Split up the Happy Family

Since November 2010 a foreign spouse overseas cannot join her spouse legitimately in the UK unless s/he passes an English language test.

This stinks! Just imagine ... Kezia's leukaemia relapses, I take her to the UK, Nanda who does not have UK citizenship is obliged to speak "basic English" ... whatever that means. Well, what it means is this ...

"1.2 Will there be a procurement exercise?

We are using the existing list of test providers approved for the purposes of Tier 2 of the Points Based System as a basis for the new spouse list. We have written to Tier 2 providers inviting them to indicate their willingness to be included on the new approved list for spouses and to confirm that they provide appropriate A1 speaking and listening tests. Those who provided a favourable response have been automatically confirmed as a test provider for the spousal route. Existing Tier 2 providers were appointed through an open competition and offer English language tests at the same level (A1) required for spouses.

We intend to undertake a full procurement exercise for providers of English language tests in the near future. The date for this procurement exercise has not yet been set."

At present English Language Test providers are as would be predicted - Camridge ESOL (University of Cambridge), City and Guilds, ETS (American), Pearson, Trinity College London.

Three couples are taking this to court as racist etc. See the BBC report here.

See the Home Office regulation here

Funnily enough São Tomé e Príncipe is one of the countries listed as exempt as it does not have a Test Centre. I am surprised Somalia is not on the list . you mean one of the test providers listed above has a test centre there!!!! Here are the others:

• Angola²
• Burkina Faso²
• Cambodia²
• Cape Verde²
• Central African Republic²
• Chad²
• Comoros¹
• Congo4
• Democratic Republic of Congo4
• Dominican Republic5
• Equatorial Guinea²
• Eritrea4
• Gabon¹
• Guinea³
• Guinea-Bissau¹
• Ivory Coast³
• Kiribati¹
• Lesotho¹
• Liberia³
• Madagascar²
• Maldives¹
• Rwanda4
• Samoa¹
• Sao Tome Principe¹
• Seychelles¹
• Sierra Leone³
• Somalia¹
• Swaziland¹
• Togo¹
• Wallis and Futuna Islands¹

Soon they'll be doing away with Language Line saying that all immigrants speak English!