Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what test will be applied in determining whether a person has been “socially and culturally integrated in the United Kingdom” for the purposes of clause 20 of the Immigration and Asylum Bill.

The published guidance states that positive and negative factors will need to be balanced against each other to form an overall assessment of whether a foreign national is socially and culturally integrated in the UK.

These factors include the ability to speak English, financial independence, immigration status, and criminal offending. Mere presence in the UK is not an indication of integration. However, under the new section 117C framework, the courts must consider not only the interference with a person’s rights under Article 8 that exist by virtue of meeting the private life criteria (including that the person is socially and culturally integrated in the UK), but also whether that can be justified by the public interest in favour of the person’s deportation.