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Mr. Nick Ainger (Pembroke): As someone who served on a council that was bilingual until its abolition earlier this year, I appreciate--as a monoglot Yorkshireman--the concerns that Hansard may have. There is no need for concern because speeches made in Welsh will be interpreted. If the Hansard writers cannot understand a speech and do their job, how will monoglot members of the Welsh Grand Committee understand what is being said? There is some criticism implied of the interpretation facilities. I can assure Hansard as a monoglot Yorkshireman--my hon. Friend has the benefit of being
bilingual--that interpretation facilities throughout Wales are excellent. Hansard will be able to do its job, as will monoglot members of the Welsh Grand Committee.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind hon. Members that interventions in any language should be short and precise.
Mr. Morgan: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention. If Dyfed county council could interpret my hon. Friend's "Ee bah gum" into Welsh, I am sure that Hansard can do just as well with Welsh interpreted into English for the purposes of the record.
Incidentally, I was interested to hear the interventions of Northern Ireland Members, and I was glad to see in his place earlier my hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald), because their presence is relevant.
It was as late as 1906 before a Speaker ruled that English was to be the main language of the House of Commons, and only because of a challenge by an Irish nationalist Member of Parliament from west Kerry who attempted to make a speech in the Chamber in Irish Gaelic. The Speaker at the time made the point--as did the Leader of the House in his intervention--that the proceedings of the House have been conducted entirely in English for the past 600 years. He went one stage further and said that the House's proceedings had always been in English, which is not true. The House started out as a trilingual Parliament, with proceedings in English, French and Latin. In a fluid, pragmatic, I hesitate to say solvitur ambulando way, the English language gradually took over from Latin and French, probably by about 1450.
Naturally--and I notice some Euro-sceptic Members here tonight--after the original Norman conquest, the opening of the hundred years war in about 1350 caused this place to become more aggressively English. I hope that we are not about to start another hundred years war with the continent--you never know. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney) probably thinks that we have started such a war.
The use of French started to decrease and the use of English increased. Strangely, however, as the use of English went up, all words with any conceptual significance were borrowed from the French, so by the time English had replaced French, French had been incorporated into English. Words such as procedure, committee, parliament, government and constitution were all borrowed from French. Single-syllable words were of Anglo-Saxon or English origin, and all the two, three or four-syllable words were of French origin because that had been the language of the upper and ruling classes. That is how English became the flexible language that it is today.
The other great irony about the fear of the Welsh language, which causes Speakers to say, as one did in 1906, "We want to say for definite that the English language is the primary language of the House," is that, by the time the House--having started out on a trilingual basis when it was an England-only Parliament and did not cover Wales, Scotland or Ireland, north or south--became a monoglot English Parliament, it covered initially Wales and then Scotland and Ireland. It was a monoglot English Parliament precisely when it was starting to incorporate the Celtic languages, which might have been relevant in the wish to continue on a trilingual or even quadrilingual
basis, not with French and Latin, but with Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Irish Gaelic possibly permitted in special circumstances, as we are discussing tonight.
Sir Peter Emery (Honiton):
I thank my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for his kind remarks. I suggest that they are applicable mainly to my Committee members, because they have worked solidly to get this through, assisting me in the recommendations that we have made to the House. I am pleased at the speed with which our report has been taken by the House. I urge all Welsh Members to use their influence on their leaders to ensure that other Procedure Committee reports are debated as quickly as this one. I would have liked a "Hear, hear" from Opposition Members on that matter. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] Thank you very much.
I must emphasise absolutely that one of the problems that the Procedure Committee had from the start was the concept that this would be a foot, or perhaps even a toe, in the door, which would lead to possible demands for the Welsh language to be used in Parliament in Westminster. To ensure that that was not acceptable to the House generally or to the vast majority of hon. Members, we emphasised that
There are reasons for our being specific about our proposition about English. The Labour party spokesman, the hon. Member--I was going to say that he was my hon. Friend--for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) pointed out the possibilities of Norman French and other languages. To meet perhaps that point, we are concerned that there should not be an approach that Urdu should be used because it covers certain people whose natural language is Urdu, or that Gaelic should be used in relation to other people in this country. Therefore, we have made that absolutely definite. I hope that the House, in the resolution as set out by the Leader of the House, which I hope will be passed, makes it definite that Welsh is to be used specifically for Welsh parliamentary proceedings in Wales.
Another helpful basis for allowing this is the amount of translation equipment that exists in many of the places where Welsh Committees meet in Wales. It appeared to
the Procedure Committee to be nonsense not to be able to use translation facilities in a county council or a chamber if Welsh Members demanded to speak in Welsh.
We did, however, make it clear that Members should use one language alone, whether in interventions or in speeches. That is specifically to assist both the Chairman and the Committee Clerks in ensuring that they understand what the proceedings are and realise it from the word go.
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy):
In the spirit of co-operation and in assisting the right hon. Gentleman, may I ask him this question? If there were a debate in Wales, an hon. Member were addressing the Welsh Grand Committee in Welsh, the Committee were adjourned and the remainder of the sitting were in London, would that not contravene the golden rule that hon. Members start off and finish in the same language?
Sir Peter Emery:
If it was to be considered a golden rule, the hon. Gentleman would be correct, but we have made the position clear. I hope that hon. Members' speeches will not be cut in half and that they will not have to make half of it in Wales and half in England. To get over that golden rule, I urge the Welsh Grand Committee Chairman to ensure that that does not happen.
Mr. Ted Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney):
I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that the Procedure Committee might reconsider this matter, as was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) from the Front Bench. It is common for people in the course of a conversation or a speech to switch from one language to another. It is a natural habit in west Wales, in the Gwynedd valley, where my wife comes from, and in many other regions. The Committee and the House should think about that point.
Sir Peter Emery:
Although my mother was a Thomas, indeed to goodness, it was not necessary to switch from one language to the other. We should proceed along with this. After all, it is the start of an experiment. If it appears that there is a problem, the matter can be reviewed. That seems to be the sensible way to proceed. This is a new initiative and difficulties will need to be ironed out. Let us get the system working first and then we can--
Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion and Pembroke, North):
I want to register my support for the principle that it is better to use one language in one speech. I am not sure whether that needs to be laid down in the stipulation, but it is good practice to follow; otherwise, we tend to get tokenism--this is a common phenomenon in Wales--when people start their speeches in Welsh, deliver the meat in English and then return to Welsh. That is thoroughly bad practice. I want hon. Members to use Welsh seriously and thoroughly throughout their contributions to our debates.
"the language of the proceedings of the House of Commons and its committees is English: it has been English for many centuries; and it should in our view remain English."
I am sorry if the term "British" would be more convenient, but even in America the language is accepted as being English and I hope that that would be acceptable even to the Welsh. We moved in a specific direction because the special status of the Welsh language in Wales, as enshrined in the Welsh Language Act 1993, did not apply to parliamentary proceedings. It was specifically for that purpose that the Procedure Committee investigated and examined the matter.
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