| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Michael: Or the Chair. One hopes they are not directed at the Chair.
Our request is modest. Is it unusual for the world's Parliaments to have more than one language? A review undertaken by the Inter-Parliamentary Union discovered that 51 Parliaments use only one language, 22 use two languages on a daily basis, six use three languages and four Parliaments, including Singapore, which is well known to hon. Members, use more than three languages. There is nothing novel about that. Simultaneous translation is provided easily, in a sophisticated manner. There is no reason why members of the Government Front-Bench team who do not speak Welsh should feel nervous about any lack of understanding in Committee. The people who provide the translations are extremely skilful.
Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones:
Did the hon. Gentleman see the Secretary of State for Wales on television at the weekend in the Council of Ministers, where translation equipment was provided for him?
Mr. Flynn:
Indeed I did. The European Community copes with half a dozen languages with great ease.
Amendment (y), which I am grateful has been selected, proposes a very modest concession. The main reason that we want to press it is that we know the extent of the difficulties when Welsh is spoken in the House. People from all corners of the world can sit in one part of the House where their companions can provide them with simultaneous translation. People have given evidence to Select Committees in a dozen languages.
There is a great danger that we shall continue the traditional disregard of the Welsh language and other minority languages that has occurred for about 200 years. Such disregard is part of the linguistic colonisation that has taken place in Britain and in many other countries.
Many of us are familiar with the sign in a Brittany classroom that said, "Defense de cracher, defense de parler Bretonne"--meaning do not spit, do not speak Breton. The little Bretons had sabots around their necks--exactly the same as the Welsh knot. One child who found another speaking Breton would pass the sabot. The petits delateurs were therefore turned against one another and into sneaks on the language in a positive movement to destroy the language.
In my constituency, as chronicled in "Brad y Llytrau Gleision", inspectors visited two schools in the middle of the last century and said that the children were all stupid because they could not understand a word that was spoken. The inspectors were unilingual in English and could not understand a word of the Welsh spoken by the children. They did not understand why Welsh was being spoken. As hon. Members have said, the children are part of a great educational tradition.
The language has survived. Waldo chronicled how by chance--it was miraculous--the language survived through the centuries because of the non-conformist Church, or because of the Catholic Church, as happened in Brittany. It survived not because people thought of it as a material reward but because they loved it, it was part of their lives and it was of genuine worth. They rejoiced in the literature of the language.
Mr. Rogers:
In paying tribute to the various agencies that have kept the language alive, my hon. Friend ought to pay a great tribute to people such as the late Lord Heycock and other Labour Members who in the valleys of south Wales adopted Welsh language policies, started the system of Welsh comprehensive and primary schools and saved the Welsh language.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. Jonathan Evans)
indicated dissent.
Mr. Rogers:
The Minister who is shaking his head ought to be ashamed of his attitude to the Welsh language.
Mr. Flynn:
I was building up to the climax of mentioning the great success of Welsh-medium education, especially in south Wales. For many of us who have worked in local authorities, it has been one of the great joys to give children who did not speak Welsh in their homes the chance to learn the language. Indeed, they had the chance to learn the language as their parents' generation never did--to read and write it. Many people of the previous generation were not literate. It is one of the great successes of Welsh education that the children
I am disappointed that the Government will not see fit to accept the amendment, which, as I have said, is very modest. All it would do is enable translation equipment and translators to be made available in the Welsh Grand Committee, regardless of its venue. Translators are skilled and would be able to provide a service.
The difficulty is over what will happen with the Hansard writers. What will happen is what happens now when speeches of certain Members, whom I would not dare mention, are totally incomprehensible--to me, anyway. Some of them are from the far corners of these islands and speak in strange accents that I find very difficult to understand. By some odd process, we find that their speech is in Hansard in clear English. If the speech is not entirely understood, corrections can be made.I understand that in the case mentioned by the hon. Member for Caernarfon, Select Committee reporters take down what the translators say. If the person who has spoken in Welsh wishes to correct that later, that can be done. There is no difficulty whatsoever.
I accept that there are difficulties in other areas, for example, if we are to have a report in Welsh and English. However, there is nothing in amendment (y) to prevent it from being accepted tonight without any difficulty. The Government have given us a problem with how to proceed tonight. I want to consider whether to proceed with the amendment. We accept that a concession has been made.
I take on board the comment by hon. Members that this is not a new issue. An early-day motion, signed by 66 hon. Members, was tabled as long ago as 1988. Something could have come from that. It is late in the life of this Parliament. I know that an hon. Member spoke to this Parliament in Chaucerian English. For almost every hon. Member it was complete gibberish--yet it was declared to be in order. I will not test your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, by repeating what was said, but it was English. The Standing Order allows for hon. Members to speak in Chaucerian English, regardless of the fact that hardly anyone can understand what is being said. But the language of Wales is not allowed here. Fourteen members of the Welsh Grand Committee are fluent in the Welsh language; several others can understand a speech in Welsh. More than a third of the members of that Committee can speak fluent Welsh and more than half can understand a speech in Welsh.
The final words of our national anthem, which we sing with great passion, are:
Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth):
We should paraphrase the child's question on seeing a politician in full flow--"Mummy, what is he for?"The same question needs to be asked of the Secretary of State for Wales when he attends the Welsh Grand
A few weeks ago, the Secretary of State gave the impression of wanting to be reasonable in this debate.As I chair the Welsh group of Labour Members of Parliament this year, I want to stress the generosity and reasonableness with which we responded to the suggestions of change. The tone of our meetings; the tone adopted by my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) and his Front-Bench colleagues; and, above all, the tone that all Welsh Members brought to the Welsh parliamentary party when we discussed the issue with the Secretary of State, demonstrated the good will towards having a sensible debate about changes. It was said earlier that the Secretary of State went from that meeting promising to listen, but reneged on that within an hour, if not within minutes. That is a disgraceful response to the generosity of spirit shown by Welsh Members.
Why is not the right hon. Gentleman accepting a single one of the sensible amendments for change that have been put before the House tonight? They are not large and unreasonable changes; they are attempts to take forward the suggestions for change in a reasonable way. Surely it is unreasonable of the Secretary of State suddenly to become adamant that he will not accept anything other than the motion that he has put before the House.
I want to refer to two of the amendments. The first is that tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), which I welcome. My hon. Friend suggests that we should examine the departmental report of the Welsh Office, thereby suggesting a degree of accountability. The Secretary of State for Wales should be willing to answer questions and to respond on the detail in the report before the Welsh Grand Committee. Surely that is what we are in Parliament for. We are here to legislate and to hold the Executive accountable. I should have thought that the Secretary of State would welcome the opportunity to account to Welsh Members for his report and that he would accept the amendment.
The right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) suggested that the Labour party might lose its dominance in Wales and might, therefore, regret having suggested that powers should be given to the people of Wales through an elected assembly in Wales. It may have escaped his notice that the fact that the electors can elect whom they choose is known as democracy, and that the process can swing against a party as well as for it. The Labour party has no fear of democracy. If we lost our dominance, others would represent the people of Wales, and rightly so. I have no fear, however, of that coming about for many years, unless the Conservative party totally changes its attitude of intransigence to what the electorate in Wales wants. The right hon. Gentleman's comment demonstrated the Conservatives' lack of interest in accountability, and a wish to hang on desperately to power informed his criticisms.
It is right that we should pursue the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney that there should be a small degree of accountability, and it is also right that the Grand Committee should study the reports by the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs. The reports are often lost, although they raise important issues that interest our
constituents. When we tell them that there is no proper debate in the House on many of the Select Committee's reports, they are surprised. When a Select Committee has gone into an issue in depth and produced a report, the Government have to make a response. Is it not sensible that there should be a proper and reasonable debate on the issues, and that the Welsh Grand Committee should be the place for those debates?
Amendment (y), tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn), would allow the use of the Welsh language when the Grand Committee meets in Wales. Developments in recent years have allowed people the opportunity to use the Welsh language when they choose to do so. Those developments have been sensible. Increasingly, it has been a matter not of ramming the Welsh language down people's throats but of encouraging them to use it. I agree with the comments made by my hon. Friends the Members for Newport, West and for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) about the way in which Labour local authorities have encouraged the teaching of Welsh, and encouraged people to exercise choice rather than dominating them.
I was brought up in a Welsh-speaking family in north Wales, but I lost the Welsh language during my years in school. I welcome, therefore, the chance of relearning Welsh through adult education, as a second opportunity, and I also welcome the fact that, whereas I am semi-literate in the Welsh language, my children have had the opportunity of bilingual education and are able to speak Welsh. As adults, they have exercised their choice about what they do with that education and what they do with the ability to use two languages.
Is it right that the House took the decision for public bodies in Wales through the Welsh Language Act 1993, but that it is unwilling to apply that decision to our own proceedings when we meet in Wales? Surely it is minimal progress for us to legislate for public bodies and to place requirements on them, yet not to observe those requirements ourselves when we meet in Wales. The Welsh Language Act is concerned primarily with the activities of public bodies in Wales. We should surely apply those requirements to ourselves when we operate as a Welsh Grand Committee in Wales. That is a modest proposal.
As I mentioned earlier in an intervention, there are translation facilities in council chambers in Wales. At a recent meeting, British and German Members of Parliament were able to communicate because translation facilities were available. Translation is provided in a variety of public and private bodies, so why not have it in the Welsh Grand Committee? The Leader of the House said that the matter would be referred to the Procedure Committee. I simply reinforce the request for translation that was made earlier. Please let us have a speedy answer. Let the Government not drag their feet in the same way that they did for the Welsh Language Act, when there was unanimity of purpose in Wales and in the House.
"O bydded i'r heniaith barhau"--
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |