---

National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Welsh Language)

There is a lot to be said for originality in the interpretation of the orthography of a language and the good that that may do to aid communication. As my right hon. Friend says, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East is a great communicator. I was educated in Cardiff and had the good fortune, unlike the shadow Secretary of State—I had the great advantage of going to a state school in a working-class area, but I do not know where she went—of having a splendid Welsh teacher. That has given me the lifelong treasure of an interest in and a love of the language. It is difficult to explain to a non-Welsh speaker why the language is vital, and we find that those who appreciate it most come from outside. Tolkien said that he was fascinated by the Welsh word, ““adeiladwyd””, and that it stirred the harp strings of his deep linguistic identity. He went on to create different languages of his own. Even someone as unexpected as Boris Johnson, who was a candidate for a seat in north Wales, learnt some Welsh. He talks with enthusiasm of Welsh words and rolls words such as ““cig moch”” and ““sglodion”” around with delight. He says that one can imagine a Roman centurion saying, ““Give me my ‘cig moch’!”” Young children also delight in the language. One of my greatest joys came when I visited Malpas Court school in my constituency and saw a young girl aged around 10 proudly reciting a beautiful piece of Welsh verse with obvious satisfaction and delight. It is a miracle that the language has survived. There were two languages spoken in Caerleon in Roman times: intra muros it was Latin and extra muros it was Welsh. If any of the centurions in Caerleon had suggested that the language that would survive to this day would be Welsh, it would have been thought a very curious forecast, but that is the truth. It goes on right through the centuries. We had the glories of the middle ages. I had a Welsh teacher who assured me that there was no such thing as a book in Welsh that could in any way be described as disreputable. It was only late in life that I came across the works of Gwerful Mechain and Dafydd ap Gwilym. I do not know if I am allowed to say the names of some of their poems, but here we have wonderful, rumbustious, unembarrassed poems about the joys of physical love and every aspect of life, expressed with great joie de vivre in the language. Everyone has heard the lullaby ““Suo Gân”” in the Steven Spielberg film: ““Huna blentyn yn fy mynwes””. How can I explain to people about the language and what it means to have a mother tongue: the first words you hear when you come into the world, the words in which you are nurtured, the words with which you first frame sentences, the language you use to express yourself, to curse in, to make love in and for the last words on your lips before you die? It is something that affects everyone at a very deep level of their being. If that is insulted or demeaned, it is an insult at a very deep level too. It is difficult to get across the importance of the language’s survival. The shock that went through Wales in 1961 when Saunders Lewis forecast in his BBC lecture that the language would not survive into the 21st century started Cymdeithas yr Iaith and the whole realisation that it would be our generation that lost this treasure. Things have been very different from that because of that realisation. In my time in Parliament, I have had the great joy of seeing for the first time that generation fulfilling the promise of Welsh politicians for over 150 years to bring devolution to Wales. All failed until this generation, and now we have our own parliament on the land of our own country. I recall in 1953 carrying a Labour party banner through Cardiff that called for a Senedd i Gymru. It did not call for half a parliament or LCOs for the people. It called for a parliament, so we are not quite there yet, but progress has been made and extraordinary decisions taken. There was the fourth channel and the decision that Lord Roberts of Conwy bravely took forward on education, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon rightly alluded, and there was the Welsh Language Act 1993 itself. We no longer discuss these matters in the antagonistic mood that once dominated Wales. István SzÃ(c)chenyi asked ““Where is the nation?”” Where do we look to find the Hungarian nation, in his case, or the Catalan nation? He said: ““The nation lives in her language.”” Languages represent the humour, wit and passion of generations echoing down the centuries and all of them are unique in their own way. We have the great luck to possess the inheritance of a glorious ancient language with a wonderful literature that lives, full of virility, variety and enthusiasm. We should celebrate that and I am grateful to be here today with this LCO, which has been agreed in a very statesmanlike and reasonable way by all parties, to pay our tribute and make our contribution to the wonderful work of the language.