My Lords, I rise humbly to take part in what has been a very rich and informative debate. I would particularly single out the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I apologise that I did not take part in the Second Reading of this Bill due to other commitments. I declare for
general purposes for the whole of this Bill that I was formerly an editor of the Guardian Weekly and spent 20 years as a journalist, so that is the background that I bring into this.
We have uncovered some important technical drafting detail here, both from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and I hope that we will certainly be seeing some government amendments on Report addressing those issues. However, I really just wanted to offer general Green support for the importance of having linguistic diversity broadcast across these islands, and I really wanted to stress that this is a terribly important issue.
We were talking in the last group about the British broadcasting ecosystem having a general claim to being world-leading. I am afraid that English characteristic monolingualism is something of a global joke. It is really important that we acknowledge that there is multilingualism on these islands, and it needs to be supported and encouraged.
I experienced a monolingual environment in the Australia of my childhood. Having exposure to only a single language impoverished my youth. Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Ulster Scots, Irish and Cornish are treasures of these islands, and they need support. They preserve tradition and knowledge, and they contribute to cultural diversity.
I note that, last week, the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee heard evidence on the proposed Scottish Languages Bill, which aims to establish official status and improve educational support for languages. The chair of the professional association for Gaelic secondary teachers noted that Gaelic-medium education is, in effect, now stopping at S1 or S2. In 2023, only 1% of primary school pupils were in GM education, but 46% of primary school pupils in the Western Isles, for example, are in Gaelic-medium education and 54% study Gaelic. If we are going to have broadcasters that truly serve across these islands, we clearly need to see the delivery of all these languages.
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The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, spoke about how Welsh is making advances. I note that the Welsh Government’s target is to increase the number of Welsh speakers to 1 million by 2050, doubling its daily use, yet the census figures show a decline from 19% in 2011 to 17.8% in 2021.
Last month, Cornwall Council wrote to the Government calling for greater protection for the Cornish language. That was on the 10th anniversary of Cornish being recognised as a national minority language. Just in February, Screen Cornwall announced the first funding round for productions of film and culture projects.
I am aware that this Government are not always keen to support the objectives of the Scottish or Welsh Governments, but the push in this group of amendments to preserve the cultures, knowledge and diversity of these islands is very important.