Part of 4. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:31 pm on 7 December 2022.
I thank the Member for the question, and it’s a very important question, I think, if you do want to tackle what’s being demonstrated in these figures. The census doesn’t tell us anything about Welsh language use, and it doesn’t tell us anything about people’s perception of what it is to be a Welsh speaker. So, it asks a question that it is binary, at the end of the day: do you speak Welsh, or do you not? But my personal view is that we do need to look at these figures in their context, as I said. That is, if you get an official document from Government, which you must respond to, and respond to honestly, and that asks you a question as to whether you speak Welsh, then there are questions of perception, questions of confidence, that come into your response to that question. And if you look at where the reductions have been, it’s happened in local authority areas where there is a smaller concentration of Welsh speakers, so that would be consistent with the ideas I’ve just outlined. But also, the annual survey does ask more questions that can draw out the detail that Mike Hedges mentioned. That’s why it’s important that we look at the whole context as we discuss this important area.