I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page here, that we all understand the same thing.
The minister has just told us that a candidate can meet the condition of being functionally bilingual even if they can't actually speak the other language. That's what she's just told us. In a nutshell, then, as long as the person supposedly has some reading and comprehension capability in the other language, according to the criteria, they are considered functionally bilingual even if they can't speak the language.
I have to tell you that when I saw the word “functionally”, that was a first for me—the first time I'd come across a requirement of “functionally bilingual”. But, here we have it from the minister's own mouth. Even if the person can't speak the other language, they will be deemed to be “functionally bilingual”.