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Welsh Affairs

Indeed. I think that everyone enjoyed the service. My subject this afternoon is the need for new Welsh language legislation. The Welsh Assembly Government's vision is to create a truly bilingual Wales, as set out in the iaith pawb—the national action plan for a bilingual Wales—from February 2003. What they mean by a truly bilingual country is a country in which people can choose to live their lives through the medium of either Welsh or English, or both, and in which the presence of the two languages is a source of pride and strength to us all. That was illustrated this morning in the service. That vision presents a significant challenge to the Assembly and to us here in Westminster. It might seem strange to those hon. Members who sometimes have a peculiar view of the policies of my party, but I attach great importance to this place passing legislation for Wales, in the medium term, for practical reasons. If, for example, we wanted to change the status of the Welsh Language Board—a necessary step, in my view—we should have to change the Welsh Language Act 1993, and that can only be done here. Clearly, there is a role for this place. It will be a significant challenge to enable everyone who wishes to do so to live their life through the medium of Welsh or English as fully as possible. The intentions outlined in the iaith pawb represent a step in the right direction, but I believe that much more will have to be done in order for the Welsh Assembly Government to succeed in their aim. I need only to refer to my experiences in my constituency surgeries to illustrate that point. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) has had similar experiences. I regularly see constituents who have in some way or another not been allowed to use Welsh or even, unfortunately, faced abuse for using it. It might have been mild abuse, but it was abuse none the less. They have had those experiences in their dealings with private businesses and—significantly, given that the long-established provisions of the 1993 Act apply to the public sector—they have also had problems with the public sector. People are also having problems using Welsh with third parties. Some hon. Members will know that the provisions of 1993 Act apply to third parties and private companies acting on behalf of public bodies. It remains problematic, as the third parties are not carrying out the language schemes approved by the Welsh Language Board for public bodies. In that respect, the 1993 Act is not working properly. All that is quite apart from the denial of workers' rights to use Welsh in the workplace, as we saw unfortunately in the Thomas Cook affair last year. There is a long history to this problem and my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy will remember the Brewer Spinks case in the 1960s. Those misunderstandings in the private sector can be resolved, as in the Thomas Cook case, very amicably, when the nature of the problem is appreciated and senior managers get involved. There remains a fair way to go. When public bodies are launching new documents or a new service, I frequently write to them, asking simply ““Where is the Welsh version?””. All too often, I am met by embarrassment and excuses, although that is a good deal better than it used to be. When I first started to take an interest in language issues, I would have been met by hostility rather than embarrassment and excuses. I do not want to whinge too much, as there is often no need to write to ask for the Welsh version nowadays, as in many cases it turns up automatically. That is progress. I am not saying that we need to change everything today or tomorrow; we are talking about a process that will probably last many, many years.