Protection of Welsh Speakers from Defamation

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Nick Thomas-Symonds

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered protection of Welsh speakers from defamation.

Diolch yn fawr, Mr Hollobone. It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship. It will probably come as no surprise to anyone present that the subject of the debate was inspired by the recent contributions of a topical columnist to a national Sunday newspaper and current affairs magazine. The text is in the public domain, so I will refrain from using the little time available to repeat it. Suffice it to say that those comments are the latest manifestation of a long tradition of decrying, belittling and mocking the Welsh language and, by association, Welsh speakers.

The royal commission on Welsh education stated in 1847, in Y Llyfrau Gleision, or the Blue Books:

“The Welsh Language is a vast drawback to Wales and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of its people. It is not easy to over-estimate its evil effects.”

Fast-forward to 2011, and the Daily Mail saw fit to allow a book reviewer to describe Welsh as an

“appalling and moribund monkey language”.

There has been much in between—you get the picture.

I want at the outset to establish a sense of proportionality. I do not seek to equate the bigotry against the Welsh language in the 21st century with the extremes of Islamophobia or anti-Semitism, but neither should the fact that majority prejudice is directed against a range of minorities devalue the need to address this issue.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. She talked about how this issue sweeps back to 1847. Putting aside the specifics of what has happened in the modern era, does she agree that no one should be discriminated against by virtue of the language they speak, whether it is Welsh or any other language?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I agree entirely. We need to consider the effects on groups in how we deal with press regulation and in our regulation of hate crime and hate words.

European Union Citizenship

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Nick Thomas-Symonds

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I have just said that we should not take any options off the table. I always welcome contributions from the hon. Gentleman, and I look forward to the Government’s response—[Interruption.] I will certainly give the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) my position on a number of matters in a moment, but let me make another point first.

Perhaps the Tory party could repair its relationship with the CBI if it properly consulted business and the unions about our future immigration system. It could end the years of exploitation of migrant workers, which it has done so little about, increase the number of prosecutions for breaches of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, which have been going on for far too long, reinstate the migrant impact fund, remove international students from the statistics and, perhaps above all, move away from this obsession with bogus immigration targets. The Tories have never achieved their numerical target, despite having promised it over three general elections.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I have much sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman has to say, but it does not relate to the motion, which is about the future rights of UK citizens. There is an interesting discussion to be had about the rights of EU citizens coming into the UK, but that is for another debate.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I have responded to the point made from the hon. Member for Arfon about that. I appreciate the narrow point about UK citizens going forward, but this is a broad debate and I am sure that the hon. Lady would not want to lose the opportunity to put such matters to the Minister, as I am seeking to do.

I conclude by saying that an unconditional commitment on the rights of EU citizens in this country could have been made already. It can still be offered, and the Government should move away from their obsession with numbers and restore confidence in our immigration system.

Social Mobility (Wales)

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Nick Thomas-Symonds

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Mrs Moon.

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) on securing the debate and on the very considered and thoughtful way in which he opened it. He covered a number of the issues, and I propose to focus my remarks on early years, vocational qualifications, and the academic sphere and our elite universities.

The early years are without doubt extraordinarily important. A lot of data suggest that by the age of seven people’s likely GCSE results can be predicted, which suggests that the biggest difference can be made in those very early years of life. In that regard, I praise the important work of the Welsh Government focusing on the early years. As the years go by, clearly that investment will feed through.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern about Wales’s performance in the PISA—programme for international student assessment—tables? Endeavours to improve teaching and learning in Wales should be concentrated on releasing teachers to be trained, unlike some of the temporary initiatives we have seen in the past.