Speech and language difficulties in British pre-school children from disadvantaged backgrounds have become increasingly prevalent over the last decade. Consequently, there has been a growing demand for a British standardised speech and language screening tool that is reliable and valid. In 2000, to fulfil the need of an appropriate tool that could meet all of their requirements, Bilston and Ettingshall Sure Start (BESS) developed a BESS Speech and Language Therapy Two Year Developmental Check. The focus of the current article is to examine the internal reliability of this tool using Cronbach's alpha, Kuder-Richardson and item-whole correlations. The BESS tool maintained an acceptable level of internal consistency on its quantitative and qualitative items and on all three sub-scales of Understanding, Expression and Speech. Item-whole correlations found no weak quantitative items (p less than 0.01). Thus, an internally consistent British standardised speech and language screening tool for two-year-old children has been developed. (Contains 5 tables.)