Immigrants Must Pass History Test To Earn UK Passport: Exam Will Cover Everything From Boudica To Churchill

Migrants will have to pass a quiz on British history and culture to receive a UK passport, David Cameron announced yesterday.

In a wide-ranging plan to ‘get a grip’ on our borders, the Prime Minister also urged the public to report suspected illegal immigrants to Crimestoppers.

And he admitted there was ‘discomfort and tension’ in some communities over the levels of migration.















Crackdown: David Cameron urged the public to report suspected illegal immigrants to Crimestoppers in a wide-ranging plan to 'get a grip' on our borders.













Pledge: The speech contained a suggestion to consider making forced marriage illegal - an idea critics claim could leave victims less likely to come forward.

Foreign nationals wanting to settle in the UK permanently have been required to sit a multiple-choice ‘Life in the UK’ test for the past six years.

But, in a highly controversial move, Labour ministers ruled it should not include a history section because there was ‘too much and it would not be fair’.

Instead, migrants are grilled on the structure of the European Union, state benefits, equal rights and discrimination.


















Yesterday, Mr Cameron said ministers would ‘revise the whole test to put British history and culture at the heart of it’.

Subjects to be covered include Roman Britain, Boudica, the Norman Conquest, Magna Carta, the Wars of the Roses, Elizabeth I, the Civil War, the Battle of Britain and Winston Churchill.

To make room, questions on the operation of the single market and on the differences between the Council of Europe, EU, European Commission and European Parliament will be dropped.

Making only his second major speech on immigration, Mr Cameron said he wanted to bring much-needed ‘fairness’ to the system.

‘While it’s crude and wrong to say immigrants come to Britain and take all our jobs, there’s no doubt that badly controlled immigration has compounded the failure of our welfare system and allowed governments and employers to carry on with the waste of people stuck on welfare when they should be working,’ he said.

The Prime Minister said that – in order to meet his promise to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands – the Government had to crack down on student visas, work visas, marriage, settlement and illegal immigration.

There were also proposals to make migrants pay a bond, possibly of thousands of pounds, before they are allowed to enter the UK. This would work to stop them disappearing into the black economy.

Plans were also unveiled to crack down on any migrant who owes the NHS £1,000 or more for non-emergency treatment.

They will either not be allowed a visa – preventing them from getting any follow-up treatment – or refused a renewal of their permission to stay.

Officials estimate the proposal to tackle ‘health tourism’ could save £20million over five years. The rules will not be applied retrospectively.

The speech contained a pledge to consider making forced marriage illegal – an idea critics claim could leave victims less likely to come forward.

A move to make firms count the number of foreign staff they employ was abandoned. Mr Cameron drew direct links between the culture of welfarism in Britain and the fact so many foreign workers, such as hard-working Poles, had secured jobs.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: ‘Another week, another rewritten speech from the Prime Minister. Yesterday Downing Street said David Cameron would require companies to publish lists of foreign employees, and within 24 hours it has been dropped.

Ministers 'Could Get Powers To Overrule European Court Of Human Rights'

A commission set up by the government to examine ECHR reforms has floated the idea of allowing ministers to strike out court rulings.












Judges of the European Court of Human Rights in 2010 hearing a case relating to the Russian oil firm Yukos.

The European Court of Human Rights could have its powers downgraded by handing ministers across the continent the right to strike down rulings under plans being examined by the British government.

A commission set up by the government to examine reforms to the Strasbourg-based ECHR has floated the idea of handing ministers and parliamentarians on the Council of Europe the right to override rulings of the court.

The suggestion by the commission on a Bill of Rights, in a letter to Nick Clegg and Kenneth Clarke, was published as ministers made clear that the court needed to undergo wide-ranging reforms. Clarke, who is the most pro-European Tory member of the cabinet, told MPs on Wednesday there were "important decisions" to be made about the workings of the court.

Sir Leigh Lewis, the chair of the Commission on a Bill of Rights, showed the depth of thinking about the future of the court when he said that the 2010 Interlaken Declaration on the future of the ECHR raised the possibility that other institutions of the Council of Europe could qualify the European Convention on Human Rights. The 47-strong Council of Europe, which is separate from the EU, is the continent's human rights watchdog. Its European Court of Human Rights enforces the European Convention on Human Rights.

In his letter, Lewis wrote of the proposed change: "This could allow the effect of a court decision to be overridden if such was the will of the parliamentary assembly or committee of ministers, or perhaps of both acting collectively. A variant of this approach might be a power in the committee of ministers to determine that a court judgment should not be enforced if it considered that that course of action was desirable and justifiable in the light of a clear expression of opinion by the relevant member state's most senior democratic institution. Another variant could be a requirement in respect of proposed ground-breaking findings of violations for the court first to consult the other Council of Europe institutions and for the court to take a collective expression of opinion into account."

But Lewis, who said that one member of his commission had insisted that a proposal on guaranteeing the democratic legitimacy of the court must be included in the interim advice to ministers, warned that his proposal had not been yet fully considered. He also said there were critics.

"Those opposed to this concept argue that any possibility of override is fundamentally inconsistent with the rule of law inherent in the convention system and with the concept of the convention as a charter of fundamental rights and freedoms. They ask how, if a right or freedom is fundamental, it can be right to allow any legislature, however democratic, to override it.

"They point, for example, to the fact that there are examples in history of discriminatory laws being passed by democratically elected assemblies. They note that the ECHR as a judicial body is an essential protection against majorities voting to discriminate against minorities."

Gender Pay Gap 'To Last 98 Years'

Women face a wait of almost 100 years for equal pay, according to a new study which shows female executives earn £10,000 less than their male counterparts. Channel 4 News looks at why.













Men doing the same jobs as women at executive level are paid £10,546 more on average, the survey found.

Men took home on average £42,441, while women only made £31,895, according to the study by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). It means the average male executive earns 25 per cent more than his female equivalent.

It remains a significant gap, but the CMI said it is narrowing, with salaries for women increasing 0.3 per cent faster than men. If this continues at the current rate it will be 2109 - 98 years - before the gap is closed.

There was some good news for women in the survey of 35,000 executives, with junior female executives bucking the trend to earn the same as their male counterparts. The CMI said this was a sign men and women now grow up on a "more equal footing".

Its director of policy and research, Petra Wilton, told Channel 4 News: "Our hope is that this trend for both equal pay and equal representation follows this younger generation of female executives right through their careers as they climb through levels of seniority."

Unequal workplaces

However she said that the figures still showed that the workplace remains an unequal place.

The CMI figures back up the World Economic Forum's data for 2010, which found that the UK was 60th in the world in terms of gender pay equality - 17 places below Ireland, but above France, which was 127th. Lesotho and Macedonia were the top two most equal countries in terms of pay.

Why should a woman take on a director-level position when the likelihood is still that she will be paid less than the man sitting next to her at the boardroom table? Sandra Pollock, CMI

Ms Wilton said: "This year's salary survey demonstrates, yet again, that businesses are contributing to the persistent gender pay gap and alienating top female employees by continuing to pay men and women unequally.

"This kind of bad management is damaging UK businesses and must be addressed."

Sandra Pollock, national chair of the CMI's Women in Management network, added: "Why should a woman take on the responsibilities of a director-level position when the likelihood is still that she will be paid significantly less than the man sitting next to her at the boardroom table?

"Too often managers are male and aged 45 plus and we are fighting an ongoing war to ensure that professions attract people based on their talent and not their age or gender."

The research found that redundancy hit men and women across age groups equally in the last year. However the figures showed women at more senior levels were almost twice as likely to have been made redundant than men - and five times as many female company directors as male directors lost their jobs over the last year.











Christina Ioannidis experienced gender discrimination before setting up her own business, Aquitude, which helps organisations like Accenture and Barclays Bank retain their top female talent.

She told Channel 4 News: "My role was made redundant - about two months before a man had been brought in to be my manager. He stayed in the business even though I had been there a while.

"It threw me. I didn't make too much of it at the time but as I left I realised it actually happens again and again that women are on the receiving end of unfair treatment."

She said businesses need to realise the value of talented female executives - and customers. A Government report in February called for companies to aim for one in four of its board members to be women by 2015.

Why are women paid less?

The CMI urged the Government to demand more transparency on pay from companies rather than imposing mandatory quotas. Firms found guilty of fuelling the gender pay gap should be publicly exposed, the organisation said. The CMI itself offers help to women to challenge unequal pay.

And it said that as society gets more equal across the board, pay should follow. "Where representation is equal, it's easier for women to be treated, and to demand to be treated, equally," Petra Wilton told Channel 4 News.

One of the other factors often cited as a reason why women earn less than men is because women often take time out to have children. Some women never return to the corporate world ,while others take a few years before going back.

CMI said "the onus is on the Government" to change this culture.

"Until paternity laws are overhauled so they fit the modern workforce and flexible working is more widely accommodated, women will continue to have to make choices once they start families which will reduce their numbers at more senior levels," said Ms Wilton.

"The onus is on the Government and employers to ensure they start to implement the changes that mean the pay gap stays shut at junior levels and closes up at other levels of seniority."