Migrants Will Soon Need To Speak Fluent English

Migrants coming to live and work in Britain will be expected to speak much better English under a bold new crackdown from Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government.

Ministers will demand that overseas workers meet a significantly higher standard of English before being granted a UK visa in a sweeping overhaul of the immigration system, which will be unveiled in a white paper next week.

Right now, all that is required of migrants is a rudimentary command of the language, which is the same as a GCSE. Currently, nevertheless, this is seen as being much too low to permit appropriate absorption into British society.

According to the revised suggestions, applicants will need to be able to write eloquently and talk fluently on complicated topics, raising the bar to a far higher level that is comparable to the A-level norm.

The move comes as Labour faces mounting pressure to tackle Britain’s record net migration, which hit 728,000 last year. 

The government also wants to get more than 9 million people who are presently out of work in the UK back into employment.

Sources say that under the new plans, migrants will be told in no uncertain terms: if you want to come to Britain, you must contribute, and that means learning the language and embracing British values.

It is understood that successful asylum seekers will also need to meet the higher English criterion before they can apply for permanent settlement – usually after five years.

The forthcoming immigration blueprint will also set out more stringent checks on English knowledge and is expected to include efforts to guarantee new arrivals are aligned with ‘British values’ such as democracy, religious tolerance and respect for the law. But ministers are still working on how this will be tested in practice.

Presently, questions about UK values only appear in the ‘Life in the UK’ test, which migrants take after living in the country for several years.

In a further move to cut the country’s dependency on overseas workers, British employers will be told to prioritise training home-grown talent. 

Industries facing labour shortages, including engineering, tech and construction, will be ordered to boost apprenticeship numbers or risk losing access to foreign staff.

Specific workforce plans, supervised by the appropriate departments, will be provided to each industry to increase recruitment and skill levels in the UK.

It is also anticipated that the Prime Minister would openly acknowledge that the Brexit-era points-based immigration system has fallen short of expectations.

A senior government insider told The Times that the plans will ‘take tighter control to deliver a system that is controlled, selective and fair’.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, have already rejected the measures as being too little, too late.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp hit out at Labour’s approach, branding it ‘cosmetic tinkering’ that won’t stop immigration from spiralling.

‘Labour will once again be tinkering with the system via another cosmetic announcement, which will make very little practical difference. 

‘If they were serious about getting immigration down they would back the Conservative proposals which we will be pressing in the Commons on Monday: an annual binding vote in parliament to set a migration cap, repealing the Human Rights Act from immigration matters to end absurd claims in UK courts, and raising the migrant salary threshold across the board.’  

It comes as spending watchdogs warn that asylum accommodation, including hotels, will cost the taxpayer £15 billion over 10 years.

The overall bill is more than triple the Home Office’s initial estimate, data from the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed.

Contracts were originally predicted to cost £4.5 billion over a decade from 2019 but are now anticipated to run to £15.3 billion over the same period, after the Channel crisis exploded.

It means that on average, the taxpayer will spend £4,191,780 a day on housing asylum seekers over the life of the contracts.

A separate breakdown from the NAO showed that overall costs in 2024-25 were £1.67 billion.

That amounted to £4,567,123 a day on average, or £3,172 a minute.

Asylum hotels ‘may be more profitable’ for companies holding the contracts than other types of housing, the government’s official auditors said.

The Home Office granted the contracts to three suppliers – Clearsprings Ready Homes, Mears Group and Serco – which operate two or three UK regions each.

It’s okay for Keir Starmer to say that migrants who come to live and work in England are expected to speak English better, but what about the migrants who are coming over illegally and who are all slipping through the cracks?

And of course, this will be another Starmer ‘promise’ that will be binned as time passes.

To be honest, what Sir Keir should do is turn all the boats around – I mean, how challenging can it be? We’re not responsible for the world’s needy and greedy and who bring all their crime gangs with them.

Perhaps he’s gone from smashing the gangs to this? More empty promises. He is a man with no plan!

We shouldn’t believe Keir Starmer since he has lied to us in the past and will do it again, and you do realise that even Reform aren’t going to get rid of illegal immigrants.

Migrants use interpreters, and it costs an absolute fortune, and we use thousands of them every day for benefit claims, registering with a new GP and hospital appointments. It’s outrageous!