The next item is the debate on the report of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee on the effect of the pandemic on the Welsh language. I call on the chair of the committee to move the motion—Helen Mary Jones. 

Motion NDM7519 Helen Mary Jones

To propose that the Senedd:

Notes the report of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee, 'The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the Welsh language', laid in the Table Office on 1 December 2020.

Motion moved.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I'm very pleased to rise to commend this report to the Senedd, a report on the effect of the COVID crisis on the Welsh language. I want to begin, of course, by thanking members of the committee, our witnesses and our staff, who have continued to support our work through the pandemic. I'm very grateful to them all. The COVID crisis has of course had a massive impact on all aspects of life in Wales, and as expected, it has had a massive impact on the activities and institutions on which we rely to promote the Welsh language and to provide opportunities for people to use it. We received a wealth of evidence and in the short space of time available to me today, I can only highlight some of the aspects of our report.

We saw, of course, the cancellation of events—the National Eisteddfod, the Urdd Eisteddfod, and very importantly, a myriad of small and local events run by organisations like the mentrau iaith, all of them crucial opportunities for people to use Welsh in their communities and on a national stage. Now, these cancellations, of course, created economic risks, of which I know the Minister is well aware. There are 2,000 jobs that depend on the National Eisteddfod every year. The Urdd told us that they'd lost £14 million in total and will be in debt by £3.5 million by the time the financial year is done. The Welsh Government had to reprioritise its budget, of course, and £2 million of the Welsh language budget was reprioritised and used elsewhere, and the committee has no criticism of that whatsoever. But we are concerned that that situation shouldn't stand, and we are recommending that short-term reallocations of Welsh language funding do not result in longer term funding changes, which could detract from achieving the aims of 'Cymraeg 2050'. 

Witnesses raised serious concerns about the workforce in this important sector in a number of ways. We have, for example, highly-skilled individuals who will find it easy to find other work, and may be permanently lost to the Welsh language sector. The Urdd highlighted the issue that qualified youth workers who could work through the medium of Welsh are worth their weight in gold, but they can, of course, also work through the medium of English, and they can also work across the border. They are very concerned about not being able to retain that workforce. 

Another vital aspect that witnesses highlighted to us was the fact that these institutions and organisations often provide good-quality jobs in local communities where good work can be hard to find, and that they play an important role in maintaining Welsh as a community language. For this reason, we have recommended that Welsh Government should ensure that jobs that support and promote the Welsh language across Wales are central to its economic recovery plan. 

We heard a lot from witnesses about the impact of work going online, and there were huge successes. The Urdd, in place of the real-life Eisteddfod, hosted performances from homes and gardens of competitors. Seven thousand people took part and there were 27 broadcast hours. Tafwyl, our much-loved Cardiff festival, again went online and achieved a global audience of 8,000 people. The National Eisteddfod, Eisteddfod AmGen, an incredible achievement—360,000 international viewers across the world, and Merched y Wawr created podcasts that had 10,000 views in their first six weeks. 

Now, this was indeed a huge achievement, but there are issues. Witnesses highlighted to us that there are people who may not have the digital skills, and Merched y Wawr were running programmes to try and encourage that. That becomes very difficult with social distancing, of course. There are issues with access to equipment and to appropriate equipment, as well as knowing how to use it and, of course, the perennial issue, of which I know the Minister is aware, of the access to broadband, which is particularly stark in rural communities. Of course, many of our communities where Welsh is a natural language are those rural communities. 

That's why we've recommended that the Welsh Government updates its Welsh language technology plan, taking into account the successes but also looking at what now needs to be done. And we've also recommended that funding and training be made available to the Welsh language sector to ensure that the digital successes that they have achieved can be built on, and that others are able to access that. 

Witnesses were clear, though, despite the online achievements, that online work is not a substitute. We heard very good things about the number of people learning Welsh online, but the point will come when those people want to use that Welsh face to face with real people. The organisations were all clear that they want to get back to face-to-face provision, and it's very important that they're maintained through this difficult time so that they will be there. The committee is unanimous and feels very strongly about that. We cannot allow our crucial institutions to be terminally weakened. 

It's interesting and not surprising that our findings and recommendations are reflected in the findings of the sub-group of the Welsh language partnership council that were looking at the effect of COVID on Welsh-language community groups. And I look forward to the Welsh Government's formal response to their recommendations as well as to ours. 

Llywydd, this will be my last opportunity to speak in this Chamber as the acting Chair of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee. It's been a huge privilege to serve our Parliament in this role, and I want to express my gratitude to my fellow Members who've been incredibly helpful and supportive, to all of those who've given evidence. And especially, I want to thank our remarkable staff who have done sterling work, enabling us to effectively scrutinise the Government through this incredibly difficult time. I also want to thank all the Commission staff, Llywydd. It's remarkable the way in which they've been able to get us online and enable us to function as a Parliament at a time when we might have thought that that would be impossible. I look forward to welcoming Bethan Sayed back to her role as Chair in the new year, and to continuing to serve as a member of the committee. I look forward to the debate this afternoon, and to responding.

David Melding.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd—I nearly said 'Gadeirydd' then, because our great stand-in Chair of the committee is just across the Chamber. But I do want to start by paying tribute to Helen, who, from 1999, has been a great servant and a great force to Welsh devolution and the development of our political institutions, and stepped in so ably. We all look forward, naturally, to Bethan coming back, but honestly, the committee lost none of its focus, and you took forward the priorities that under Bethan's leadership had been established, and really, in a year of most remarkable disruption for the whole Senedd in its working arrangements, we were able to cope with that and to really produce a succession of very important focused reports.

I thought this was a very impressive inquiry. It was fairly short, but we received, I thought, excellent and authoritative evidence, just about how the impact of COVID has been felt, across Wales but particularly in Welsh-speaking communities, and then also for the whole infrastructure that is there culturally and also in the education sector to promote and enhance and to fully allow Welsh to flourish. I think it's appropriate that we look at 'Cymraeg 2050' and the ambitions set there, and it took us a long time for that document to emerge from a Welsh Government—it's only two or three years old. We nearly got to the twentieth anniversary of devolution without an effective plan for how we would be a real bilingual society. And it's a really important document and the goals it sets for the medium and longer term are really, really important to us, and we must evaluate how COVID has disrupted some of these initial patterns, because we don't want to see any decline in our muscle mass—the infrastructure. 

Now, as Helen said, the Urdd and the Eisteddfod and many other organisations have conducted a remarkable amount of activity, in the cultural sector but also in promoting the language and in ensuring that people who want to access Welsh and to learn Welsh can do that on digital platforms. All sorts of personalities, now, are telling us that they're trying to learn a little bit of Welsh, from well beyond the borders of Wales, and it's something of an international cult now, I think it's fair to say, which is not good enough for us, but at least it has piqued the interest of many people out there, who suddenly realise, 'Gosh, the oldest language in Britain is not English but it's Welsh.' So, they've taken advantage. It's a very good second best, I think, when you can have something equivalent to a digital Eisteddfod, but it is a second best, and I think in future we'll want to retain the digital end, because of, if nothing else, the equality aspect of it in allowing some people who cannot physically get to locations to be able to do so. So, there are great advantages there, and we really have seen the big anchor organisations respond with great alacrity, and I think this shows their underlying health and how much we should be in partnership with them in achieving our core aims for the future.

I do remain somewhat concerned about when the furlough finally ends and some of the support there at the moment, because there are a lot of highly professional people employed in these core institutions, and it's essential that they are retained and that we don't lose that, and for economic development in rural areas, but not just rural areas. We now have parts of Cardiff where the Welsh language and the economy around that is really important, and a growth sector with great potential, so I do want to see the urban side emphasised too. But let's face it, most community Welsh speakers are in largely rural areas or small towns and we dismiss some of these, as one witness said, as the hinterland areas. Well, they're not hinterland; they're an essential part of our life. And I thought what Helen said about the digital strategy and the need for a technology action plan to reflect the needs from the rapid change to online for Welsh language learning and for cultural activities, which we will wish to retain when we get back to the physical world—. But, in many areas, they don't have great connections and we need to remember that.

So, to conclude, Llywydd, I think we should congratulate all these organisations, and I will single out the Urdd and Eisteddfod, but there are many others too, for their outstanding work. We must ensure that the enterprise they've learned is an additional one and doesn't then end up replacing some of the past core activities, which are equally important.

As is the case in many other areas, the pandemic has intensified problems that existed long before the pandemic hit, and the Welsh language is no exception, as this report demonstrates, unfortunately. It's an uncertain future in terms of the Welsh language that we see here. The recommendations by the sub-group on increasing use of the Welsh language announced by the Minister today actually emphasises that and raises a question on the resilience of Welsh-speaking communities and the resilience and adequacy of the infrastructure in place nationally to support and rejuvenate the Welsh language in the face of all of these challenges.

Not only the impact of the pandemic, but Brexit, too, is a threat to the Welsh language. There was an assessment on the dual effect of COVID and Brexit on the Welsh language, looking at issues such as the housing market by the Counsel General. Now, that assessment and the recommendations published by the Minister for the Welsh language today are more narrowly focused on the impact of the pandemic on Welsh-speaking communities, but it would be good to understand what the relationship is between the two assessments and the two reports, and more importantly, perhaps, to know what will happen to these recommendations; what will happen to the recommendations and conclusions of these assessments. And even more importantly, we need an action plan in order to actually address the real crisis that could be facing the Welsh language, and we need to be clear who, within Government, will be leading on that.

The Government was very willing to cut Welsh language budgets at the beginning of the pandemic, but the Government must now be just as willing to take action on all of this evidence and to provide funding, once again, in Welsh language budgets, just as the committee's report calls for. Welsh language budgets were inadequate before the pandemic, and I want to put on record how concerning it is to hear about the news of a cyber attack on the Office of the Welsh Language Commissioner. Now, the commissioner’s budget was cut harshly year on year, and warnings were received in 2016 that we needed to invest in the institution’s systems in order to safeguard them. As I understand it, because of this cyber attack, the activities of the organisation have come to a halt, to all intents and purposes, so we need an urgent statement from the Government on the situation and to provide all possible support to the commissioner, both financially and otherwise, to restore the situation, particularly, given the funding shortfalls over a number of years.

To conclude, one key message in the report to Government is that jobs that support the promotion of the Welsh language across Wales should be central to its economic regeneration plans. And, of course, all Welsh Government plans should support the target of a million Welsh speakers, but I'm not holding my breath, given that the role of the director of education—the head of the Welsh Government's education department—a role that will be central to driving the million Welsh speakers strategy, has been advertised without a requirement for any Welsh language skills. The Minister and the First Minister need to take a grip of this situation as a matter of urgency. I'd like to thank the committee for its report, and I would also echo David Melding's comments in thanking Helen Mary Jones for her strong leadership. But I also look forward to working with Bethan when she returns. Thank you.

The Minister for Mental Health, Well-being and the Welsh Language—Eluned Morgan.

Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the committee for their report. The recommendations are useful, and I will be responding fully and formally to them in the new year, as today's debate is very close to the publication date. So, may I apologise that I haven't had time to respond fully and formally by today? But I just want to say that I do look forward to doing so very soon.

I understand why this debate is so close to the date of publication, because this is a very fast-moving area. COVID-19 has impacted on all of our policy areas here in the Government, and we have adapted our work very quickly since the beginning of the crisis to ensure that Cymraeg 2050 remains on the right path.

For example, we have ensured that Cysgliad, the spell-checker and grammar-checker online, is available free of charge for every school, every individual and every small company in Wales. We've held a Summer full of Welsh for your kids campaign to support parents, especially those who can't speak Welsh, so that they can assist their children in Welsh-medium schools. We've also ensured that the Helo Blod service is available to support small businesses and the third sector.

So, we did publish our own report, 'The effects of Covid-19 on Welsh language community groups', very recently. The pandemic has transformed our way of life. What we need to do is to reconsider how we engage with other people in our communities. It's made us think about how we can use some of the good practice that we have seen during this time to influence on positive use of the Welsh language in future. We've seen people being really creative—you talked about Tafwyl; the Urdd has done incredible work online; the Eisteddfod AmGen and so on. So, there's a great deal that we have learned, and we do have to ensure that we do get a hold of that and ensure that we use that expertise for the future.

Welsh community groups play a key part in our lives here in Wales. They create places for us to use the Welsh language together in all parts of the country. Earlier this year, before the pandemic struck, I established three sub-groups to the Welsh language partnership council. One of the groups, with Dr Simon Brooks in the chair, has looked at the impact of COVID-19 on the use of the Welsh language in our communities. The sub-group decided to hold a survey of community groups in Wales during the pandemic, and I'm very grateful to Simon and his fellow members for the thorough work that they have done and for compiling the report that I published last week.

I also welcome the recommendations that we've put forward today. I published those this morning. They, hopefully, will help us to deal with some of the challenges facing us. It's really interesting to see how many of these align with the recommendations of the committee.

So, to understand the situation in our communities, a survey was prepared, and 1,092 community groups responded. That's an excellent number, and I'd like to thank the mentrau iaith for collaborating with us on the survey, and for engaging with community groups and encouraging all of them to take part. We had responses from all kinds of groups, including choirs, chapels, Merched y Wawr chapters, cylchoedd meithrin, papurau bro, sports clubs and Welsh learners' groups. Thank you to everyone for responding and for giving of their time to be part of this important survey.

So, what we've had is a clear picture of what has happened at a grass-roots level since the lockdown in March—a picture that makes me very concerned about the future of that grass-roots activity. Eighty per cent of the groups said that they hadn't operated since the lockdown and that 68 per cent of their activities hadn't taken place. Of course, it's understandable that the COVID-19 regulations were the main reason for that, but there were other reasons too—members were concerned about meeting, couldn't access online activities, because they needed more computer skills, as you've suggested. Over half the groups are being run by volunteers, and almost 70 per cent of the volunteer groups have people running them who are over 60 years of age. I'm very pleased to say that the picture isn't all bad—20 per cent of groups managed to adapt their activities in some way in order to continue, and a small number of groups succeeded in establishing themselves during this period. Some of the groups succeeded in attracting new members and had seen an increase in the number of those who attended their events.

So, I do want to consider the recommendations that I published this morning alongside the findings of the committee's report, and a programme of work—I'm sure that Siân Gwenllian will be pleased to hear—will be developed to ensure that we do move forward as a result of those recommendations. I want to move forward quickly to see how we can support these important community groups so that they continue to flourish in future, and I will be responding formally in the new year to the committee

May I thank and pay tribute to Helen Mary Jones for her leadership of the committee over the past few months too? A great deal has been done since we launched Cymraeg 2050 in the summer of 2017, but our strategic priorities have remained the same. We're still working hard to increase the number of Welsh speakers, increase the use of the language and improve the infrastructure that is at the heart of everything. Now is the time to come together and work together in a positive way to reach the million Welsh speakers and to double the daily use of the Welsh language. Thank you.

I call on Helen Mary Jones, the Chair, to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much, Llywydd.

Thank you very much, and can I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate? I must begin by thanking you all for your kind words about my chairing of the committee. I have to say that I've been so very well supported by Members and by staff that I don't think I can take particular individual credit for the work that we've done, but I am proud of what we've achieved through this difficult time.

I think we've heard, clearly, that Cymraeg 2050—we have to make sure that the actions supporting it are really re-evaluated in the light of what's happened, and I was pleased to hear from the Minister today. I know she's not responding formally—and we didn't expect that, of course—but we really will need to revise those actions to make sure that we take into account both the damage that's been done but also the positive lessons, as the Minister said, that could be learned.

With regard to digital presence, I thought what David Melding said about the online activity being a good second best, but a second best—it is true, as the Minister has said as well, that we mustn't lose the good things we've learned about digital engagement, but it is not a substitute. I did think, though, that David Melding's points about the equality impacts that people who couldn't physically get to an Eisteddfod—we all know how difficult it can be to walk around some Eisteddfods if you're fit and well, despite the best efforts to make them accessible, sometimes. And I think, again, that's something we won't want to lose. And his point about 'not hinterland'. These communities are not a hinterland of somewhere else, they are communities—. Natural Welsh-speaking communities, particularly in rural areas, they are their own communities, they are not a hinterland of bigger towns. And I'd echo David's thanks to all our institutions, and we're very grateful to them for all they've done at this very difficult time.

Siân Gwenllian is right, of course, to say that the impact of COVID in this field, as in so many others, has highlighted and exacerbated existing weaknesses and problems, and I really hope that the Minister will address those underlying weaknesses and problems as we move forward. That need for clarity that Siân highlighted, of working across Government to make sure that everybody's heading in the right direction—we very much hope, when we get the Minister's formal response, that that clarity will be there about who's leading and about who is responsible. The budgets must be restored. They weren't, as Siân said, very much in the first place. We would argue, of course, that there's more needed, but at least, as a bottom line, they must be restored.

I clearly didn't expect, as I've said, the Minister's full response today. She was right to highlight that we have positive things to learn, but I know she knows that we can't ignore the risks and the risks that have been exacerbated. The results of the survey she highlights reinforce our concerns, and I'm glad to hear her commitment today to act at speed to move this agenda on. We cannot wait. The workforce will be going elsewhere. We cannot wait.

Thanks, again, Llywydd, to everybody who's supported my work as committee Chair, to all the witnesses, to fellow Members and to staff. And I do look forward to carrying on with this work in a somewhat different role in the new year. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? I can't see or hear an objection, and therefore the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

We will now take a short break to allow some changeovers in the Chamber.

Plenary was suspended at 17:40.

The Senedd reconvened at 17:38, with David Melding in the Chair.