Item 5 on our agenda this afternoon is a statement by the Chair of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee: the effect of Brexit on the arts, creative industries, heritage and the Welsh language. I call on the Chair of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee, Bethan Sayed.  

Thank you. I'd like to make a statement on the potential impact of Brexit on the organisations under my portfolio as committee Chair. I want to stress the effect of Brexit on our creative industries. If we cannot access the single market, and the free movement of goods and labour it allows, this will be just as damaging to the arts as it is to our farmers and manufacturers, though, according to the people who gave us evidence, this gets much less attention in the press. The creative industries are also heavily reliant on the single market, but they don’t receive the same level of attention in the media as car makers and food producers.

The Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee carried out an inquiry into the impact of Brexit on creative industries, the arts, heritage and the Welsh language in the autumn of last year. I thank all those who participated and I want to use this opportunity to highlight the concerns that they raised.

In a fortnight, we will, perhaps, leave the European Union, and, unfortunately, we are no closer to resolving these issues than we were in October, when we heard from stakeholders and the Welsh Government. Today, I want to highlight the dangers of Brexit. There are three specific problems, namely the loss of European funding, the loss of our ability to promote Wales on an international stage and the impact on Welsh-speaking communities.

In terms of EU funding, creative industries and performers in Wales have benefitted hugely from European funding. Once we leave, we may no longer benefit from funding through Creative Europe, Horizon 2020, Erasmus+ and the European regional development fund. This would leave a huge gap—for instance, the Creative Industries Federation reported that

‘The UK receives more funding than almost any other country through Creative Europe. The impact has been transformational in many parts of the UK’s nations and regions.’

EU funding has boosted our arts and heritage sectors and the creative industries. The legacy of this investment can be seen across the country, in the Galeri arts centre in Caernarfon and the Pontio arts centre in Bangor. There is a consensus in this Chamber that Wales must continue to receive the same level of funding that it would have had if the UK had remained in the EU. Since 2017, the UK Government has pledged that a UK shared prosperity fund will plug the gap, but it has still not published any details on how it will work. The current uncertainty about future funding is damaging to our creative industries and it’s vital that we obtain more certainty on the funding that will be available after we leave.

In our report, we called on the Welsh Government to remain part of the European schemes that give our creative industries the ability to collaborate on projects and compete for business on an international scale. On remaining in Creative Europe, the Welsh Government told us that they will

‘continue to seek confirmation from the UK Government on continued involvement and how the UK Government intends to facilitate this’. 

We understand that the UK Government is open to exploring participation in the Erasmus+ successor scheme and that it supports full association with the Horizon 2020 programme. All this is encouraging, but it is a long way from the guarantees that our stakeholders require to plan and invest.

In terms of the Welsh language, as part of the inquiry, we heard of the threats to our Welsh-speaking communities. Funding from the common agricultural policy supports Welsh-speaking rural communities and EU structural funds support employment in some of our most deprived post-industrial communities.

Any downturn in our rural economies will have a negative effect on the numbers of Welsh speakers, endangering the Government’s 1 million target by 2050. During our inquiry, Merion Prys Jones, formerly of the Welsh Language Board, called for the safeguarding of the Welsh language to be one of the five main principles for ‘Brexit and our land’, which is the Government’s policy for supporting rural parts of Wales.

We called on the Government to make explicit references in this document to maintaining and growing the number of Welsh speakers and to state that providing financial support for land managers for providing public goods recognises that strong rural economies keep our language alive.

We were told that the Minister for International Relations and the Welsh Language has been in correspondence with the Welsh Language Commissioner in relation to the potential impact of Brexit on the Welsh language. I call on the Minister to provide more details here today on the work being done to mitigate the effects of Brexit on the language. At this time, the Government needs to demonstrate a greater sense of urgency.

In terms of the global stage, EU membership enables Wales to continue to raise its profile on the international stage, which is so important for the creative industries, which compete globally. The ability to generate income from touring productions in Europe is a vital part of our creative industry’s business model. For instance, during the last financial year, the NoFitState circus generated almost 40 per cent of its total turnover from touring. We heard that any restrictions on touring would jeopardise the viability of touring productions such as those of the National Dance Company Wales and British orchestras. The European Union Baroque Orchestra, based in Oxfordshire since 1985, has already moved to Antwerp because the loss of freedom of movement means that it cannot afford to spend limited funds on the bureaucracy required for musicians to perform on both sides of the channel, and that’s very sad news.

It will be difficult for Welsh productions to compete internationally if we do not remain part of the single market, according to the evidence that we received as a committee. The Welsh Government has accepted our recommendation to carry out an assessment of the 'soft' benefits of membership of European partnerships and to explore the opportunities for continued involvement. These are very helpful for our cultural institutions in order to, for example, gain and exchange knowledge, strengthen academic research, pursue collaborative business opportunities and enhance Wales’s profile on the international stage.

If Wales loses its access to an international platform as one of a collection of small nations in the EU, it will have to work harder for recognition in the future. We are a cultural innovator and benefit greatly from being able to showcase our achievements and share learning opportunities as members of informal European networks.

We know that Brexit will be the biggest financial shock this country has experienced during my lifetime. Our creative and cultural community will be affected in the same way as other businesses. The Welsh Government needs to act with greater urgency to ensure that every preparation is made to minimise the impact.

I want to close by thanking in advance the Members who want to ask questions, but to ensure that it's important that the arts receive the respect of this kind of debate in the context of Brexit—perhaps a debate that hasn't happened often enough so far.

I thank the Chair for making the statement and raising these important issues; I just want to amplify two, if I may, to the Minister. The first is how various networks will operate: Creative Europe, Horizon 2020, Erasmus+ and aspects of the European regional development fund that were used for community and creative projects. These networks—I think all of them, but certainly most of them—are open to third parties, and we heard consistently that organisations wanted to remain part of these programmes so that they would have the network benefits. Now, of course, this will come at a cost, because third-party participation is only permitted to draw down the same amount that is put in or less. So, over time, obviously, we will get less out. I think, in terms of Creative Europe, the UK at the moment, probably, by proportion, gets more than any other state in Europe, or very close to it. So, we know there are going to be big changes there. But still, we need to choose those programmes that we want to be part of because of the creative network benefits, and then justify that to the public in terms of value for money. So, that's the first point I want to make. 

Second point: I do think this issue of how the Welsh language is going to continue to be supported, particularly in the community areas where it's still a community language, I think that's vital. We don't have—. In my own lifetime, those parts of Wales that have over 50 per cent Welsh speakers and then those that have over 75 per cent have really shrunk, and it's a real concern. Livestock farming is a big industry in the areas that remain as majority Welsh speaking in the mother tongue. We've heard today that the 'no deal' tariff structure is likely to be no further tariffs for lamb, or at least the ones that currently exist, so that's good news, but beef will have a tariff. It's not quite as high as what we feared at first, but it's still considerable, and this may have an impact on our rural economies. So, I think it's very important that we remember that as well, when we're trying to work through the consequences of these shocks on Welsh-speaking communities and then adjust various programmes so that we can at least mitigate those costs and keep them to a minimum. But, you know, it is part of our strategic planning in terms of preserving and advancing the Welsh language.

I think most of what David Melding raised was an appeal to the Minister, and I'm sure that the Minister will have heard clearly his comments. I agree in terms of the creative projects, such as Creative Europe, that we should select the networks. It’s disappointing that we've had to come to this point, where we will have to select the networks that we want to be part of, but it’s important that we have a strategy in place in order to ensure that Wales can continue with those partnerships.

Certainly, in terms of the Welsh language, in addition to every other challenge that rural Wales faces, there is also the challenge in terms of the language. I think what’s important is that we have the opportunity, through our universities, to ensure that some of those networks continue. Certainly, Aberystwyth University provides various opportunities to visit nations such as the Basque Country, and we will be going there ourselves before too long, in order to develop those linguistic skills that are so important to us as a nation and as a nation that has a unique selling point in terms of the Welsh language.

I rise also to speak as a member of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee, and I was also glad to contribute to this short inquiry into the impact of Brexit on our creative industries, arts and heritage organisations in Wales, and the Welsh language. I wish to agree with the substantive issues raised today by the Chair and through the inquiry.

So, loss of freedom of movement will be extremely detrimental, as we know, to our orchestras, our ballet, our opera and our smaller touring companies, and also including the access and availability of our young people to the European Youth Orchestra. It is still very unclear at this very late hour what, if any, deal will be agreed upon.

I would also like to touch on some of my real concerns of the dangers that are predicted to await the Welsh arts and heritage sector and our international creative industries. Members will know that this is an area also close to my heart, so, Deputy Llywydd, it gives me no pleasure to say this: Prime Minister May's Brexit negotiations place a huge and regressive step to the Welsh cultural way of life. The Arts Council of Wales has estimated in the last tranche alone that our arts organisations in Wales received £18 million from the European structural investment fund, and this is money for the Welsh economy, it is money for the Welsh arts sector, and it is money for Welsh business.

I welcome very much the Welsh Labour Government's position set out in the policy paper, 'Securing Wales' Future'. To quote from it:

'During the referendum campaign voters in Wales were assured that leaving the EU would not result in Wales being worse off and it is vital to public faith in political process that this promise is honoured.'

Never has that been more important. Wales, as has been stated, benefits immeasurably from Horizon 2020, Erasmus+, Creative Europe, the Wales-Ireland programme, and much, much more that benefits our younger people, our older communities and our economies across Wales. I agree very much with Bethan Sayed that there is a consensus in this Chamber that Wales must continue to receive every single penny and level of funding that it would have had if the UK had remained in the EU. The shared prosperity fund must honour that commitment. The threats to the Welsh cultural sector are clear, but what I want to underscore is that Welsh Labour Government have played a vital and pivotal role in flagging up these concerns and putting direct pressure on the UK Tory Government to live up to their promises to the people of Wales.

So, if Brexit comes to pass along any of the lines presently envisaged, then it will mean that Wales will have to work even harder to be recognised, it will have to work even harder to export our work internationally, and it will have to work even harder to participate on the international stage that our artists and production companies have struggled so hard to find a footing in. Their excellence cannot be displaced, and it must work, finally, even harder to attract funding for Welsh arts in a climate of cuts to the Welsh budget. This is a travesty, and I believe strongly that the Welsh Government will continue to place this at the very heart of their business and negotiations as we move forward.

I would agree with everything you say, and I hear your passion. Especially with regards to music, it was stark for me to read that the Association of British Orchestras said that 20 per cent of their musicians are from the EU, and highlighted the additional cost of arranging work visas for them. So, if we're going to make it very difficult for people to come and base themselves here, or to come and perform here or work here, then that's something that we should all be concerned about. National Dance Company Wales recruits up to 50 per cent of its dancers from Europe. These are skills that our Welsh dancers learn, and can take that on board and nurture future relations with. So, I think what you've said is very strong, and I hope that your Minister has heard and can take forward those concerns on a UK level, and acknowledge the importance of cultural networking and advances here in Wales.

I'd agree wholeheartedly with what my colleague Bethan Sayed has said. Bethan and Members on all sides have spoken about the disastrous impact that Brexit could have on arts, culture and heritage.

I'd like to look at this from the opposite perspective, which is the way in which a lack of investment and attention given to arts has led in part to Brexit. In particular, I'd like to consider the declining numbers of secondary school pupils in Wales studying modern languages, although I appreciate this was out of the scope of this specific inquiry. We've seen a 29 per cent fall in language GCSE entries in Wales in five years, which is a bigger fall than the rest of the UK, and that decline will have an inevitable impact on levels of empathy and openness to understanding other cultures, because when we learn a language, we don't just learn the words, we learn to empathise, to see through the eyes of others by getting a direct outlook into how that culture views the world around them.

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have written a book about this phenomenon called Metaphors We Live By, and they draw attention to how metaphors are built deep into the structures of how we phrase everyday things. My favourite example is, in Italian, the way you say 'sunset' is 'tramonto' and that literally means 'between the mountains', because Italy has, for the most part, a very mountainous terrain, and they describe it exactly as they see it. Languages are windows onto this world, and if we shutter them out, then we close out all the light. I read Lakoff first when I was in university, and when my sister Rhianedd was in university, she studied French and Italian, and she had the immense privilege of living abroad for year, and I've always been very envious of the fact that she got to do that. She made friends for life who spoke not one, not two, but three, sometimes four languages at home every day.

Because of that, Plaid Cymru believes strongly that it’s crucial that Wales remains within the Erasmus+ programme, whatever happens in future in terms of our relations with the European Union. When Professor Claire Gorrara from Cardiff University provided evidence to the committee on this issue, before I joined the committee, she said that she would describe this programme as one that is at the very heart of the linguistic and intercultural well-being of Wales.

She also described what she referred to as 'linguaphobia', suggesting that this was a direct result of the climate created by Brexit. She described a perception that people who don’t speak English, but who speak other languages, are not a full part of the community. Certainly, we see anecdotal evidence that people are being insulted for speaking other languages on the street, particularly on public transport and elsewhere. My concern is that this trend will continue.

Professor Gorrara also highlighted research undertaken by the British Council, which found that a third of the schools that responded believed that Brexit was having a negative impact on parents' and pupils' attitudes towards modern foreign languages.

Bethan noted that Brexit would create the biggest financial shock of our lifetimes to arts and heritage, and I agree with that reading, and to compound that financial impact, our young people and our children will grow up without the same opportunities available to them as others have had, and that's a more fundamental shock to our very soul as a nation. It concerns me profoundly, this is something close to my heart as well, and I don't know how we can even begin to process that loss.

Diolch, Delyth. I think your analysis is really inspiring in the sense that you've come at it from a different perspective as a new Assembly Member with a new outlook on what we can be looking at in terms of this committee, in relation to modern language and the loss of the arts, and how this may have led to some of the issues that led to Brexit—diminution of local provision, theatres closing in our communities—and how that then leads to a lack of opportunity in that regard, and I think that's right for you to say.

And I think, in terms of co-operation, culturally between our nation and others, young people now are given the opportunity to travel. Going back to orchestras, because this is what I know, you can go and perform in a European country as I did—I went to Germany—and then they come back and you share those experiences, they stay here, they become part of your culture for a little while, and you learn more about the world. And I think that is the issue that we're going to find with Brexit, that we will see the world, perhaps, from a more superficial level and that's not good for anybody, because we can have so much to learn from different countries.

But the linguaphobia, I think, is something that we have to discuss beyond this particular committee inquiry as well, because, you know, I'm sure you have, and on these benches we've had people saying that they are fearful sometimes to speak Welsh in some places because they are being told not to speak a foreign language, when, actually, it's the language of their own country. So, that's totally preposterous. But thank you for bringing those new insights into the committee's remit and that's something, in relation to modern languages, perhaps the education committee—not that I want to give work to Lynne Neagle as the Chair—but, in relation to modern languages, it's certainly something that is reaching crisis point and needs addressing.

And, finally, Suzy Davies.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. May I thank the committee for this report, specifically the section on the Welsh language? The Welsh language is a cross-cutting issue, of course, for the Government, so perhaps some of my questions may be a matter for the Minister, rather than the Chair, but I would like to hear from both of you, if possible.

The future of the Welsh language doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so I’m pleased to see reference to agriculture and the relatively high percentage of Welsh speakers in that sector. The language was given scant regard in ‘Brexit and our land’, and readers should look at the issue of language in that document, where there was no evidence provided. I’m eager to know, therefore, what assurances the Minister gave to the committee that Welsh language impact assessments were an integral part of the Government’s process in preparing for Brexit, particularly a 'no deal' Brexit, because it wasn’t clear in the evidence provided to other committees.

Specifically, the report refers to the threat of losing structural funds in the poorest areas of Welsh-speaking Wales, but the same threat exists to poorer areas of Wales where the Welsh language is not commonly spoken, and that’s also a problem. These are the areas of Wales where we’re trying to increase the use of the language for its own sake, of course, but also as an additional skill, which will become more relevant in the jobs market, and that will contribute to social mobility and so on. The committee heard that the Minister for economy and other Ministers were considering this as part of the UK prosperity fund, or the use of the Welsh Government transitional fund. I don’t know whether any of this came up, but if it did, I would like to hear a little more about that.

I agree entirely with the statement that Wales benefits from the ability to promote itself as a nation that is agile in a linguistic sense in a market that is becoming more and more globalised. This is the thinking behind our policy, as Welsh Conservatives, for a trilingual Wales, launched a few years ago, which is still a central part of my own thinking as the opposition spokesperson on education. That general principle was noted by the Minister for Education at the time, and it became part of Government policy, so I would like to receive some assurance from the Minister, perhaps, that that remains the case, in terms of Government policy. Thank you. That was for the Minister. Thanks.

I’ll be responding, sorry.

Yes, to start.

Yes, sorry. [Laughter.] Unfortunately, because it’s a statement from me, it’s not the Minister who’ll be responding, but the Minister is here. It is possible, because many questions have been directed to the Minister from Members, that we could write, on the basis of the contributions here, to the Minister. She’s nodding her head contentedly with that, so we’ll do that as a result of this statement.

I can only go back to what I said in the statement, in terms of the language and agriculture. We have asked the Minister to provide more clarity to us, in terms of the possible impact of Brexit on the Welsh language, and discussions have happened with the Welsh Language Commissioner, but we need to find out more, if possible, from the Minister on the nature of those discussions, because, as Suzy Davies says, that’s very important. Also, as you said, it’s part of all parts of Government and it needs to be mainstreamed into the Brexit work undertaken by every Minister—it’s not just a matter for one Minister. The language, the arts and heritage—they’re important to, I would think, all of the Ministers here.

In terms of the prosperity fund, I’m not sure that we’ve had any kind of sight of what we might get and the detail of that. So, we’ll be lobbying, certainly, to ensure that the language is part of any prosperity fund, and that we’d also have some kind of control over where that money is spent in Wales. So, I’d ask you, as members of the Conservative Party, to go back to them, with respect, and say that we need input on how that's spent in Wales, because the language is a vital part of our ecosystem here, which is, perhaps, different to other parts of Britain.

So, thank you for the questions, and we’ll be framing those in a letter to the Minister for international relations in order to ensure that these issues, which, perhaps, don’t have so much investment or so much discussion as we’d like in the Brexit discussions—we’ve been able to have that priority here today. So, I’d like to thank you all for your contributions.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

I thank the committee Chair.

Before we move on to discuss the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Bill, it’s my pleasure to announce the result of the secret ballot for Chair of the Petitions Committee, and all results will be announced. Therefore, Janet Finch-Saunders, 25 votes; Mark Isherwood, 14 votes; and one abstention. I therefore declare that Janet Finch-Saunders is elected Chair of the Petitions Committee. Many congratulations to Janet Finch-Saunders.