However it emerged that last year many West Indians had been wrongly detained, denied legal rights and threatened with deportation. At least 83 people were wrongly deported, with many being born British subjects who had arrived before 1973 from Caribbean countries in the “Windrush generation”. Mr Williams was the Home Office’s head of migration policy between August 2010 and 2013 and becomes a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. 

The then Home Secretary, Theresa May, said in 2012 her aim was to create “a really hostile environment for illegal migration”.

Last year, Mr Williams sat alongside Mrs May’s successor, Amber Rudd, while she was grilled by the Commons home affairs select committee over removal targets. Ms Rudd resigned after “inadvertently” misleading MPs.

Stephen Doughty, Labour MP, said: “It will be galling to victims of the Windrush scandal and other mess-ups in the Home Office over the past decade to see officials who oversaw these scandals rewarded handsomely.”

The Windrush name came from the Empire Windrush, the ship that brought one of the first groups ofWest Indian migrants in 1948.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said last November that at least 11 people who had been wrongly deported had died since returning to the Caribbean.

Mr Javid said officials had also been unable to contact many thought to have been caught up in the scandal, suggesting the toll could be higher.

He said there were 83 cases in which it had been confirmed people were wrongfully removed from the country and officials fear there may be a further 81.

The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, called the revelations a “complete disgrace”.

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