Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

The questions for the criteria of acceptance of citizenship include knowledge of background. I have seen some of the questions. They are the equivalent of "How high is Mount Snowdon?". These are questions about things that some people know about and others do not. We have to make sure that, when we test a person’s background knowledge, it is relevant to the lives that they are going to lead here in the United Kingdom. We also talked about language a little while ago. If people want to settle in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland—places other than England—the background must be about the localities in which they actually want to live. I am sure that the people of Llandudno would love to know more about Oxfordshire or somewhere like that, but it is more important that they know a wee bit about their own area. This is my first point: people need to know the background of the place in which they will be living and not be made to answer questions of the type found in Trivial Pursuit. Secondly, on the question of volunteering, I agree that this must be thought through fully. It needs to be taken back to the drawing board. Who is going to volunteer, or is it going to be like one organisation that I know of—it shall remain nameless—part of which is moving to another area of the United Kingdom? The organisation wants its people to integrate into the local community. For two weeks each year, people are going to be encouraged to volunteer. But that organisation is going about that by asking local groups what help is needed in the particular area. Instead of someone volunteering, information about requirements is put forward by local organisations and the organisation responds to that information. We are asking a lot of the migrants who are seeking to come here. They must do what 80 per cent of the people of the United Kingdom do not do. We are asking them to know about things that most of the people of the UK do not know about. What I am saying, therefore, is this: yes, it is a nice dream—someone said that it is a charming idea, and it is—but it needs to be thoroughly worked out so that people know exactly where they are. We do not want something that is a dream for the immigration authorities becoming a nightmare for those applying for status here.