The British Nationality Act 1981

In which politicking occurs and reading up about citizenship criteria has been done

Sir Keir Starmer’s comments the other day represents an expression of government policy, rather than real life.

However, underneath all the bluster, a little known facet of UK legislation was revealed.

The British Nationality Act 1981 feels like ancient history, although in some respects it is the foundation of modern immigration policy. A lot has changed since 1981, and this is a blog about the Scots language.

Schedule 1 of the Act describes the requirements for “Naturalisation as a British citizen”, and Schedule 1 (1) (c) of the Act list the language requirements. English, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic are listed.

The Scots language now has more formal recognition than it did in 1981, and is recognised as being used (spoken, read, written) by more than 1.5 million people in Scotland.

But no one has been bothered to update section (1) (c) with something like the addition of the words “Scots, or Ulster-Scots”.

I already email my local MP about all kinds of matters, whilst he probably gets a wee dopamine rush when my name pops up in his inbox, I’m not sure he’s the right chap to deal with legislation. We need someone in Westminster who is distinctly Scots friendly.

The MP for Bolton North East used to be a chap called Mark Logan, who when he was sworn into parliament in 2019, read his oath in Ulster-Scots. I’m from Bolton North East, I thought I could drop him a note and ask him to chase it up.

Unfortunately, he left parliament in 2024, and hasn’t been seen since.

A more recent Scots-friendly politician seems to be Jim Shannon MP from the Democratic Unionist Party, the member for Strangford. He read his 2024 oath in Ulster-Scots.

I dropped him a wee note, he thinks this is a worthwhile issue and has passed it on to the Home Secretary.

Realistic

To be realistic, not many people take up the option of Welsh or Scottish Gaelic. Since 1981 there has about three people who took the Welsh option, and one who took the Scottish Gaelic option.

These are languages of the UK, and it has been demonstrated that it works and its valid.

Scots has about twice as many speakers as Welsh and Gaelic put together. Its thus likely to have twice as many migrants seeking British naturalisation.

Now, I am not a writer, I’m not a reporter, I’m not a lawyer, not a legislator and not a linguist. I am a manufacturing engineer, and have worked in various factories for the last twenty five years. I have worked on production lines, I have worked in engineering roles.

I have worked with migrants whose grasp of the English language isn’t so good, but they’ve been hard workers, and knowledgeable about the tasks they are assigned.

I want you to imagine, a Polish chap working in a British factory, perhaps they speak excellent English, perhaps they rely on their Polish colleagues to for translation purposes, either way they work hard, get their jobs done and take home a fair wage.

Now imagine that they bring over their beautiful wife and children from Poland, and she initially speaks less English than our chap. But in the process of living in the UK, bringing up children, taking them to school, and so on, they have managed to integrate themselves in the local community and have picked up the local languages, not from attending classes, but merely from chatting to other mums at the school gates, children’s play-dates and chatting to neighbours.

I reckon this a realistic and conceivable scenario.

Now imagine that our Polish chap, his beautiful wife and kids live in Aberdeen - the language picked up at the school gates will be the Doric variety of Scots.

It won’t be plummy King’s standard English - its going to be “ah dinna ken, fit lik, dinna ye fash” Scots.

Even our Polish factory workers are more likely to pick up the local variety of Scots than standard English .

(I have chosen Polish for this example, because I specifically worked with a Polish chap who didn’t speak English, but his Polish wife had the best East London accent - but conceivably we might consider Gujarati speakers, or Ukrainians or Afghans in a similar situation).

Government guidance

The gov.uk website doesn’t adhere strictly to the legislation. The provided booklet “Guide AN Naturalisation booklet – The requirements and the process May 2025” has a helpful link to information about knowledge of English, but not Welsh or Scottish Gaelic.

This helpful information suggests that you can prove your knowledge of English with an English qualification at B1, B2, C1 or C2 level.

This mention of “B1, B2, C1 or C2” refers to the CEFR levels, a European framework for comparing language proficiency. For example an English A-level is equivalent to B1, a French Diplôme approfondi de langue française is equivalent to C1, and so on.

Now, I can’t find any guidance about what level of proficiency of Welsh or Scottish Gaelic are required. We might guess that it would be equivalent to English - B1. There are certainly Welsh and Scottish Gaelic proficiency tests, both in relation to English A-levels or Scottish National 5.

However there are no CEFR equivalent tests for Scots.

This is something I’ve mentioned before, a year ago. There is no systematic way to test or measure someone’s proficiency in the Scots language. Although some rando on Twitter suggested a five minute conversation would be enough, but that’s not what the government guidance states.

Whilst there is a free Open University course “Scots Language and Culture”, this doesn’t include any measure of language proficiency. Similarly, the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s “Scots Language Award” SCQF level 3, 4, 5 and 6 does not align with the CEFR framework for language proficiency.

For a migrant to demonstrate B1 proficiency in Scots, they might have to take up that Twitter user’s suggestion of a five minute conversation with a Home Office official, in Scots.

In summary

Step one get the Home Secretary to add the “Scots or Ulster-Scots” to the 1981 British Nationality Act.

Step two get the government to add CEFR criteria to the non-English languages mentioned in guidance about British Naturalisation

Step three compel Education Scotland or English examination boards to create a CEFR-equivalent proficiency test for the Scots language

Simples!