Minister's surgeries en Francais

By Brian Wheeler
Political reporter, BBC News

Meg Hillier has been MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch since 2005

As a Home Office minister, Meg Hillier is keen to promote the value of English lessons for new arrivals to the UK.

But at a recent conference she told how she often finds it easier to speak to some of her constituents in their native tongue - French.

Ms Hillier said she puts her language skills to use at advice surgeries in Hackney South and Shoreditch.

The constituency is one of the most diverse in the UK and has a large French-speaking African population.

Some constituents bring their own interpreters to Ms Hillier's twice monthly advice surgeries in Hackney town hall, an aide says, but if necessary she is able to speak to them in French.

But, she revealed at the Labour Progress conference at the weekend, it would be even more useful to be able to speak Turkish - the largest ethnic group in the constituency.

Asylum seekers

The minister, who is in charge of passports and ID cards, described Hackney as the "Ellis Island of the UK" - a reference to the main entry point for immigrants to the United States until the 1950s.

Hackney, in East London, is one of the most ethnically diverse boroughs in the UK, with just 66% of residents saying they spoke English exclusively at home, according to the most recent survey.

There are large Orthodox Jewish, Turkish and Kurdish populations, but about 100 languages are spoken in the borough in total, according to the Hackney Household Survey 2004.

Turkish is the most widely spoken, with 5.5% saying it was their main language at home, followed by Yiddish, French, Gujerati and Bengali. According to the survey 2.2% of residents in the borough are French speakers.

Over the years, the area has been the first port of call in the UK for many asylum seekers fleeing violence in French-speaking African countries such as Algeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As in many areas of London, the local MPs are asked to deal with deportation cases as well as problems with temporary accommodation for asylum seekers and other housing problems.