Well, I rise to support Dai Lloyd in this proposal and congratulate him on the convincingly ministerial way in which he introduced the motion today. My party’s often unfairly accused of living in the past, but respect for the past is an essential element in what we stand for. Lee Waters, the other day, talking about UKIP wanting to take the party back to the 1950s—of course, what he really meant was the 1450s. If we look at the history of a nation, it is very importantly reflected in the etymology of the place names, and they tell us so much about the country that we are and the country that we were. I forget who it was who once said that, as the past ceases

‘to throw it’s light on the future the mind of man wanders in obscurity’, but I think there is an essential truth in that.

We’re all accustomed to the corruption of names over the years. Indeed, I suppose Dai should really be called ‘Dai Llwyd’, although he is the very opposite of a grey man in my opinion. But, in place names, this is all part of our history, as Suzy Davies pointed out a moment ago. The changes themselves and corruptions are an essential part of history too.

With the examples that have featured in the newspapers et cetera in recent years—unhappy ones like the ‘Happy Donkey Hill’ story. It refers to, as Dai said in his speech, y Faerdre Fach, which I believe means ‘little home farm of the prince’, which was a smallholding that was designed to provide an income to the lord in medieval times. I would have thought that it doesn’t require a great deal of imagination, in marketing terms, if you’re running a business based upon such a plot, to make something of that. To change it to something like ‘Happy Donkey Hill’, which bears no relationship whatsoever with the history of the place, is rather unfortunate and I wouldn’t have thought that there’s much business advantage in that. It’s interesting that Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch was itself an invention of the mid nineteenth century designed to sell the touristic advantages of visiting that part of Anglesey. So, this works perhaps two ways as well.

There is an argument, of course, which was referred to by Suzy Davies in her speech, about interfering with people’s own rights to do with their own property what they will. But, of course, we accept this in relation to historic buildings where people know that there is a public interest in protecting what they are entrusted with for the period that they’re on this planet earth. I think, therefore, that there is no real question of principle involved here in relation to the protection of historic place names, and, whilst there are lots of technical issues that might arise during the course of the passage of the Bill, which has been referred to already, nevertheless, in general terms, we should give a warm welcome to what is a measure that is long overdue.

I’m sorry at the rather unimaginative approach that has been given by the Welsh Government, because I certainly don’t think we should make the best the enemy of the good, and, just because the Government is already doing something that is worth while and valuable, that we shouldn’t overlay that with another measure that could supplement what the Government is doing. So, I give this proposal a very warm welcome and we’ll do our best to make sure that it gets onto the statute book.