The £10,000 refugee tax must be scrapped | Letters

Such a punitive measure will leave people at risk of exploitation and severe poverty, says Mark Joselin of the Refugee Council

Cabinet ministers are right to be worried about the potential impact of the new asylum bill (Mahmood infuriates fellow ministers by failing to reveal impact of UK migration shake-up, 30 October). The proposed refugee tax unfairly punishes refugees by threatening to slap most with a £10,000 tax once they are granted refugee status, a clear breach of the UN refugee convention.

It is aimed at those who arrived with nothing and were not allowed to work while their claims were being assessed, and it ignores the reality that refugees already contribute through the tax system.