While it is still relatively easy to visit Britain, it will now get even harder to get permission to stay and live in Britain. From 2 April 2007 anyone who wants to obtain indefinite leave to remain in Britain (an open-ended visa) will need to pass the “Life in the UK” test, according to the Home Office.
The test has been in place since 2004 for anybody seeking full British citizenship, but will now be extended because “it is essential that migrants wishing to live in the UK permanently recognise that there are responsibilities that go with this [..]”, says Immigration Minister Liam Byrne.
While the Home Office is very keen to focus on the English language skills part, the test also includes general questions about Britain.
Intrigued by some of the sample questions from the “Life in the UK” test published in the media here in Britain, I went to the official Life in the UK web site to learn about the test.
While I agree that learning the official language of the country you wish to reside in is important, I wonder how many Britons would actually be able to answer the general questions about Britain?
These are some of the questions that you should know the answers to in order to pass the test, according to the Life in the UK web site:
How many young people are there in the UK?
How many people say they have a religion and how many attend religious services?
How interested are young people in politics? What do they see as the main issues today?
How many children go on to higher education?
Answering these questions would be a matter of being able to remember statistical data, and even if they were common knowledge amongst Britons (which I seriously doubt), I truely fail to see why they are important?
What I really want to know though is, what would happen if Britain was to introduce a “fit to emigrate” test similar to this “fit to immigrate”. How many Britons do you think we would find in Spain then?
With both Spain and Britain being members of EU, it is too late for Spain to introduce a “Life in Spain” or should I say “Life in Costa del Sol” test. But it might be worth considering returning the favour for any non-EU, non-English speaking country likely to be next on the British “get cheap property here” list.
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