Sajid Javid has revealed that 770,000 people living in England speak no English or hardly any, in a personal interview in which he described his own experience as a “six-year-old interpreter” for his Pakistani mother.
The communities secretary promised to expand the teaching of English for immigrants as he warned that up to 70% of those unable to speak the language were women, and most of them were from Pakistani or Bangladeshi communities.
Speaking exclusively to the Guardian ahead of the publication of a government green paper that will pledge £50m to boost integration in Britain, Javid said that his mother’s decision to learn English 15 years after arriving in the country “transformed her life”.