Mike Tapp says new system for assessing visa applicants’ language skills could deliver ‘strengthened identity management and security and much greater visibility and control over the service for the department’

The Home Office has insisted that its proposals to introduce remote language assessments for visa applicants seeking the right to live and work in the UK have the potential to offer “significant benefits” to the department.

Currently, the Home Office’s UK Visas and Immigration section allows a range of providers to offer Secure English Language Tests in the UK and international locations.

But under a procurement exercise that closed to bidders earlier this week, the department is seeking a supplier for “fully remote” English-language testing, with an estimated contract value of up to £816m.

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Last week, migration and citizenship minister Mike Tapp answered a written ministerial question on the topic of the remote-testing drive.

“Home Office English Language Testing, post procurement and implementation in late 2027/early 2028, will be one of the first primarily remote language testing services for government, with significant benefits to customers, strengthened identity management and security and much greater visibility and control over the service for the department,” he said. “The service will include proven elements of existing Home Office delivery including identification technology to assure identity, audit and assurance processes and robust oversight of services and delivery.”

Tapp’s response followed a question to the department from Conservative MP Blake Stephenson, who asked what information the Home Office holds on other countries who use similar methods to the UK’s proposed “digital by default” regime.

Other than describing the HOELT programme as “one of the first” of its kind, Tapp did not directly answer the question.

The deadline for bids for the HOELT contract passed on 19 January and follows several months of market engagement on the part of the Home Office.

PublicTechnology reported earlier this month that the department is also planning to make the Life in the UK Test for applicants for British Citizenship digital by default under a contract expected to be worth in excess of £100m.