deny settlement rights to those deemed a criminal or security risk — was appropriate where a person’s “character and conduct has been called into question as a result of potentially false information they had provided” the tax authorities in the UK.

Last year, a protest movement called Highly Skilled UK began to draw attention to the use of 322(5) to deny settlement rights to individuals — largely from South Asia and many from India — because of rectifications made to their tax statements. Individuals pointed to instances where the changes they had made were accepted by the HM Revenue and Customs Service.

Drawing parallels

The group raised concerns that the rule was being used with increasing frequency inappropriately to further the Home Office’s targets to reduce net migration to the UK. A number of Parliamentarians raised concerns in the legislature, accusing the government of using “inappropriate” and “heavy handed” tactics.

Some drew parallels between potential injustices to individuals and the controversy whereby Commonwealth migrants who had been in the UK since the 1950s had been wrongly treated as illegals (widely known as the Windrush scandal).

Since 2015, over 1,600 settlement applications have been made on these grounds. The Home Office said that in the majority of cases there were discrepancies between the income in tax statements and what was put forward to meet the earning threshold for settlement. However, it acknowledged that in at least 37 cases, errors had been made and individuals were granted settlement status. In 19 others further details were being sought.

Aditi Bhardwaj of the Highly Skilled UK group welcomed the fact that the Home Office had acknowledged mistakes in a few cases, while in some decisions are pending. “We look forward to the court of appeal providing clarity on some of these issues in upcoming hearings early next year and will consider in the light of these further rulings.”

She appealed to the government to help those who had been left in limbo ahead of that decision.”Why not give these migrants all the rights until the judgement comes from the Court of Appeal? At least they can work, live legally, feed their families and not lose any of their mental sanity any more.”

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