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National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Welsh Language) Order 2009

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, although there is a somewhat obvious diversity of contribution between the eloquence we would expect from those whose natural language is Welsh but who were speaking in English and some more prosaic questions to which I have to address myself. I pay tribute to not just the emotion but the love of language, and of the Welsh language, that has been expressed in this Committee. We all appreciate those who have spoken with such passion. Of course, my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies has done so much with regard to the language since he has been at Westminster. We very much appreciate that he is able to make his contribution today. I shall address myself in a moment to the caveats, but, first, I pay tribute to the work that has been done and to others. In that context, the progenitor of the 1993 Act is here. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, has seen the development of the legislation which he introduced and then piloted through, and we pay tribute to that. As to the prosaic questions, the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, will never let me get away with just rhetoric. So I shall address myself to his question. Let me emphasise that I do not think that costly bureaucracy will be set up by the Assembly of Wales, to which we devolved this issue. As was rightly said by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, this is an enabling measure. It is for the Assembly to decide what must be developed in law. I assure the Committee that it is for the Assembly to address itself to any attendant costs of the legislation that it puts forward, but I do not anticipate huge costs. It is already making plans and, if this measure goes through, knows what it wants to do. It knows that it wants the establishment of a commissioner and an enforcement regime to accompany any imposition of duties, but these do not need to be costly. There has to be some enforcement regime, not because we think that the development of the language will depend on legal enforcement, but because there is no point at all in passing a law that regulates if one cannot enforce its prescriptions. There is an element of cost, but that is a matter for the Assembly to decide. The other matter on which the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, expressed anxiety was the CBI. The CBI has expressed its enthusiasm and commitment to this measure. It clearly identified the obvious issues that the Assembly should not inhibit business, particularly in these circumstances where we want to encourage business in Wales. That would be the judgment of the Welsh Assembly with regard to the issue. Who better to make those judgments? All that I can testify to the Committee today is that the Welsh CBI has looked at the matter and welcomed it, knowing that the Assembly will ensure that the measure will not inhibit the development of business. As to whether £400,000 was a figure pulled out of the hat, it is a figure that indicates that the organisations have to be in receipt of a significant amount of public money to come within the scope of the order. Otherwise, the great danger would be that we would be making regulations for organisations of the most modest kind. No, this is an issue for large and significant organisations. Public bodies come within its scope and bodies that receive £400,000 per annum. In a sense, any figure is drawn out of a hat, which I think is the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. It is bound to be, but it is the question of judgment about the size of the organisation that needs to be considered. That is the basis of that figure. Post offices are already subject to the Welsh language scheme under the 1993 Act, as the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, would remind us. If anybody considered the imposition of duties on them unreasonable or disproportionate they could certainly challenge that, including individual post offices or entire organisations. The whole Post Office could do the challenging. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, can rest assured on the particular point that he identified about those who take up their retirement serving in Welsh post offices. I thought that our greatest concern was the persistence and survival of Welsh post offices, rather than who ran them. However, he can accept reassurance on that. On a general point, the Assembly must exercise its judgment on the impact of its legislation on private companies. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, asked about the Bank of England, which brought me up with a jolt as I had not briefed myself intensively on its role in this context. The Bank of England, like the Post Office, is subject to the Welsh language scheme under the 1993 Act. That is why we have to include it within the framework. I should have thought that the noble Lord would regard that as a source of rejoicing—that such an august institution has its role to play with regard to the Welsh language. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, in accurate terms—and who could be more accurate?—described the significance of the 1993 Act and developments subsequent to that. There is no doubt that this is an important order carrying on the work that the 1993 Act identified. The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, indicated just how fragile language can be through his own family history. We all know that if language is not passed down from one generation to the next, by definition it atrophies and dies. It might have been the case that at one stage, in very substantive parts of Wales, there was a great danger that the Welsh language was declining into insignificance. Perhaps his family history reflects that decline and the resurgence that is a reflection of the developments over the past three decades. We should rejoice in the changes since then to which noble Lords have subsequently paid such testimony. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, for putting this order into context and for emphasising even more than I could the fact that it is for the Assembly to produce the necessary legislation if this enabling order goes through. The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, made a most eloquent speech about the necessity of ensuring that the language flourishes and develops, given its extraordinarily long history. I am not prepared to accept that the concept of "official" matters a great deal. English is not an official language; there is not a law in England that defines English as official. But if Welsh is equal with English, we have achieved the status that surely guarantees Welsh always to be a very significant part of all public utterances and all bodies in Wales subject to the law. The noble Lord also raised the issue of a right rather than a freedom. It may be a little late in the day for me to get too involved in such philosophical and constitutional matters. The term freedom makes it clear that a person would be free to speak the language and should be able to do so without interference other than in particular circumstances or specific limitations. A right, however, would enable an individual to call on the state or any other specified body to do something to support his or her right to speak Welsh. When we are talking about a language, surely guaranteeing the freedom is the issue that we are seeking to achieve rather than seeing rights insisted on. After all, that would introduce an element of legalism into the issue, which may not be necessary with regard to the language. The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked about the CBI. I hope that I have answered him on that. He asked whether I would write to him; well, I am not going to write to him—I am going to give him the answers now. I have already answered him on the CBI. He asked about education and the universities. Education is clearly in the scope of this legislation; the impact on the universities depends on the legislative Assembly and on the universities. After all, they enjoy considerable freedom in Wales as they do in England. It will be for those institutions to reach decisions, but if the Welsh Assembly does not have the interests of Welsh universities as a high priority, the Assembly would surely be neglectful of education in Wales beyond any conceivable measure. This has been an inspiring debate, as I thought it would be, about an order which is not a modest order but has a wonderful logic to it, derivative from the 1993 position, the Act and the work that has gone on ever since. Therefore, I am pleased to have been able to participate in such an inspiring debate and commend the order to the Committee. Motion agreed.