Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of exempting people from African commonwealth countries, who are (a) taught in English throughout their education or (b) have English as an official language of their country from English language testing requirements for Home Office applications.

The Home Office publishes a list of Majority English Speaking Countries (MESC) for immigration purposes. Immigration applicants who are nationals of those countries meet the English language requirement without having to provide further proof. For a country be included on the MESC list, the Home Office must have evidence over half the population in that country speak English as a first language.

If a country meets this criterion, it means it is more likely than not any individual applicant from that country can speak English with the level of fluency required to integrate in the UK, complete the course they are coming to study, or undertake the job they are coming to do.

The fact a country’s official language is English is not sufficient justification to include it on the MESC list, as this does not necessarily correlate with more than half of the population of the country speaking English as a first language. We do not currently have evidence any African commonwealth country meets the requirement to be included on the MESC list.

We do not have any plans to recognise secondary school-age qualifications taught outside of the UK as proof of English language ability, but there are a variety of methods applicants can use to meet the English language requirement instead. These include:

• having shown they meet the requirement in a previous immigration application
• passing a Secure English Language Test at an approved test centre
• holding a degree-level qualification which was taught in English
• having their chosen university or other Higher Educational Institution self-certify their level of English ability, or

having a GCSE, A-level, Scottish National Qualification at level 4 or 5 or, Scottish Higher or Advanced Higher, in English following education at a UK school begun when they were under-18.