Hywel
Williams: That proves that there is no collusion between
Plaid Cymru Members, as that is the point I am moving on
to. The
fact that not all competency in respect of the language is transferred
raises a number of points. As I argued earlier, in my view, it is
likely to lead to more dissatisfaction, protests and pressure for a
further transfer. For example—my hon. Friend has already given
one—in 2006-07, I introduced a ten-minute Bill, the Bilingual
Juries (Wales) Bill, which would have ensured that in certain
circumstances, evidence given in Welsh would be understood directly by
the jury on the same basis as evidence already understood in English;
it would be the same principle, that evidence should be understood
directly rather than in translation. I think that there is a certain
amount of consensus behind that—that there are questions to be
answered. Unsurprisingly, that Bill proceeded no
further. On
1 April this year, 40 years to the day that the 1967 Act came into
force, I presented another ten-minute Bill, which would have at last
allowed anyone in Wales to register a birth or death in Welsh,
irrespective of the fact that the birth or death might have taken place
in England. That is a small anomaly that affects people mainly in
Powys, Monmouthshire, the east of Clywd and eastern Wrexham, where
normally people go over to England to have a birth, or, unfortunately,
die in hospital. At present, those people might want to register that
birth or death in Welsh, but are unable to do so. My ten-minute Bill
would simply allow that to happen by a not particularly clever device,
which I will not go into now.
Neither Bill
proceeded any further. I did not expect them to, but I think it would
be wise for this place to respond to the matters, which are not being
transferred to Cardiff. I merely point out that if it is the intention
of any Government in London, of whatever stripe, to maintain the
partial nature of the transfer, the other side is to give proper
attention to matters that are not transferred; I have just mentioned
two that could be given full and proper consideration.
I found the
process of working with my colleagues in the Welsh Affairs
Committee very positive. We moved a great deal from where we were at
the end of the evidence sessions, which I thought went well. I thought
we took a number of steps backwards, and then moved forwards again.
That process was a positive experience, although, as I said, I am still
very much in favour of moving on from the LCO arrangements as soon as
possible.
I will end by
quoting Ned Thomas. In his book, “The Welsh Extremist”
from 1972, he complained—we all complain very well—that
Welsh
had “high
prestige but low
priority”. I
hope that we are moving away from that situation, and I trust that we
are.
2.24
pm
Alun
Michael: I welcome you back to the Chair of this Committee
for this fascinating debate, Mr. Caton. It is a particular
pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Caernarfon. He and I may
disagree on some high-level principles in politics, but we share the
experience of trying to deal constructively with the Welsh language in
this
Committee. The
debate reflects the growing strength, effectiveness and transparency of
the process of transferring powers and responsibilities to the National
Assembly for Wales through the process of legislative competence
orders. It deserves wider publicity and understanding, as it is a
unique process—it does not exist in Northern Ireland, in
Scotland or, as far as I am aware, anywhere in the world. Hence, it is
a Welsh
first. When
the measure was first introduced in the Government of Wales Act 2006, I
was a bit doubtful. I thought that either it would create a situation
where we had no change, and would be a bureaucratic diversion that
would not do much, or it would transfer powers without any
scrutiny—the Scylla and Charybdis of all parliamentary progress.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon as Chairman of the Select
Committee, and the members of that Committee from all parties, should
be proud that we have helped the process to become a living, successful
one. That takes time. The hon. Member for Caernarfon was bemoaning
periods of time such as 40 years and 75 years. I point out to him that
members of the Labour party had to wait virtually 100 years from the
founding of our party before we saw the minimum wage—which Keir
Hardie had argued for in the early days—brought into legislation
by this
Government. Patience
is a necessary quality in politics, but so is impatience. We should
move quickly to complete the process of transferring powers over the
Welsh language, and consensus is the way to accelerate all such
processes. I say to the hon. Member for Caernarfon that the anomaly of
the registration of a death occurring outside Wales affected me when my
father had his last illness and had cancer treatment on the Wirral. I
therefore understand that that issue needs to be addressed, and the
right way to do it is by getting agreement to take it
forward. I
was saddened by the interventions this morning by the shadow Secretary
of State, the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham. It was almost as if
she did not want to be part of this progressive alliance. I pay
tribute, however, to the Conservative members of the Select Committee,
who engaged in that spirit of challenge and consensus. In other words,
we were willing, as the hon. Member for Caernarfon suggested, to face
up to some difficulties to get the right
outcome. The
original draft legislative competence order contained a number of
well-intentioned attempts to achieve a compromise. The £200,000
limit on the receipt of public funds was just such an attempt, but the
problem is that it is arbitrary. It is to the credit of the Select
Committee that we looked for a better way of dealing with that issue,
instead of just saying that we were not happy with what was proposed.
We worked creatively and looked for solutions. Consensus looks easy
when you achieve it, but I am a Labour and Co-operative MP and
co-operation is not easy—it is challenging. The way in
which the Select Committee approached the issue reflects the hopes we
all had when the Welsh Assembly came into being, of a new politics of
consensus. Co-operation and consensus takes a lot of hard work, but is
productive and far more effective in the end. The Select
Committee’s approach also reflects a sea change in how the
language is treated, because it is now a source of general pride rather
than of division among Welsh and English speakers alike. The comments
made this morning by my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn about
Welsh language education reflect that probably more powerfully than any
other contribution from members of this Committee could have
done. It
is important to underline that the changes we recommended as a Select
Committee focus on principles and good drafting rather than on
legislative detail and minutiae. The recommendations in our report give
more power to the Assembly than the Assembly requested when it came
forward with the draft legislative competence order. The strength of
the recommendations is that the powers as transferred will be tempered
by the need for those powers to be used constructively and
proportionately. Sadly,
some people do not understand the strength of the legislative
competence order process. On a variety of occasions, BBC Wales does not
seem to have understood the process, nor sometimes does the Presiding
Officer of the National Assembly. Some Members of this House have not
always kept up with how the process has developed. It is not where it
was when we started 18 months ago; it has developed into a
much more sensitive and responsive process. The hon. Member for
Meirionnydd Nant Conwy demonstrated in a discussion on the radio in
August that he had not kept up with the process. He had to acknowledge
that he was not completely up to speed; he had the courtesy to say that
during the exchange. That illustrates that even Members of this House
who care deeply about these processes do not necessarily keep up with
developments.
There was a
slow start, but that was because LCOs were slow to arrive. For
instance, the LCO proposed by Ann Jones AM on sprinklers has finally
reached us, having spent a long time at the Assembly. It was not
delayed in Whitehall or the House. The process, once the LCO is before
us, is iterative, and we have seen substantial improvement. It is now a
strength that an LCO changes after an Assembly Committee makes its
report before the LCO reaches us. We therefore get the considered view
of an Assembly Committee when we scrutinise the draft. That is a good
thing and is not a weakness in the
process.
Mr.
David Jones: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that
is the strength of the sequential consideration of draft LCOs? Rather
than having contemporaneous consideration, we should try as far as
possible to make it
sequential.
Alun
Michael: I accept that point, but it depends on the order.
In this case, the Welsh Affairs Committee was able to look at the
Assembly Committee’s comments and concerns and react to them, so
we benefited from that work. There are other LCOs that would have
benefited from discussions between AMs and MPs at an earlier stage. I
do not think that consideration always needs to be sequential, but I
agree that it can often be a considerable strength, as in the case
under discussion.
The Secretary
of State’s response to the Select Committee report is extremely
encouraging, because there is a natural and human tendency within
Government to say, “Not invented here; we knew what we wanted to
do and we don’t want to change that during the passage of the
legislation.” That is not the way that either he or Welsh
Assembly Government Ministers have responded to the report, which again
shows a constructive and mature engagement not only from AMs and MPs,
but also from Ministers here and in the Welsh Assembly
Government. Five
challenges arise from dealing with the report’s recommendations.
The first is to pass good legislation in the Assembly using the powers
transferred under the LCO. That is particularly important when the
Assembly only has a single Chamber and a structure that lacks the sort
of scrutiny arrangements and arrangements for delay that we have in
Parliament. The point of the reasonableness and proportionality test is
not to increase delay or to raise the bar to make it difficult to
legislate, but to ensure that the following questions are asked and
answered publicly: will the legislation work; will it improve the
situation; and will it be
constructive? The
second challenge is to use legislation only when it is needed. We heard
evidence from the Catalan Government, which the hon. Member for
Caernarfon referred to, where they were asked whether they needed
legislation, because they had described a consensual approach to the
use of the language. Their answer was yes, they needed the framework of
law, but then they needed to concentrate on building consensus rather
than using the law as a blunt instrument. I hope that that lesson has
not only been heard by the Welsh Affairs Committee, but will also be
taken to heart by the National Assembly for
Wales. Actions
by public bodies and politicians are significant in themselves. When
the Assembly first convened and I faced the first questions, I was
proud to say—I put this into practice—that I would answer
them in the language of the questioner. If I was asked a question in
Welsh, I would answer in Welsh, and if I was asked a question in
English, I would answer in English. My expertise in the Welsh language
is akin to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon
Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) in English, so my grammatical
presentation is not perfectly formed. I thought that I was being
courageous at the time, but it was an important gesture. On the other
hand, I am surprised at the Presiding Officer’s suggestion that
there should not be an English and Welsh publication of the
Assembly’s record of proceedings. I understand that that has now
been withdrawn and we shall continue to have both. It is probably an
expensive element, but it is not a luxury; it is symbolic of the equal
importance of both languages in the work of the
Assembly. My
right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn referred to the central
importance of education, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon
in introducing the debate. Protest has a place in political life and
development, but the quiet work of education and the development of
consensus and use of the language makes for change. Again, I stress
that at the heart of our report is the suggestion that the framing of
the laws should be used to strengthen that consensus, not to undermine
it.
When my first
child went to primary school, there was one small Welsh-language
primary school in Cardiff and no secondary schools. There are now two
secondary schools and something like nine primary schools. I have
visited both those Welsh-language schools during the course of the
summer. I was massively impressed, not just by such a large and growing
number of youngsters who, with their parents, were choosing to go
through Welsh-language education, but by the quality of discussion and
debate, and the outward-looking, international aspects of some of the
discussions that I heard in the classrooms. I should say that I visited
some of the non Welsh-speaking schools in my constituency, such as
Llanrumney and Rumney high schools, and saw the same qualities there.
However, it is the exercise of choice in that way that is the strength
and long-term future of the
language. The
Welsh Affairs Committee has provided a constructive way forward. It
built on the work of the Assembly Committee, which means that Assembly
Members and hon. Members of this House representing Welsh
constituencies have taken the step forward together. That is one of the
key strengths of
devolution. That
leads me to the third challenge, which is for the focus to be on people
and their use of the language, not on something sterile and arid or
merely on legislation. A lot of the debate has been about
organisations, companies and structures, but the legislation has to be
about people and the use of the living language in communities. That is
why I welcome the comments made to us by Consumer Focus Wales. Maria
Battle, in making such points,
said: “Consumer
Focus Wales will be working in the coming months to establish just what
users want from any Measure that might follow once the powers are
devolved. In the meantime, we will be urging politicians to ensure that
the LCO isn’t so limited that it ceases to be an opportunity for
Wales to legislate on the Welsh language in a way that is truly
responsive to the needs of the people of
Wales.” That
surely must be the right way
forward. The
full challenge is to get the details right. I agree with the comments
made by the hon. Member for Caernarfon that the Welsh Language Society
needs to become a positive influence in building that understanding and
consensus. Its initial comments in response to the report were probably
formed by the impressions that have been around for a long time, rather
than by where we had reached as a Committee. I hope that the society
will catch up with
that. On
the other side of that equation, the hon. Gentleman also referred to
the CBI. I met CBI members for an excellent round-table discussion
about the LCO, at the request of my hon. Friend the Chairman of the
Committee, to talk through how our suggestions would work in Committee.
There were three points about the CBI’s evidence, one of which I
was going to make and which I used partly in response to the hon.
Gentleman. The CBI
argued: “The
key barrier to the voluntary extension of Welsh services in the private
sector is the low level of
usage.” Moving
from saying, “If it’s not used, we don’t need
it,” to, “Let’s work together to increase
usage,” is a positive development. That is the nature of what I
drew out of its publication in August. Most of the CBI’s worries
are about how the Assembly will use the new powers—there is a
challenge to the Welsh Assembly Government to use the consensual
approach, consulting business and
engaging it in the process. However, that also requires business to be
willing to engage with the Assembly. A voluntary approach is always
preferable, but the voluntary approach has to deliver if we are to say
that we do not need to go to regulation and legislation. If that
approach does not work, the consequence is that we end up with
legislation and bureaucracy. It behoves the Assembly, the CBI and
others to avoid the need for that. The CBI concludes its comments by
saying: “Business
in Wales remains to be convinced that at the end of the process the
appreciation and vitality of the Welsh language will have been improved
more so than the current voluntary approach. If the private sector
begins to see the Welsh language in terms of compliance and regulatory
requirement then we will know the LCO will have
failed.” That
could be reflected by saying that if the Assembly sees the granting of
the powers as an invitation to legislation, bureaucracy and regulation,
it will have missed the point of our report. If, on the other hand,
both business and the Assembly see it as an opportunity to provide the
background framework that the Catalan Government referred to, and
therefore work on building the consensus and the acceptability and the
use of the Welsh language, we will have succeeded.
I am still a
little concerned about the figure of £400,000, as it seems as
arbitrary as the £200,000, except it is much bigger. It might
have been more honest to indicate the bodies that are intended to be
brought within it, but I accept that there are legislative problems. I
hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will consider
those points when taking the matter forward, as he has already done in
indicating that a much higher limit will be
set. I
also hope that the Secretary of State will ensure that the detail of
the drafting makes sure that there is flexibility for the Welsh
Assembly Government, in applying any Measure, to be able to make
exceptions where intended. I make that case in case someone who had a
very large grant in one year but a small grant the year after was
caught unintentionally. But those things may be dealt with in the
detail. Mr.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD): I am sure
that with the right hon. Gentleman’s experience in government,
he will know that wherever one fixes a figure or a line, it will be an
unhappy experience for
someone. Does
the right hon. Gentleman think that the concepts of reasonableness and
proportionality could be used in determining which bodies that have
received public funding should comply with the
Measure?
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