Local councils and other public bodies like GP surgeries should cut down on translation of signs and notices into foreign languages to encourage immigrants to learn English, the Government said today.Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said there was no legal obligation on the public sector to provide translations under race relations legislation. She said the translation of too much public information was reinforcing the “language barrier”.
She also said it was undermining efforts to integrate non-English speaking people into British society.
Miss Blears urged local authorities to adopt a new approach with a greater emphasis on teaching people to speak English.
One report last year estimated local authorities were spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money a year on translations, such as those seen on roads in North Shropshire where signs are in English and Polish.
The signs were installed as part of a £1.5million roadworks scheme on the A49 Whitchurch Road from Ridley to the Cheshire and Shropshire border in February.
Miss Blears said: “Translation can never be a substitute for learning English and we need a fundamental rebalancing of our approach putting a greater focus on learning English.
“While there may be some cases where translation is appropriate, public bodies should ensure they have common sense strategies in place.
“Automatic translation of all public materials can just reinforce the language barrier, act as a brake on opportunity and make it harder to integrate non-English speaking residents into the country.”
Mark Pritchard, Conservative MP for The Wrekin, who raised the issue in Parliament more than a year ago, said: “I have always been against translation services, which cost about £200 million a year, because they fragment social cohesion rather than helping it.”
The Department of Communities and Local Government said there was anecdotal evidence of “unnecessary and bizarre” use of translations, including automatic translation of councils’ annual reports into more than 10 languages even though demand - even in English - is low.
By Abigail Bates and London Editor John Hipwood
13 Comments
There is no need for translation for people who live and work in the uk .
finally!!!!!
If people wish to live and work in the U.K. they must learn to speak English.
How can they even get a job, if they can’t pass an interview?
How many English who go to live in Spain learn Spanish ?? not may..There is to much help given to foreigners, but a little tolerence wouldn’t go a miss
Have I been censored again?
AND ABOUT TIME TOO,LEARN ENGLISH ASAP OR GO BACK EASY, AND IM NOT BEING RACIST IM BEING ENGLISH, SO STOP WASTING OUR HARD EARNED TAX ON STUPID PC LOONY LEFT IDEAS.
If you live in a country then its up to you to learn the language, and if you dont…. tough on you! Britain is not proud enough of its language, culture etc, when in rome do as the romans do! Having signs in other languages does not help it hinders you, total immersion in a language is the only way to learn a language.
so can we see an end to welsh road signs, and place names now?
the welsh also live in the UK so should speak English and not welsh, or is that somehow different?
Re 8 above, we always get one don’t we. Enough said, Wales is a principality of the United Kingdon and a part of Great Britain and the British Isles, Poland and other places who’s language we seem to be having thrust at us are foreign countries in their own right but perhaps you didn’t know that. Perhaps you also didn’t know that there is a vast difference between the two and in no way can they be held the same.
NO.8 WALES IS A PART OF BRTAIN YOU MUPPET.
I think rupert is behaving like a bear on this , wales , scotland, are part of the uk and indeed have the own lingo and in there part of the country have the signs in there language as for the rest they are different countries so they if they wish to come here learn english.
Try driving in Spain or Tenerife. See any signs in English?
you’ll find that thet translate welsh into english in wales