Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:46 pm on 4 November 2020.
There we are. Well, thank you, Llywydd. I was going to say, when I started earlier, that there'd be some excellent contributions. I was particularly impressed with the contribution of Siân Gwenllian, because I thought she set out not only the philosophy around the teaching of history, but also the considerable challenges that exist.
I chaired the committee that looked at the votes at 16 legislation. Of course, we looked closely at the issue of civic education, and I think the teaching of history in the curriculum and civic education actually go hand in hand, because history is, essentially, pure politics—I say it with a small 'p'—and an understanding of what's happened within our society and its engagement.
Now, one of the concerns I really have is the lack of materials on many of the historic events and individuals in our communities at a local level. For me, history is not about the teaching of kings and queens, particularly—even Welsh princes. It's really about communities; it's also the history of working people and working people's communities.
So, in the time I have, I'm just going to go through some of the people who, I think, really are deserving, in our history curriculum, of being mentioned, certainly in the communities I represent, where there ought to be materials and they ought to be incorporated. When I go around schools, I find very little information about any of these people, even though they were such significant Welsh figures.
Dr William Price of Llantrisant, a Chartist who dealt with occupational health and who did the first modern cremation, of very significant political consequences. Arthur Horner, president of the South Wales Miners' Federation; in 1946, president of the National Union of Miners and a major figure in the nationalisation of the coal industry that had such significance. A.J. Cook, there's a plaque to him just outside my constituency in the Tŷ Mawr Lewis Merthyr colliery; he was the general secretary of the Miners Federation of Great Britain, but very little is taught about this significant figure.
What about the history of devolution going back to the 1920s, perhaps even earlier, but also to Kilbrandon and so on? The history of the miners' federation: how can you talk about modern south Wales's history without talking about the development of the South Wales Miners Federation? The importance of the Taff Vale judgment and the implications of that for democratic rights for trade unions. Wales and the slave trade. Gareth Jones, the Welsh journalist, whom I've spoken on many times, who now has a street named after him in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Hughesovka—John Hughes founded one of the biggest steel-producing areas in the world. The 1926 general strike, how we don't talk about the impact of that on the communities of south Wales. We remember the poem by Idris Davies, 1926, and how we'd remember it 'until our blood runs dry'. Well, I think many of our schools and our history curriculum have forgotten about it. Robert Owen, the founder of the co-operative and trade union movement in many parts of Wales and in Britain; the 1984-85 miners' strike that so impacted; and Evan James, who wrote the Welsh national anthem, who came from Pontypridd.
These are just some of the people. There should be materials; they should form part of a broader corpus of the history that has affected and formed the communities that we represent. For me, that is the important part: the history of working people and working-class communities. Thank you.