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Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

I do not in any way resile from the amendments that have just been moved and are being discussed, but I want to utter the briefest cautionary word so that we are not too patronising. It is frequently suggested, in arguments of this sort, that there is no possibility of the individual concerned being able to understand our language or the circumstances. I am reading Africa by Mr Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society, in which he remarks that there are plenty of Africans who, because of the number of languages that are spoken in Africa, are the masters of at least five languages. That statistic is somewhat embarrassing in the context of these islands. We should not be unduly derogatory about Africans’ capacity to pick up languages. That said, I understand what underlies these amendments.