Justin Tomlinson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Tomlinson on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to contact visa and naturalisation applicants to ask those applicants to submit an up-to-date English Language Certificate if an application is to be refused solely on the grounds of the submission of an expired certificate.

Mr Robert Goodwill

For visa purposes, it is not Home Office policy to give an applicant the opportunity to submit a further document if they have provided an out of date English language certificate. Knowledge of the English language is a key requirement of the Immigration Rules which applicants are expected to comply with before they apply. The Immigration Rules specify that, where applicable, the test certificate must be within its validity date.

For naturalisation applications, a person is allowed a period of two weeks to provide any missing information, but they would be expected to have met the language requirement before submitting an application.