7. Will the First Minister make a statement on what constitutes a Welsh speaker in the plans to achieve a million Welsh speakers by 2050? OAQ51445

Well, that’s a great question, and may I thank Mike for asking the question in Welsh?

The basis of the target of 1 million Welsh speakers is data from the census. The 2011 census noted that 562,000 of the citizens of Wales identified themselves as Welsh speakers, but it is very difficult to know how you define yourself as a Welsh speaker. I've met people with good Welsh, but they don’t count themselves as Welsh speakers because they think that proper Welsh is what’s heard in the broadcast media and they think, 'Well, if that's Welsh, then my Welsh isn't good enough.' So, for me, there’s a task over the years to nurture people's confidence—people who haven’t got any kind of literary background and don’t even read in Welsh, but they are day-to-day Welsh speakers. We must ensure that they count themselves as Welsh speakers and define themselves as such in the census.

Thank you for that response, First Minister. I’ll turn to English now.

There are three levels for developing three levels of Welsh speakers: following the huge improvement in the teaching of Welsh in English-medium primary schools, no child should leave a primary school as a monoglot English speaker, which wasn't true when I was in school; those educated in schools through the medium of Welsh; and those who study Welsh in university. What strategy is being followed to achieve 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050? And, more importantly, as you said earlier, how do you get people who speak Welsh on a daily basis, but not to a technical level, to identify themselves as Welsh speakers?

Well, first of all, we have to make sure that people who have learned Welsh at school to a high standard or—. First of all, in English-medium schools, it's hugely important that Welsh is taken seriously. Of course, the Welsh short course has been a difficulty, and that is something that we are addressing, and to get rid of what I think is an artificial barrier between first and second language. How do you define that with any language? And to look at whether that actually works in terms of the Welsh language.

Secondly, it's hugely important that those who receive their education through Welsh and who don't live in a community where Welsh is spoken widely, who don't come from a Welsh-speaking family background, don't lose their Welsh as a result of leaving school, because of a lack of practice and a lack of opportunity to use it. That's why, of course, we've invested in hubs across Wales in order that people can go there and use their Welsh in a natural way in parts of Wales where it's not spoken on the street. So, that is part of it.

How do you get people to become more confident? That's a more complicated question. Individuals see themselves in different ways. We know, for example, looking at other surveys, that in other surveys the numbers of Welsh speakers can go up to 750,000, because people see the surveys as less formal than the census, whereas in the census, people tend to focus very strongly on what they think their level of proficiency is in a language. They might answer about their proficiency in English, but their proficiency in Welsh—. I do think a lot of people, and this is based on anecdotal evidence, tend to identify themselves as 'Welsh understanders' rather than Welsh speakers, particularly in some parts of Wales—Holyhead, parts of southern Carmarthernshire—even though their Welsh is good enough to be regarded as a native speaker. Encouraging those people to make that jump to see themselves as Welsh speakers is an important part of what we're trying to do.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. I agree 100 per cent: the Welsh language has been part of the curriculum since devolution, and there are a number of people who do have Welsh language skills and who don’t use them, or who don’t consider themselves to have those skills.

Teachers—there’s a sabbatical programme available for teachers. Do you have any idea, as of yet, how meaningful support could be given to key individuals in other workforces?

Well, that’s one of the things, of course, that we’re considering as part of the strategy that we've put in place. It is vital that people have the opportunity to use the Welsh language in the workplace, but it’s also extremely important that people are able to refresh their skills. I must say, when I came here in 1999, I would never have stood up and spoken in Welsh—never—because I didn’t have any confidence at all in my Welsh, in the vocabulary I had. I didn’t have any kind of literary background in Welsh. So, it is extremely important to give people the opportunity to use the Welsh language in the workplace.

At one time, I must say, I wasn’t in favour of people wearing a badge, but by now I've changed my mind, because I think that it’s very important that people are able to see that someone speaks Welsh, and are able to use Welsh with that person in order to give that person the opportunity to speak Welsh as well. So, I would like to see more people encouraging their staff to wear badges if they would like to do so, in order to show others that they’re able to speak Welsh, so that they can use their Welsh in the workplace.

Thank you, First Minister.