9. 7. United Kingdom Independence Party Debate: Welsh-medium Schools

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:53 pm on 29 March 2017.

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Photo of Mr Neil Hamilton Mr Neil Hamilton UKIP 5:53, 29 March 2017

Well, I started my remarks this afternoon, Llywydd, by saying I hoped that this would be a constructive debate, and we shouldn’t seek to make petty political points of that kind, and I will continue in that spirit—[Interruption.] Well, we can have a yah-boo debate if you like, but I don’t think that the public at large are going to be terribly impressed by the attitude of Plaid Cymru on that. I’d like to make a little progress, please.

And so, all I’m suggesting is that, in this particular instance, the views of the parents and those most closely affected by the county council’s decision have been comprehensively ignored by the county council. The strategic plan that Carmarthenshire County Council has produced has been accepted, broadly speaking, by everybody, as far as I’m aware, except in this one instance. I think that it is a mistake to make the best the enemy of the good, from the point of view of those who want to see more Welsh-medium-only schools. Clearly, if there is massive local opposition to this particular proposal, that should cause us to stay our hand. Let’s try persuasion. Let’s move a little more slowly in this one particular instance. It’s 2017; we don’t have to have every single school that was in the strategic plan as a Welsh-medium school by 2017 if it is going to cause massive disruption in the locality. All I’m suggesting is that if we, as we all do, apparently, want to see the Government succeed in its objective, then we must carry the people with us.

It doesn’t help, therefore, to refer to the genuine worries of parents, whether they be justified or not, as contributing to a toxic atmosphere in Llangennech, as the leader of Plaid Cymru has done. [Interruption.] As the First Minister said in questions the other day, that was not a positive and constructive contribution to the debate. It’s not helpful, of course, if a co-ordinator for parents of Welsh-medium education says, ‘If those parents don’t like the Welsh language, can I suggest that the border is over there, and they can cross the border?’ Nor is it helpful for an S4C presenter on Twitter to say,

I hate England in my soul yesterday, today, and forever.

So, if Plaid Cymru want to condemn bigotry, perhaps they’ll condemn Morgan Jones, the person concerned in that tweet. [Interruption.]

Jonathan Edwards, the Member of Parliament for Carmarthen East—[Interruption.]