Write to letters@thetimes.co.ukSir, I was disturbed that all migrants will have to be fluent in English (news, May 8) and will be required “to express themselves fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions”, to speak English “flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes” — and that the required standard is to be “almost the equivalent of a foreign language A-level”. My paternal grandparents arrived here in 1900 and spoke no English all their lives. My father only spoke English fluently after attending school at the age of five. My three brothers and I share between us four doctorates: two were university professors, one a principal lecturer and another a Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons of
