My Lords, as several noble Lords have noted, the indigenous languages of these islands are crucial to the lives of those who speak and cherish them. As my noble friend Lord Dunlop and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, pointed out, that includes holders of high office and substantial majorities in certain parts of the UK. The Bill seeks to ensure that people are able to access content in those languages, as well as content that is culturally important to them, for many decades to come. However, I note the sad paradox that the number of Welsh speakers has declined since devolution rather than grown.
I turn to Amendments 6, 10 and 11. As some of my noble friend Lord Dunlop’s amendments recognise, the Gaelic Media Service, MG Alba, already has a statutory function under the Communications Act to ensure that a wide and diverse range of high-quality Gaelic programmes are available to people in Scotland. I recognise his and other noble Lords’ keenness to ensure that we do not lose such a valuable function. That is why Clause 1 makes clear in legislation the importance of having programmes made available in the UK’s indigenous, regional and minority languages, including Gaelic, by including it in our public service remit for television for the first time. Moreover, elsewhere in the Bill, we make it clear that public service broadcasters must contribute to this remit and that they will be accountable for the extent of their contributions.
As my noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie noted and anticipated, His Majesty’s Government are formally considering the funding of minority language broadcasting, including Gaelic, as part of the BBC funding review launched in December. As part of that review, we have already asked MG Alba for a range of evidence, including its assessment of the sustainability of its current funding model and of how any changes to the BBC’s funding model could affect it and minority language broadcasting more broadly. I acknowledge what she said about timing vis-à-vis the Bill, but we feel that it is right to wait for the funding review to conclude and then to consider the overall future of MG Alba and the ongoing provision of Gaelic language broadcasting. Given the closeness of the link between the BBC and MG Alba, we think that these considerations are best made alongside the upcoming review of the BBC’s royal charter, for which we will set out further details of the timeline in due course.
In addressing his Amendments 4 and 5, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred to the Cornish language. I recognise the importance that regional and minority language programming plays in representing the rich and diverse tapestry of culture across the country, including in the noble Lord’s home of Cornwall. Amendments 4 and 5 would require each of the UK’s six public service broadcasters to provide a sufficient quantity of programming in each of the six regional or minority languages that are now recognised and set out in the Bill. Adding further rigour to the legislation regarding regional and minority languages is an ambition that the Government share with the noble Lord, which is why we have, for the first time—as he noted—listed Cornish and a range of other languages in this legislation. His amendment would require each broadcaster to provide content in each language stated in the Bill, a proposal that we think would be excessively onerous on the public service broadcasters. It would result in a situation where, for example, S4C would be obliged to broadcast in Ulster Scots and STV in Cornish, which is not, I am sure, the outcome he seeks. There may be some confusion here and it might be easier to clarify it—particularly regarding the choice of brackets—in a format where we do not have to try to describe the shape of punctuation. I will happily do that with him. The choice of parentheses is not a drafting error: “(taken together)” is the formulation used in the Communications Act and indeed elsewhere in Part 1 of this Bill, but if it is helpful to speak about that outside the Chamber, I am happy to do so.
The Bill already puts new obligations on Ofcom to monitor whether a sufficient quantity of minority and regional languages is provided. In our view, any additional obligation on broadcasters would be excessively burdensome. Given the provision already made in the Bill in respect of Gaelic and other languages, as well as the further work I have outlined, although I echo what noble Lords have said about the importance of these languages, the culture and tradition they represent for people and our shared anxiety to make sure that they are passed on to new generations and shared with many—not just in the places where they are currently commonly spoken, but where others can hear them and learn them too—I am afraid that I am unable to accept the amendments noble Lords have proposed in this group. I am happy to continue to talk to them about these important issues, but I hope that, for now, they will be willing not to press them.