Group 5: Welsh and English languages (Amendments 34, 45, 35, 36, 37, 39, 49, 50, 38)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:40 pm on 2 March 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Gareth Bennett Gareth Bennett UKIP 6:40, 2 March 2021

Diolch, Llywydd. Thanks to Siân and to Kirsty for their contributions to the debate.

Siân's comments were largely pertaining to the need to develop a single continuum for the teaching of Welsh, which, in itself, is an admirable concept, but of course it is aligned to the pursuit of the target of 1 million Welsh speakers, which, as a party—my own party, Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party—we are inherently sceptical about this target. We are worried that, effectively, it'll be little more than a tick-box exercise and there will be a lack of meaningfulness in the quality of the Welsh language that's provided to many of these 1 million people that are targeted, and that was what I sought to address in my contribution. Siân, of course, developed her points with her usual eloquence, so I can't detract from that, but nevertheless, of course, my party won't support those precise points. We are intending to abstain on her amendments.

Turning to the Minister's comments, she used a lot of emotional or emotive language about deprivation and denial of people's birthright. The real deprivation is the loss of a living language, and pushing something that is just a waste of resources and a tick-box exercise is not going to do anything to develop Welsh as a living language and to keep it going as a living language. What we need is to target those resources, which is what I was talking about in my contribution; not a load of emotive nonsense, which is what the Minister tends to specialise in on this subject. The real denial, despite her talk of a brighter future, is the loss of Welsh in the future as a living community language, unless scarce resources are targeted in the right way, which is what our amendments aim to address.

So, thank you very much for listening, everybody, and thank you for your contributions and hopefully, we will proceed to the vote. Diolch yn fawr.