House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 May 1993

Mr. Dafis : I wish to return briefly to the subject of the board's functions. The Secretary of State has described a board that will have a broad remit, and will be in a position to make decisions of far-reaching import, particularly in relation to Welsh-medium education and the development of a strategy for the revival of the Welsh language. Some of us feel unhappy that that function should be given to an unelected body.

Does the Secretary of State recognise that a board of this nature needs to have considerably more resources at its disposal than the £600,000 per annum mentioned in the preamble to the Bill? It is an enormously ambitious project and the board will need resources commensurate with that.

Mr. Hunt : I am sad that the hon. Gentleman did not pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the

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Minister of State, who has increased the level of grant to assist the Welsh language. That grant is now exceeding £7 million, and that money is additional to the amount spent through the revenue support grant to promote the Welsh language. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that we are offering record levels of support for the Welsh language. I make no apology for that, because the Welsh language is a unique feature of our cultural heritage.

We are determined to ensure that the Welsh language should continue to be supported by policies that promote its use in all aspects of life in Wales. The Bill represents an important consolidation and significant strengthening of that policy.

Our intention is that the legislation should catch the spirit of the times. The Bill recognises the enormous reservoir of good will towards the Welsh language and seeks to build on it. It recognises the simple but crucial point that the more widespread the use of the Welsh language, the more its future will be safeguarded. The Bill will build on existing policies and successes. It will establish a flexible and lasting legal framework within which the language can prosper and flourish for many generations to come.

I commend the Bill to the House.

Mr. Rod Richards (Clwyd, North-West) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Did you receive prior notification that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) had been replaced by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) as the shadow spokesman on Welsh affairs?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris) : I do not think that that is a matter for the Chair.

5.51 pm

Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West) : Mae'n anrhydedd fawr i ddilyn o'r ochr hyn ar y mesur hyn.

I should like to continue in Welsh, but that is not allowed under the rules of the House. I thought that it was appropriate to begin my speech in Welsh, however, as it is 26 years since the House debated the Welsh Language Act 1967. For the benefit of those who do not understand Welsh, I began by saying that it is a great honour to be asked to lead for the Opposition on the Bill. I feel that the word "anrhydedd" has a little more flavour than its English equivalent : honour.

The Opposition welcome the opportunity to debate the Bill. We shall not vote against it, despite its imperfections and the inflexibility shown by the Government during its passage from the other place to its Second Reading in this House. We fear, however, that if the Bill is not amended and the Government do not listen more and act on what they are told by the people of Wales, the sore will still fester. People will not be satisfied that the Government or the House have made the most of this unique opportunity.

We shall not legislate on this subject again this side of the millennium. We therefore feel that the Government must be sensitive to the demands from all corners of Wales and all those organisations which have tak and another 26 years pass before the House considers the subject again. Indeed, I should like to think that it will be 56 years before we debate it again.

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So far, the Government's performance has not been up to scratch and they have not shown sufficient sensitivity to people's requests. We discovered part of the reason for that earlier, when the Secretary of State let the cat out of the bag by displaying his keenness for a place in the sun in the Cabinet, in another job, if the reshuffle occurs. We must tell the right hon. Gentleman that it is the Prime Minister who makes any reshuffle--the right hon. Gentleman cannot reshuffle himself. Perhaps he was sending the same sort of message to the Prime Minister as that sent by Lord Elis-Thomas in another place about a job that would need to be filled and certain candidates who were pretty keen to fill it. There are certain means of sending such messages--people must read between the lines. I am sure that the Chief Whip and the Prime Minister will do the same with the remarks of the Secretary of State.

The debate centres on how to restore the status of the Welsh language and repair the damage that was done to it. Without turning the clock back, we must attempt to repair the damage that was done to the language in the past millennium--perhaps that is a slight exaggeration--or certainly in the past 100 years or so, since universal primary education was introduced in Wales in the 1870s. The spent statutes to which the Secretary of State referred also inflicted earlier damage on the language.

We must achieve a better understanding about what will revitalise the Welsh language. The Secretary of State said that the Welsh language is now surrounded by an aura of confidence. It almost sounded as if he was making a toothpaste advertisement. I fear that what the right hon. Gentleman really meant was that the Welsh language was surrounded by several blankets of Welsh flannel. He was being far to complacent when he said that the 1991 census suggested that the use of the Welsh language had turned the corner. We are not convinced. As I said earlier, we need to provide jobs for young Welsh people who attend Welsh-medium schools so that they can develop the use of that language, rather than lose everything that they were taught.

Young people may be taught Welsh in an English school in a Welsh-speaking part of Wales or in a Welsh-medium school in an English-speaking part of Wales--for example, the south-east, where there has been a tremendous growth in Welsh-medium education. South Glamorgan and Mid Glamorgan have led the way in the provision of Welsh-medium education. The provision in Gwent is slightly poorer, while that in West Glamorgan is worse still. No doubt the Welsh Language Board will want to consider how to encourage some of the laggard counties to develop that provision. It is extremely important to discover why a county such as West Glamorgan, which is still home to a great number of native Welsh speakers, is more laggardly in its provision of Welsh language teaching than South Glamorgan or Mid Glamorgan, where the Welsh language has been almost lost as a means of local, authentic speech. Is it a general principle of human life that we value something only when we have almost lost it? I do not know, but we must try to ensure that those laggardly counties match the best practice of others.

The Secretary of State is far too complacent when he suggests that the use of the Welsh language has turned the corner. I do not believe that he realises just what a difficult job the Welsh language has to do in competing with

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English. The survival of the Welsh language is remarkable. Even today there are more people speaking Welsh than there were in 1801. In fact, there are more people speaking Welsh now than the entire Welsh population in 1801, which was no more than 500,000. In the 19th century, the Welsh-speaking population doubled to 1 million, but it has now halved again, which is extremely sad.

The demise of the Welsh language is related to the strains imposed by the de-industrialisation of the 1930s and the 1980s. If there are no jobs, it is difficult to keep people in Wales. Most people speak Welsh provided that they do not migrate. If a person migrates to England, or even to another part of Wales, it is extremely unlikely that he will continue to speak Welsh. The supply of jobs and the economic development of Wales is an extremely important issue, but the Secretary of State did not devote sufficient time to it. The Opposition are keen to ensure that Welsh speakers should have jobs, because that means that the Welsh language is likely to survive. If the Welsh economy goes downhill, so will the use of the Welsh language.

Mr. Jonathan Evans : Surely jobs are required for people in Wales whether or not they speak Welsh. If the hon. Gentleman is advocating that specific arrangements should be made for Welsh speakers, I should remind him that pupils of Welsh-medium schools achieve far better examination results than those who attend English-speaking schools. If we are to direct our efforts towards a specific goal, we should direct them towards raising the standards in English schools.

Mr. Morgan : I am sorry to say that the hon. Gentleman has totally misunderstood my point. The anthracite coal field was the prime source of employment in one of the strongest areas of Welsh-speaking Wales--from Maesteg, through the Neath, Swansea and Gwendraeth valleys down to Kidwelly. There is now virtually no anthracite coal mining. Almost the whole of the anthracite coal field in Wales was Welsh speaking. Now that there are no more pits, how can we ensure that the Welsh-speaking population of the anthracite coal field has a good reason to stay there and to speak Welsh ? They have to be found alternative jobs.

Original industrialisation led to the Welsh language surviving and the number of Welsh speakers doubled in the 19th century, but that industrial base largely disappeared in the 1930s and was in crisis in the 1980s. The underlying strength of the economy is vital to the continuation of Welsh speaking.

Mr. Win Griffiths : I shall use a historical analogy to bring out the strength of my hon. Friend's argument. One reason why Welsh survived as one of the Celtic languages was the huge provision of jobs in Wales, compared with Ireland, as a result of the industrial revolution. That shows why a strong economy is vital to the survival of the Welsh language.

Mr. Morgan : The argument advanced by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans) illustrates the fears expressed by all Labour Members. There cannot be a future for the Welsh language if it is simply to become the first language in the history of the universe to be spoken exclusively by university graduates. If we do not understand the importance of the disappearance of the coal mines, the tin plate works and the slate quarries of

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north Wales, and if we do not replace the jobs that originally sustained the Welsh economy, it will be difficult to see a bright future for the Welsh language. That will be true no matter what efforts are made to provide jobs for university graduates or students with O-levels who leave Welsh-language or Welsh-medium schools in English speaking areas of Wales such as the south-east and the north-east corners. That is the problem that the legislation has done little to solve, and the Secretary of State has not touched on it in his speech.

The Secretary of State must understand how strongly the English language continues to penetrate life. The English language is a wonderfully flexible instrument of communication in technology, engineering and science. If we underestimate the strength and flexibility of the English language, we shall not make proper provision for the survival of the Welsh language. The English language is the only language that is half Germanic and half Latin, which means that there are more than 1 billion people in the world for whom English is either their first language or an easy second language to learn.

Some 300 million people in Europe speak English or another Germanic tongue which is a cousin of the easy, small words of the English language, and a further 300 million people speak a Latin-based language involving the longer words. In North America and South America, 300 million speak a Latin -based language. That makes a total of 1.2 billion people who speak English, compared with the 500,000 people who speak Welsh. That shows the extent of the problem and the measure of our task today.

I am not saying that our task is hopeless, but it is difficult, and we must understand the measure of it or we shall end up believing, as many English people and English-speaking Americans do, that there is only space for one language in the world--English--and the sooner everybody speaks it, the better. I recall the words of a Texas senator when the question first arose as to whether Spanish should be taught in the primary schools of San Antonio, near the Mexican border. He said that if the English language was good enough for Jesus Christ it should be good enough for the Texas school board. English people sometimes have an Anglocentric world view. We have to explain that, while not wanting to live in a ghetto or on a reservation, or to penalise people who do not speak Welsh and are unlikely to learn it, we intend to ensure that the Welsh language continues to fight for its survival, even against a powerful competitor, in the minds of the people in Wales.

The Bill is based on the board ; it is based on whether Parliament can successfully delegate its functions to a board which is run under the chairmanship of someone whose identity we now know. The electricity industry now places enormous power in the hands of the regulator, OFFER ; the gas industry places power in the hands of Ofgas ; and there is also Oftel. In the same way, we are to have a sort of regulator for the Welsh language--it could be called Offiaith--which will be given enormous powers. It will be based on a fundamental theory of British government with which we do not agree : the good chap theory of government.

The theory is that if the right chaps are appointed, the job can be left to them, Parliament need not worry about the issue, which can be put to sleep so that it need not return to the House. One is then faced with the problem of who should appoint the good chaps. Who are they, and are they representative of the people of Wales? Will we be

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satisfied with setting up another quango and saying, "Goodbye quango--we have set you up, we are paying your wages, now do the job that we have instructed you to do, come back and see the Public Accounts Committee every three years and the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs every year." Will we then be content to think that Parliament has done its job by sub-contracting a quango?

Lord Rothschild said that the good chap theory of government in England was based on picking people who were 53, white, male, residents of the south- east of England and members of the Reform club. As I was 53 myself a few months ago I have started to warm to the theory of how to run British government, although I do not think that I am a candidate. If applied in Wales, the theory would be based on picking people who were white, male, resident in the south-east of Wales, owning a farm in the Vale of Usk, being frequent dinner guests of Lord and Lady Crickhowell and possibly supporters of the Welsh National Opera. Those attributes would probably qualify someone to be on the good chaps quango.

Approval of such an approach depends on whether the board is seen to be representative and sensitive to the needs of Wales and accountable to Parliament, the people of Wales or other democratically elected organisations in Wales such as the local authorities. It depends on whether it is seen to have good contacts with people in non-Welsh-speaking areas as well as Welsh-speaking areas of Wales. If the board is set up as a normal Welsh Office quango, it will be heading for disaster. If the Secretary of State can tell us a bit more about how he intends to ensure that the board will not be a conventional Government quango, we may be able to accept the policy of sub-contracting a board to do the job. Such a quango would not have to be based on conventional quangos. It is possible to set up quangos that are partly democratically accountable. The Welsh Joint Education Committee was a sort of quango, but it consisted largely of local authority representatives who were accountable to democratically elected councillors whose backsides could be kicked by the people every three or four years, and who could be removed if they were not doing the job that the people wanted them to do.

Appointments could be made to the quango so that at least the chairman, and possibly other members, had to appear before the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs before their appointments were confirmed. That is the process in the United States, where there are confirmatory hearings in the Senate. The Select Committee could ask potential members how they intended to pursue policies, what sort of relationship they intended to have with the Secretary of State and how independent they intended to be.

It is not good enough for the Secretary of State merely to come to the House and say that the best people will always be appointed, and expect us to take his word for it. He must accept that, while a Government of his political colour are in office, it will not automatically be seen by the majority of people in Wales--who do not vote for the Conservative party-- that the people he appoints will necessarily be very representative of the people of Wales. On an issue such as the Welsh language, it is critically important that the Government find some means of moving away from the convention of Welsh Office quangos. One might wonder whether the board will be representative, but another crucial matter is the degree of control that it will have with regard to the resources

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provided for Welsh-medium education. In another place, there were interminable debates on this issue, but the Government provided no satisfaction. It was said simply that everything would be based on boards and that the education authorities would have to prepare schemes, just as the health authorities do. But the schemes of most public bodies in Wales involve very little by way of resources ; they concern themselves with such matters as the provision of Welsh speakers on staffs for the purpose of answering queries in Welsh and translating forms. Education is totally different. Here, the expenditure could run into millions of pounds. In an average county, it would take perhaps £500,000 annually to build one new primary school every year and, perhaps, a new secondary school every 10 years. There is a quantum leap between the two situations. We shall want to know what powers the board will have to approve schemes with the resource implications of Welsh-medium education bids by county councils or by schools themselves. These resource implications are totally different from those of other schemes ; yet the Secretary of State slid over this area in an unsatisfactory way.

Mr. Rowlands : My hon. Friend is dealing with a fundamental and very important point. The successful development of Welsh-medium education in areas such as mine has been based on a very sensitive balance of resources between English-language nursery schools and Welsh-language nursery schools. We have avoided conflict and tension. Any Welsh language board must not blunder into the situation without appreciating local democratic decisions and sensitivities.

Mr. Morgan : My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. There must be local democratic accountability for such education decisions. In a budget year, there could be a conflict between a Welsh-language school and a special-needs school. If democratic accountability is removed, things are made very difficult. But how is democratic accountability to be secured at an all-Wales board level? I do not want to divert the debate into areas relating to a Welsh assembly, but the establishment of such an assembly would be one means of securing democratic accountability. Local authorities could be used to the greatest possible extent by being given the right to nominate board members. In any case, we must not leave everything to people throwing themselves against the walls of a quango that is responsible only to the person who appointed it--the Secretary of State. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that such a system will satisfy people, he is making a big mistake.

We want to ensure that the Bill leaves this House in an improved state. We do not intend to vote against it, but we see many imperfections in it. It is important that it should achieve the maximum measure of good will. We do not want people in strongly Welsh-speaking areas to say that it has not done enough, or people in Newport, Presteigne, Knighton, Connah's Quay or Milford Haven to say that it has done far too much by introducing what they regard as some sort of discriminatory provision in favour of Welsh speakers in relation to employment. It is extremely unlikely that the good will that we want to see would be achieved in those circumstances. We want people in Newport to be able, when the Bill becomes law, to say,

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"It's a good thing that this law is now on the statute book : we may not speak Welsh ourselves, but people in other parts of the country do, so we want to give the Act a fair wind and wish it godspeed." Thus the attitudes adopted by all the parties in the House are extremely important. The Secretary of State must appreciate how important it is that he should demonstrate give and take such as we have not seen so far.

In connection with the privatised utilities, the Secretary of State used words that I found difficult to understand. I was able to make something of them only by reference to the report of the debates in another place. With the possible exception of the training and enterprise councils--perhaps not a very good example--it appears that privatised utilities will not be touched by the Bill.

Mr. Donald Anderson : We have here a new dimension. The Government's declared policy is substantially to reduce the public sector by a whole series of measures, including full-scale privatisation and market testing across the board. There is a danger that a large number of bodies within the scope of the Bill will be removed as a result of Government policy.

Mr. Morgan : I am extremely glad that my hon. Friend has raised that point. Opposition Members have to judge the Bill's effectiveness not only on the basis of what the Secretary of State has said today but also on the basis of what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said recently. The Chief Secretary has made the point that he wants to roll back the frontiers of the state much further. Thus there is no point in the Secretary of State's coming here and saying, somewhat boastfully, that the good news is that the Government are legislating to bring the Welsh language up to a level of equality in the public sector while the bad news is that there will not be any public sector. What will be left if all the Government's proposals go through? It will not be very much if they manage to get their legislation passed in the course of this Parliament.

There is little to indicate that the Welsh people will benefit greatly from the Bill, which is a will-o'-the-wisp. It is a measure that will impose obligations on a shrinking public sector, and its impact will progressively decline over the years. I am not sure that that is what the Secretary of State wants. If it is, he must realise that there will be mutterings all over Wales. It will be said that he is not fighting for Welsh interests, that he is fighting for his place in the reshuffled Cabinet and does not want his English colleagues to be able to say, "We don't want that chap to be Secretary of State for Employment or Secretary of State for the Environment : after all, he went native during his three years in Wales." The right hon. Gentleman will be open to such accusations unless he indicates that, from time to time--not all the time ; just now and again-- he is willing to take on conventional Tory thinking. In this case he must recognise the importance of the Welsh language and say to his Cabinet colleagues, "Sorry, but we intend to impose public-sector obligations on utilities that have been privatised. I know that it is against Tory thinking, but we ought to make an exception in this case." If the right hon. Gentleman does not do that, he will not be fighting for Wales--he will be behaving like a conventional Tory and using Wales as a springboard for his next promotion. Well, we in Wales are not willing to be used in that way. We are not the right hon. Gentleman's platform for promotion. What we want is restoration of

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the Welsh language to as near equality as possible without creation of the complications that would arise from full bilingualism. If we had full bilingualism in this House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you would have to say, "Order, Order. Disgyblaeth, Disgyblaeth." at the beginning of each parliamentary Session, and Hansard would have to be printed in Welsh. That is not what we want, though I am sure that, given your surname, you, Sir, have such dreams in the middle of the night. What we want is a measure confined to practical things to assist the restoration of the Welsh language to its rightful place, in so far as such a thing can be achieved by the law. But the impact must be felt in Wales, and not in England. The Minister's replies to interventions about the shrinking public sector were extremely unsatisfactory. This is a matter to which we shall have to return, as is the question of funding Welsh-medium education and the equally important conventional Welsh-language education in the Welsh- speaking areas.

We also want something more. On the composition of the membership of the board, reference was made in the other House to the need to take account of three categories--Welsh speakers, Welsh learners and non-Welsh speakers. That was it ; the fourth category was missed. The other House forgot about what we might call the un-learners : people whose Welsh is rusty and will disappear if they do not do something about it. The recent market research study commissioned by S4C, the independent television channel in Wales, showed that that is quite a large category. Possibly there are as many as 500,000 people who speak a bit of Welsh but who would not fill in a census form to that effect because their Welsh is rusty. They may have learnt a little and then stopped going to classes, and they will not be able to speak Welsh in 20 years' time unless they do something about it. That category is numerous in industrial Wales. S4C said that it needed to do more for those people, and the Government need to do more for them. No one in the other House paid attention to that category which is numerous in the former coal-mining and steel-making areas of west Wales and in parts of north-east Wales.

The Government made a beginning in the other House and on Second Reading here. They have announced the identity of the chairman. They did not need to announce it because it became more and more obvious as time went by in the other place. We wish Lord Elis-Thomas well in finding the right colleagues. I hope that they will have a democratic input. Lord Elis-Thomas has been a tireless champion of the Welsh language around countless Hampstead dining tables. I hope that he can find colleagues who will be able to communicate as well as he does with some groups in the industrial areas of Wales, where perhaps the battle will be won or lost. We take that view not only because we represent those areas but because that is where the language has been declining.

We shall not go back into the question of the Committee of the Regions and the deal on the treaty of Maastricht. [ Hon. Members :-- "Why not?"] I was only going to say that it might be renamed the treaty of Malltraeth after the contribution of the hon. Member for Ynys Mo n (Mr. Jones) to its passage through the House by propping up the Government when they needed it most.

The problem will be overdependence on boards and schemes. Those are the buzz words in the Bill. They are almost like hymns and arias in Max Boyce's songs of 10 or 15 years ago. There will be over-reliance on boards and

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schemes which we in Parliament will have nothing to do with. The Secretary of State forgets that the key to the success of the Bill is education and jobs, and what happens afterwards to people who learned Welsh in school. We want an assurance that when the Secretary of State deals with the remaining stages of the Bill and makes appointments, he will remember that he represents a minority party and that his four Back Benchers arrived at the House today in enormous comfort in a Reliant Robin. He should realise that he needs to be able to sell the Bill to the whole population of Wales. We are not talking about Tory placemen who will support the Secretary of State, whether it is the right hon. Gentleman or someone else. He should remember that we are dealing with a measure which should satisfy the rightful demands of the whole nation of Wales.

Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I seek your guidance for those who may wish to catch your eye later in the debate? When my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) used three words of Welsh, it appeared that his microphone died. Can you give us a ruling on the use of the Welsh language in debates? There are precedents

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman asked me a question. May I answer it? He sought the guidance of the Chair. The guidance is printed clearly on page 365 of "Erskine May" :

"Speeches must be made in English, but quotation in another language has been allowed on occasion, though a translation should be provided."

That is as much for the protection of hon. Members as for the Chair, so that we may all know what hon. Members are talking about.

Mr. Flynn : Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There are precedents for the use of Norman French in another House, for the use of Middle English, which I have used, and for the use of French in quotation. At one time, there was a long quotation in Latin of several stanzas of Virgil's verse. If some hon. Members wish to quote in Welsh to illustrate the glories of Welsh literature, will that be in order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker : With the greatest respect, the hon. Gentleman did not listen. He should listen carefully :

"Speeches must be made in English, but quotation in another language has been allowed on occasion,"--

not automatically

"though a translation should be provided."

The quotation and translation should be relevant to the Bill. 6.25 pm

Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire) : I rise with some trepidation, especially following the speech of the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan), whose logic and train of thought left me at times bereft of speech, which is unusual for me.

I hope that I meet the criterion of the hon. Gentleman in that I rise not as a conventional Tory. I can claim some right to speak on the Bill. My mother was brought up in Aberavon. She may have known the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) because they are, I think, of similar age. She spoke Welsh fluently. She taught me a little of the culture conveyed by that ancient language. From an early age, I learned that the language

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was a vital part of the common heritage of England and Wales. Although my Welsh vocabulary is limited, sadly, to only a few choice words, such as "Fenlinfoel", I will support the Bill which is aimed at increasing the prominence of the language. This historic Bill will do just that. Its overriding intention is that the English and Welsh languages should be treated on a basis of equality.

The word "historic" is indeed fitting to describe a Bill that repeals the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542, as we heard from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. The policy of those laws was to suppress the Welsh language and deny it a role in public life in Wales. The policy continued unabated for centuries. Even during the last century, speaking Welsh in schools was an offence for which a pupil could be beaten. A child caught speaking Welsh would be made to wear a pendant bearing the words "Welsh Not". The "Not", as it was called, was passed from offender to offender, and the unfortunate child wearing it at the end of the day received a thrashing. After 1862, when grants were given to schools if children passed tests in reading and writing in English, the "Not" was considered a vital piece of equipment by many teachers. Not having gone to a public school, fortunately I have never been the recipient of a good thrashing.

In spite of that onslaught, half the population could speak Welsh at the turn of the century. This century, measures to sustain the language have become a dominant cultural and political theme. The Welsh Language Act 1967 at last gave equal validity to the language. A language directly descended from the Brythonic language, which was once spoken across mainland Britain and whose dialects were here long before the Romans arrived, has survived. We should be thankful that it has, for it harbours a vibrant literary tradition, especially in poetry and song. It enhances the cultural diversity that is so essential to our kingdom.

The nation owes this hardy, resilient language a duty of care. We should nourish and nurture it and ensure that it flourishes. There are already grounds for optimism. I was pleased to learn recently that the Welsh fourth television channel, S4C, which is just 10 years old, is watched by 67 per cent. of the population in the Principality. My broadcasting background has taught me how crucial television can be int of Wales also play an important role, but above all education is now making a vital contribution. Some 15 per cent. of secondary schoolchildren in Wales now receive at least part of their education in Welsh. The national curriculum has ensured that all our children have the opportunity to learn Welsh.

In a recent survey for S4C, 70 per cent. of respondents between the ages of 12 and 15 said that they could speak some Welsh. That is encouraging, but we must not be complacent, because in the same survey the figure plummeted to 31 per cent. for 16 to 24-year-olds. Competence seems to fade when school days are just a memory. That is why the Bill is vital.

The language must not be treated by school leavers as an appendage to their lives, seen only on road signs or in shop windows. It must be common currency, an integral part of the community. The Bill makes great strides

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towards that goal. It constructs a framework for the promotion of Welsh in everyday life by requiring every public sector body to develop a scheme setting out the services that it will provide through the medium of Welsh. It gives statutory authority to approve those schemes to a Welsh Language Board that will be charged with promoting and facilitating the use of the language. It backs the board with the Secretary of State's powers to make the public body comply.

The Bill also provides that there is no restriction on the use of Welsh in legal proceedings and empowers Ministers to prescribe Welsh statutory forms. That all amounts to a powerful and wide-ranging attempt to foster the language.

The principle behind the Bill is that the Welsh and English languages should be treated equally. It is, of course, right that those for whom Welsh is the first language should be able to conduct their business with public bodies in that language. It is also right that those who would like to use the language should be given every encouragement to do so.

When the Bill's provisions are enacted, the school leaver who speaks Welsh will have a choice of which language to use. He cannot be made to speak Welsh, but he will see that the language is alive and well and not part of the curriculum that might as well be forgotten. As the hon. Member for Cardiff, West said, many words and concepts in Welsh cannot easily be translated into English. That in itself is an incentive to speak Welsh.

I congratulate the Government on two omissions from the Bill. It is sensible that the private sector has been excluded, because the people of Wales would not thank the Government if their business had to labour under new duties--

Mr. Alex Carlile : Why is it sensible to include the Post Office while it is in the public sector but to exclude it when it enters the private sector?

Mr. Fabricant : It will not necessarily be excluded. The hon. and learned Gentleman raised that matter earlier with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and, as he said, the matter will be discussed in detail in Committee.

No one in Wales would thank us if we forced private companies to incur new duties and extra costs that would not be experienced elsewhere in the United Kingdom. It was wise not to discriminate against the English speakers in Wales. The good will of the whole population has been safeguarded and the attractiveness of the Principality as a target for investment has been maintained. Hon. Members will agree that Wales is attractive to overseas investors.

Mr. Flynn : We are indebted to the hon. Gentleman for giving us the benefit of his experience of Welsh broadcasting gained during the weeks that he worked for Radio Caroline. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the private and public sectors. His party's declared policy is to reduce the number of civil servants from 500,000 to 10,000 through privatisation, contractorisation and market testing. Does he not see that if the Government have their way there will be no public sector?

Mr. Fabricant : Removing the burden from the state gives resources to the private sector. I remind the hon. Gentleman that Governments do not create jobs ; they are created by the private sector. What the hon. Gentleman suggests would drive business from the United Kingdom generally and from the Principality in particular. I worked

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for BBC Wales in Bangor and Cardiff for longer than I worked for Radio Caroline, for which I worked for two and a half weeks. It seemed to my listeners like two and a half years and to me, suffering from seasickness, it seemed like 25 years.

The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Sir Wyn Roberts) : I assure my hon. Friend that some of the most prominent supporters of the Welsh language are the public utilities, which have given superb service. There is no better example than Welsh Water, and there are others, such as British Telecom. There is no reason whatever for a public sector body to abandon its Welsh language policy when it becomes private.

Mr. Fabricant : I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention.

I applaud the Government for spending more than £7.5 million to support the Welsh language and for offering in the Bill a bright future for a language that has enriched the kingdom for centuries. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made it quite clear that he will listen in Committee to all views and will seek to fine-tune the Bill. I commend the Bill to the House.

6.38 pm

Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery) : Many years after I was born in Wales and had been taken to be brought up in Lancashire, I returned to Wales, first to work and then to live there. Some still say that those who are not good Welsh speakers or Welsh speakers at all face problems if they go to work in the public service or the professions in Wales. We must lay that bogey to rest early in the debate. I have a little Welsh, but it is fairly abysmal and I wish that it were much better. From that position, I confirm that there is nothing to fear in the proposed legislation. We are not debating an exclusive matter ; we are discussing a language and culture that, far from being exclusive, are strongly seductive. The only cause for fear about the Welsh language and culture is if they are corralled into provocative, defensive aggression. This measure--albeit much strengthened, I hope--could do a great deal to ensure that Welsh has its rightful place, not a suppressed place.

It is, therefore, a matter of satisfaction that the House is given the opportunity of debating the best ways to promote and protect the Welsh language, although I regret that we are debating the Government's Welsh Language Bill, not the Welsh Language Board's Bill. I thought that the board's Bill was a much better, a much more purposeful and determined effort to deal with the issue.

Much has been done for the Welsh language since in his 1962 speech "Tynged yr Iaith"--the fate of the language--Saunders Lewis advocated "nothing short of revolutionary methods to protect Welsh." Thankfully, a rapid evolution has taken place without the need for revolution.

The last three decades have seen the Welsh language thrive, at least in some sectors : in the arts, in sport, in the academic world and in parts of the media. However, there is still cause for concern about the development of Welsh in the printed media. In that sector, the Welsh Language Board can do a great deal to promote the universality of Welsh, which appears but rarely and in limited form, in national daily and weekly newspapers.

In the battle for survival, for that is what it has been, the Welsh language has shown that the pen and the mind are

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far mightier than the sword or the bomb could ever be. The most fluent pens and some of the highest of minds were much in evidence when the Bill was debated recently in another place. I am sure that anyone who listened to or read some of the speeches were heartened to hear so many of, shall we call them, the maturer Welsh dragons still breathing enough fire to frighten their English cousins and tormentors into supporting the Bill.

Some of their Lordships paid tribute in the other place to the Welsh Language Board. Without wanting to labour the point, I, too, applaud the board and support what the Secretary of State said about it. I also applaud very strongly the appointment of Lord Elis-Thomas as chairman of the board. Acceptance of that appointment in some parts of the House today has been very grudging. He is a man of high intellect and great ability, and he is still youthful enough--indeed, he is a mere teenager in terms of the other place--to give the board real energy. He is a worthy successor to his predecessor. The number of people speaking Welsh today is increasing. In each of the present counties of Wales, more children are learning Welsh than ever before. Those who raise bogeys about the increase in the speaking of Welsh should note that today it is commonplace in a constituency such as mine, Montgomeryshire--I repeat "Montgomeryshire" for the benefit of the Secretary of State in his last days in that office--for a typical family to consist of monolingual English parents and bilingual Welsh and English- speaking children. Parents in my constituency encourage that trend, which I applaud.

The future of living Welsh clearly lies in the hands of schools and colleges where it is taught and of the children who learn it. I say with all the strength that I can muster that the role of the primary school in rural areas is crucial. Village schools are the very womb of the Welsh language. I hope that we shall hear the Minister of State--who, I know, is devoted to the Welsh language--confirm when he winds up the debate that he still believes that the village school has a valuable role to play.

Sir Wyn Roberts indicated assent.

Mr. Carlile : I am pleased to see the Minister nod in agreement. Parliament also has an important part to play in the future of the Welsh language. In dealing with the Bill, we have an historic and rare opportunity. It is not every day that one has the opportunity to repeal statutes of Henry VIII. Now that we have that chance, we must seize it with both hands and not only get rid of historic surplusage but try to put in place legislation that will be an historic glory for the future.

I regret that I feel that the Bill does not quite live up to the occasion. It is perhaps a little bit like the current Welsh rugby union team : it promises a good deal but does not always deliver it. I hope, however, that our Committee proceedings will prove to be a little more auspicious than some of the recent meetings of the Welsh rugby union.

We must ask ourselves what we want from the Bill and what our aims are for the future of the Welsh language. I believe that we want the Bill to emerge from Committee as a friendly dragon, breathing fire into the Welsh language, rather than as a mere paper tiger--for that is how it looks at the moment.

If our aim were to allow the language merely to be Wales's answer to the Loch Ness monster--prehistoric,

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rarely seen and good only for tourists--the Bill as it stands would do the job. If, however, our aim is the more purposeful one of promoting Welsh among every sphere of social, economic and professional life in Wales, the Bill must be improved. At the moment, it pays homage to Welsh. More than homage is needed if the Bill is to have a real effect.

I draw the attention of the House to the fundamental issue of the very status of the Welsh language. I regret very much that the Bill stops short of stating categorically that the Welsh language shall enjoy equal status with English as the official language of Wales. That omission has rightly upset many people throughout Wales. For the people of Wales, there is no real question about whether Welsh is equal to English ; what is perplexing is why the Government are not prepared to enshrine that recognition in the Bill. The sad fact is that, unless it is enshrined, the Bill will not demonstrate to all comers, including those who have the most genuine concern, that Welsh is equal to English. Welsh must be, legally and officially, equal to the English language, otherwise it is bound to remain the second language in its own country. We have in the Bill the chance to correct that anomaly.

A start to correcting the anomaly would have been a statutory right, enshrined and entrenched, for all families in Wales to have their children educated through the medium of Welsh, if they wish it, wherever they live. That right is not in the Bill. I tell the Minister of State, in the hope that he will address the issue in his reply, that it is not enough for people living in Powys who wish their children to attend a Welsh medium school to be told that it is a matter for the local education authority. A lead on this is needed from the Welsh Office. That is the sort of responsibility that the House should shoulder, through the Bill.

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