3. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the importance to tourism of promoting indigenous place names? OAQ51723

Thank you very much. As the responsible Minister, my first response is that place names, as every other use of national and community languages, are a key part of creating a sense of place for citizens and visitors to Wales, as in any other country, and Visit Wales encourages tourism businesses to retain and use Welsh names for their businesses.

Thank you very much for that response. Place names, of course, are a part of our heritage. It’s important to celebrate them, but, more importantly, it’s important to use them. We all know of examples of names that have been changed. I heard this week about 'Sausage island' on Anglesey. That's Ynyslas. I hope that everyone will vote for one of the best beaches in Wales in the Countryfile BBC competition, but it’s not 'Newborough beach' that’s the name of the beach on the shortlist, but Llanddwyn, one of our most iconic beaches. And truth be told, the picture that’s used by Countryfile is of Penrhos beach, which is the other side of Llanddwyn island. 

There's a list of them: Porth Trecastell, Porth Swtan, Porth Llechog—not Cable Bay, Church Bay and Bull Bay. I genuinely believe that trying to return to the use of those indigenous names can be something that adds value to our tourism offer for people who come here to Wales. I would have liked the legislation to safeguard place names rather than just having registers. But considering the warm words that we heard from you, as Minister, what steps can the Government take? What steps are you willing to take to try to persuade us to go back to using these historic, indigenous names?

I do have some difficulty with the word 'indigenous', or otherwise I would have to speak Brythonic in this place. But to be serious, the heritage of place names is key, and the statutory list is part of the Government strategy for that. It was published in May 2017, and it is kept by the commission on ancient monuments, which is a very important commission in my view, and will continue to be so. The register is free online. There are over 350,000 individual names to be seen on that schedule. There is a full-time curator maintaining that list, and it continues to grow consistently. The way of strengthening appreciation of historic names is that people should be able to see them—that they are visual as part of their daily lives.

I'm not in favour of doing away with names in languages such as English used in Wales side by side with the Welsh names, because I don't believe that that would be appropriate or consistent with the bilingualism legislation that we have. However, I am most confident that the public bodies—the national parks, Natural Resources Wales and so on—will continue to pay attention to the statutory guidelines on the use of the records of the historic environment, and particularly these records of place names. 

Minister, if I could take a slightly different angle to Rhun ap Iorwerth, key to promoting places in Wales once tourists and visitors get here is, of course, through signage. I remember raising with Carl Sargeant, when he was the Minister for transport, the issue of the rather outdated and, in some cases, tatty brown signage, which is found around Wales advertising our places of interest. He said back some years ago that he would look into reviewing the way that that signage is presented and possibly making it more inspiring, more linked with the internet. So, I wonder if you could tell us how you and the current Cabinet Secretary, who's now spurred into action—this covers both of your areas, of course—are working together to make sure that we do undertake a full review of that brown signage in Wales so that places like, in my constituency, Raglan castle, which by the time you see the sign you've passed it, are properly marketed both internally and externally so that we get the best out of all the places that Wales has to offer.

Thank you for that. Signage, above all, has to be clear, has to be intelligible, and has to not cause the person observing the signage, especially if that person is driving, to be interrupted in the proper work that that person has to do. But we now have a new way of describing how visitors travel through Wales, and this is called the Welsh way. This is not the Welsh way of life; this is something else—llwybr Cymru—one across the north, one all the way down from Aberdaron to Tyddewi, and then another one, of course, the A470, as that classic route is known. Now, along that route it is possible to follow a whole series of destinations, and what we are trying to do is create the idea of a modern pilgrimage, or even perhaps a post-modern pilgrimage, where people are going to look at things that are meaningful to them when they've worked out where they are along those routes. So, signage, yes, but more important than the immediate signage is the information available on the internet, the information available on tourism brochures, and the idea that Wales, as a whole, is a destination and a place, as I said, of pilgrimage.