Priti Patel must explain why she is keeping the divisive and unfair tax for overseas NHS workers

It turns out that it was just another mixed message from a government minister at the socially distanced lectern of the daily coronavirus briefing. Three weeks ago, Priti Patel, the home secretary, said the surcharge for NHS staff from abroad was “under review”.

Today, The Independent reports exclusively that there will be no change to what ministers consider the “important” principle that everyone coming to work in the UK contributes extra for the NHS.

The immigration health surcharge is perhaps the most outrageous of a panoply of fees and charges increasingly paid by people wanting to live and work in this country. It breaches an important principle, in that it does not even pretend to be a fee to cover the administration costs of a visa or work permit – it is an extra tax, intended for the NHS, on immigrants. In the Budget in March, Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, announced the surcharge would be raised from £400 a year to £624.

But all workers in this country already pay for the NHS (and everything else) through their taxes. It is wrong in principle that immigrants should be required to pay twice. This injustice became even starker with the arrival of the coronavirus. The nation was grateful to carers looking after the ill and the vulnerable, and to key workers keeping the country going, and no less grateful to those who had come from abroad.

Hence the question to Ms Patel on 25 April, asking if she would scrap the surcharge at least on NHS staff who are helping to fight the epidemic. She said: “We are looking at everything, including visas and surcharge. We are looking at everything now in terms of what we can do to continue to support everyone on the front line of the NHS.”

Now The Independent has learned that the government intends the surcharge to stay, and for the increase due in October to go ahead. Ms Patel and the prime minister need to explain and justify this decision. It makes a mockery of the prime minister’s praise for the nurses from Portugal and New Zealand who looked after him in St Thomas’ hospital. It undermines the moral authority of the government in claiming that we as a nation face the challenge of the virus together.

Of course, we understand that the economic situation is perilous and the government’s revenues have been shredded. But the time for tax rises is certainly not now, or at any time in the near future. Especially this divisive, unfair and unjustified tax. It should be abolished at once.