On the basis of his mother's experience as an immigrant in this country, Sarfraz Manzoor argues that she would have benefited from having to learn English:
[T]here's little doubt immigrant parents who do not speak English are harming their own life chances. The government's plan to demand that new migrants learn English before they are allowed entry to the UK seems eminently sensible.Manzoor says that 'while compulsion may seem illiberal, it can have progressive outcomes'. He doesn't say that compulsion in this matter isn't illiberal - though the strapline to the piece assumes that this is what he thinks. But anyway, whether he thinks so or not, the fact that a policy has 'progressive' outcomes doesn't, without more ado, establish that imposing it by force of law is consistent with liberalism. One of the tenets of liberalism is that people should have considerable scope to choose their own way, make their own mistakes, and so on, provided they do not harm others. As well as the net outcome, positive or negative, of some particular policy, liberals judge how good a society is by how much freedom of this sort it accommodates and secures. That's why there aren't laws in liberal societies obliging people to brush their teeth, get proper exercise, take courses that will extend their knowledge or even - believe it or not - refrain from indulging in risk-taking activities.
I think people should retain the power of decision over what languages they learn, irrespective of the fact that learning a new language may benefit them in all sorts of ways. Immigrants can obviously be encouraged to learn English, if they don't already know it. But it would be, as well as seem, illiberal to compel them to, imposing penalties on them for not doing so. What, by the way, should these be?