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8.13 pm
Sir Wyn Roberts (Conwy): I, too, warmly welcome the third report of the Select Committee on Procedure on the use of the Welsh language in parliamentary proceedings in Wales. I compliment all those who contributed to the Committee's deliberations and led it to its eminently sensible and very comprehensive set of conclusions. I should particularly like to thank my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons for his leadership and my right hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) for, I am sure, the wise guidance that he gave to the Committee. It certainly deserves a "diolch yn fawr iawn" from us, which means thank you very much. The origins of the Welsh language lie way back in Romano-Celtic times, or possibly earlier. I do not have to remind the House that the earliest poetry we have, the "Gododdin", was written at least a couple of centuries before "Beowulf". Although most English hon. Members would not understand a word of "Beowulf", we have a reasonable chance of familiarising ourselves with the contents of the "Gododdin".
The Welsh language has, of course, long enjoyed the protection of the House. In the 16th century, Parliament legislated that the Bible should be translated into Welsh. Those of us who cherish the language know how important that decision was in ensuring its survival. In this century, Parliament has, of course, passed a number of Acts that have promoted the use of the language, culminating in the 1993 Act, the full effects of which have yet to be realised.
I accept without question that the language of the proceedings of Parliament is English, but, now that the Welsh Grand Committee is occasionally to become peripatetic in Wales, it would not be understandable, appropriate or right if that Committee--for example, when meeting in a predominantly Welsh-speaking town such as Caernarfon--were not able to allow speeches, questions or interventions in Welsh. That goes for anywhere else in Wales.
During the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Honiton, there was mention of the translation that will appear in Hansard. Perhaps it is just as well to remind ourselves that there is no reason why a Welsh speaker in the Welsh Grand Committee should not supply the Official Reporters with his version of his speech, just as we now supply Hansard with copies of any copious notes that we may have.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Honiton mentioned the visit of President Chirac. I certainly received many letters about his address in French to both Houses of Parliament. The letters asked why French was permitted at the Palace of Westminster while Welsh was not. I explained that the President's address was not a part of the proceedings of Parliament but rather a "special ceremonial occasion", as my right hon. Friend described it. Furthermore--as yet--President Chirac is not an honourable Member of this Parliament.
The Welsh Affairs Select Committee laid down its ground rules in 1980, under what I thought must have been the very wise chairmanship of the former Member for Pontypool, Mr. Leo Abse. Those rules dealt with the Select Committee's meetings in Wales and with possible requests for the use of the Welsh language. That Committee's far-sighted proceedings are reproduced in an
annexe to this report, and I am glad that the Procedure Committee found those proceedings a useful precedent, which it has now refined.
I cannot find much fault with the Procedure Committee's recommendations, although when we come to practise them we may find some shortcomings that we cannot anticipate. I am sure that those shortcomings can be overcome with a modicum of common sense and good humour. We have already heard the argument whether a speech should be in Welsh in its entirety or whether it could be partly in Welsh and partly in English. Clearly, there are arguments to be made for both points of view.
Personally, I am inclined to agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Honiton that we should begin by asking that speeches should be entirely in Welsh. Welsh speakers in the Chamber know that we wish to encourage the speaking of Welsh, but there is a danger in the tokenism to which the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North referred. However, I am sure that there are also advantages in the part Welsh, part English speech, if only because it allows double exposure in the media.
Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Mon):
The right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) knows as well as any hon. Member the problems that are experienced by people who want to use the Welsh language at an official level in Wales. Of course, he steered the Welsh Language Act 1993 through the House. He also referred to "Y Gododdin"--I am sure that those taking the official note of our proceedings breathed a sigh of relief that he was not tempted to quote it. However, I am sure that when he speaks in the Welsh Grand Committee in Wales, he will take the opportunity to do so.
Like other hon. Members, I have read the record of the House's dealings with languages other than English. I read the record of the proceedings of 21 July 1966, almost 30 years ago to the month. At that time, the first Plaid Cymru Member--Mr. Gwynfor Evans who represented Carmarthen--entered the House. He raised a point of order with the then Speaker about the possibility of taking the oath in Welsh. The Speaker ruled firmly that the oath had to be taken in English, although a number of hon. Members of all parties supported Mr. Evans.
I am surprised that no other hon. Member has referred to that occasion today because in 1974 the Speaker allowed hon. Members to take the oath in either Welsh or English. Indeed, the oath can today be taken in Gaelic, too. There are, therefore, precedents for people applying to speak in Welsh in the House. Although the House did not feel able to accept the request in 1966, it subsequently felt that it was appropriate to do so.
My point is that although, historically, the House has not been able to accept such requests, it has eventually reconsidered the position. Although it took 400 years for
the oath to be taken in Welsh, it was at least a step in the right direction. Mr. Gwynfor Evans made his point in 1966, and by 1974 the oath could be taken in Welsh.
We ought to be examining the demand in the House for the use of the Welsh language in the Welsh Grand Committee. In the previous Parliament--in 1988--an all-party early-day motion was tabled and eventually signed by a good many hon. Members representing all the countries of Britain. A grand total of 28 hon. Members felt that it was right and proper for Welsh to be used in the Welsh Grand Committee.
In 1988, it had not been suggested that the Welsh Grand Committee should become a peripatetic body. It was, however, suggested that Welsh should be used in proceedings in the House--in other words, where we usually meet, in Committee Room 10. There has been considerable debate about the restructuring of the Welsh Grand Committee and everyone eventually agreed that it should be meeting in Wales. Although we think that it is a body almost beyond reform, given that it is to continue to meet, it has been agreed that it should be meeting in Wales periodically. The demand for the right to speak Welsh in that body thus became overwhelming, as the right hon. Member for Conwy said.
Having passed the Welsh Language Act 1993 so that the Welsh and English languages should be treated equally, and now that the Welsh Grand Committee is to meet in Wales, it would be ludicrous if an hon. Member could not speak in Welsh. It was not a party political issue, and when the Welsh parliamentary party met the Secretary of State for Wales, there was a broad consensus that it was right and proper to allow hon. Members to speak Welsh when the Welsh Grand Committee meets in Wales.
It seems that all the obstacles that the House thought could be placed in the way of using a language other than English have been overcome in relation to proceedings in Wales. As has been said, week after week in council and other chambers in Wales, people are allowed to use Welsh and English--they can use either language and the content of their speeches is translated simultaneously. That is an enormous advantage. No one present at such meetings is at a disadvantage because both languages can be followed equally or people can follow one language in translation. There is no problem with that.
The Select Committee on Procedure is to be congratulated on recognising that the language problems could be overcome in relation to the Welsh Grand Committee meeting in Wales. However, I found one aspect of the Committee's recommendations a little curious. The Committee adopted the proposition of the Clerk of the House, as the Leader of the House mentioned. The report states:
Simultaneous translation facilities mean that any speech can be heard in a language that everyone can understand. If a Member is speaking in Welsh but his speech is
simultaneously translated into English, an hon. Member who cannot speak Welsh can still fully comprehend what the other is saying. I am not sure that the Committee's comment still holds true as a general rule.
If the rule can now be extended to the use of Welsh for the proceedings of the Welsh Grand Committee in Wales, there is no obvious problem in extending it to the proceedings of the Welsh Grand Committee in the Palace of Westminster. The practical problem has been overcome in relation to proceedings in Wales and can be overcome in Westminster.
In case hon. Members think that my idea is revolutionary, I am not suggesting that proceedings in the Chamber or in any Standing or Select Committee of the House should be in Welsh. What I am suggesting is that hon. Members should be allowed to address the Welsh Grand Committee in Welsh, whether it is meeting in Wales or Westminster. Clearly, that would mean Committee Room 10 would have to be fitted with translation equipment, but I cannot see any practical problem with that.
While we recognise that the Select Committee on Procedure's recommendations are a practical and acceptable step forward, the Committee, once it has considered how things develop in Wales, might want to examine the proceedings of the Welsh Grand Committee at Westminster.
I should like to put one point of detail to the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) about the production of a Welsh language Official Report, which was also mentioned by the Leader of the House and the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery). I understand that there will not be a Welsh Official Report, but if an hon. Member who has spoken in Welsh finds another way in which to make his speech available in Welsh, he will be allowed to do so.
This also seems rather curious. Why do we publish reports of our proceedings? It is so that people outside can read and follow them; it is not for our purposes. It is curious that a person speaking in Welsh in the Welsh Grand Committee in Wales has to have his speech translated so that people can read it in a language in which it was not delivered. We must remember that people who will follow our proceedings in Wales will be members of the media--spoken and written. If they want to follow our proceedings in the language in which they were delivered and the Official Report needs to be in English, why could not a Welsh-delivered version be annexed to it? If people want to refer to the speech in its language of origin, what is the problem with making it an annex to the Official Report, even if the Official Report is in English? Perhaps that can be considered again after the Committee has met in Wales a few times.
"any proceedings of the House must be comprehensible to all Members, and must therefore be in the only language all Members are assumed to understand."
I can fully appreciate the first part of that sentence--we all agree that any proceedings must be comprehensible to all Members--but it goes on to say that any proceedings
"must therefore be in the only language all Members are assumed to understand",
which means that all speeches have to be in English.
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