New UK citizenship test announced

Ministers have suggested changing the test immigrants are required to complete when applying to settle in the UK. Questions on the Human Rights Act and benefits claims will be left out in future and be replaced by questions concerning British culture. Potential immigrants will soon be required to know more about Florence Nightingale, Shakespeare and the Beatles.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, outlined a new proposal last month saying that it was important to know that those wishing to enter the UK spoke the English language and had some knowledge of the history and culture of the country they wanted to settle in.

The new test, which will require applicants to know the first verse of the national anthem, will replace Labour’s citizenship exam which was introduced seven years ago. A spokesman for the Home Office said that making history and culture central to the new test would ensure that those entering the UK were capable of properly integrating.

Under Tony Blair the emphasis was on groups in the UK establishing their own identities instead of having to know about a history which was considered in part racist and discriminatory. Mrs May prefers to call the history of the UK ‘illustrious’.

New settlers will have to have at least some knowledge of writers including Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens and Jane Austin as well as artists including Constable, Turner and Gainsborough.