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If someone is unemployed who doesn't speak English, they should have to learn English."
Alex Salmond, the Scottish National Party leader, criticised Mr Brown for trying to "spin" existing policy.
He added: "If you don't speak English you can't participate fully in national life. Government needs to make this clear and help create incentives for every citizen of this country to speak our national language."
Unemployed people who cannot speak English will have to show they are learning the language or face losing their benefits, under government plans.
About 40,000 jobless people say their poor English is a barrier to finding employment - and £4.5m is spent on translators in job centres.
Ministers say this money would be better spent on teaching them English.
Originally posted by infinite
The question is,
Should English become an official language now? Scottish gaelic, Welsh and Irish (soon to be) are all official langauges in the United Kingdom.
Originally posted by infinite
English is de facto.
no parliament act has been passed that states English as an official language.
Originally posted by Freedom ERP
Wasting £4.5m on people who have come to my country, claim benefit and can not be bothered to learn English.
Originally posted by boyg2004
From BBC Politics today...
Unemployed people who cannot speak English will have to show they are learning the language or face losing their benefits, under government plans.
About 40,000 jobless people say their poor English is a barrier to finding employment - and £4.5m is spent on translators in job centres.
Ministers say this money would be better spent on teaching them English.
They must be reading above politics.
A step in the right direction, in my opinion.
Originally posted by Freedom ERP
Wasting £4.5m on people who have come to my country, claim benefit and can not be bothered to learn English.
Originally posted by Spuggy
"Maybe Britain should have something like that but where you need to prove that you speak decent English before you can live here?"
We live in a country where someone from the south of the country can't understand what someone from the North a mere 500 miles away is saying. Exactly how do you propose to judge who speaks decent English ?
Frankly 90% of this thread is the same old tired racism disguised as social concern.
Originally posted by Spuggy
"Yeah but they can understand each others writing can't they ?"
nope.
www.findarticles.com...