S4C and Welsh Identity

Albert Owen Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There will obviously be views on whether S4C should move from the capital, where political activity is mainly based and the creative industries are concentrated, but the move is the right one. Where the language is under most threat is in what I term the heartlands, where Welsh is still the language of the street—Carmarthen is one of those places. Those are the areas where we have seen the biggest loss in Welsh speakers and where S4C can play a role in helping to stabilise any decline in the language.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I am hugely impressed by his prize-winning background— I had not heard about that until today. He is making an important point about the Cardiff-centric nature of institutions in Wales, which is a real danger. Does he agree that over the past few years one issue has been that Welsh-speaking people have been drawn to Cardiff and have settled in the Cardiff area, which has had an impact on the Welsh language in communities throughout Wales, in particular in north-west Wales?

[Glyn Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point—I can only agree. It is inevitable, and in mid-Wales, where I live, it happened in a huge way—the population was disappearing completely. That is what developed my interest in public affairs. When I left school, I was the only person in the academic stream who stayed in the area; everybody else had to leave to find a job of any value of to them. But that trend has reversed to a large extent, as the numbers show: in Montgomeryshire, the numbers fell from 50,000 at the start of the last century to about 36,000 mid-century, but are back up to 50,000, so they went down but have come back up again. That is partly to do with the regional development policies of the Conservative Government of the 1980s, who invested greatly in the rural part of mid-Wales with great success.

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[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Brady, and I will be brief because I want to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) has to say. I congratulate the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) on securing the debate. Its title is “S4C and Welsh Identity”, and since many hon. Members have talked about the settlement and the past, current and future financing of the channel, I will talk predominantly about the importance of Welsh identity and S4C to me and to many of my constituents and fellow citizens in Wales.

I want to put on the record my praise for the pioneers who set up S4C. The issue is cross-party—the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire mentioned pride in his party, and we hear a lot about Gwynfor Evans and the role of Plaid Cymru—but I want to praise one of my predecessors, Lord Cledwyn Hughes, for the role he played as the Leader of the House of Lords at the time. That body was important in helping to push for the establishment of S4C.

I will just break the consensus with the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire for a moment, because he mentioned this issue. Prior to the early 1980s, Welsh society felt that the Conservative Government of the time had broken their promise and that, as he said, they were prevaricating. A grand coalition of people within the Conservative party and from other parties came together to put pressure on the Government to honour their commitment to the people of Wales. It is important to put that on the record. Nevertheless, the language, culture and identity of the Welsh nation are far too important to belong to any one political party; they belong to the people of Wales, and we have seen that demonstrated today on a cross-party basis.

I was born in Wales to a family whose language in the home was English. My mother was from Liverpool, and I was brought up on the Beatles and Everton football club. I am still proud to support Everton and listen to the music of the Beatles. My father was Welsh speaking, but, in the 1960s, they spoke English in front of me out of courtesy, and I ended up being a non-Welsh speaker throughout my educational life.

[Glyn Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Albert Owen]

I certainly will, but I am conscious of the time.

[Glyn Davies]

A point that I did not make in my contribution was about what was happening when I was young—I am sure it was also happening in Ynys Môn. My parents were both first-language Welsh speakers, and they had a policy of never speaking Welsh in front of the children, because the language of failure was Welsh and the language of success was English.

[Albert Owen]

It is fair to make that point, as I made one about the language of my home. Indeed, people in the village in which I was brought up and still live used to speak English to me. They are very surprised when they now see me on S4C speaking Welsh, because I have learned the language. I wanted to learn it in order to play a full role in Welsh society: I belong to a bilingual society, so I wanted to be bilingual. I would like Wales to be trilingual, with people learning three, four or more languages. But we must never forget the Welsh language, which S4C has portrayed brilliantly.

We have heard today about S4C’s ability to put on classy productions. The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) spoke before me about opera and religion, but I think everyone has missed something out: sport. S4C is very good at showing sport. The Welsh national football team does not always qualify for the World Cup finals—in fact, it has not done so since 1958—but sport is important, because more young people in Wales watch it than many other TV programmes. They aspire to be the Olympian Colin Jackson, or the greatest footballer in the world, Gareth Bale, who also happens to be Welsh, so sport is important.

I watch football on S4C in the Welsh language, but we have the opportunity to use the little red button to listen to the commentary in either Welsh or English. That is hugely important, because it reaches a massive audience of our football and rugby fans—Wales has one of the best rugby teams in the world and people want to watch them. It is important that we break out of the perception that S4C is a minority channel in a minority language covering minority subjects. It is not; it covers sport and culture, as well as many other things that we aspire to do in Wales.

I learned the Welsh language by watching S4C. I listened to programmes and watched the subtitles on 888. Do people remember the old Teletext system? We would have to explain what that was to young people now, but we had subtitles, and we also had the service on 889—I think—which explained sentences when a new word was brought up for the first time. That way, people who were competent and had some knowledge of the Welsh language were able to follow the programme. Language is a live issue and S4C does cover the big issues of the day.

I want to finish my speech by touching on identity, which is important. I gave some brief background but do not have much time to go into other elements of S4C because I want to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West, as I promised. I do not think there is any contradiction between the Welsh and British identities. I am proud to be both Welsh and British—and, indeed, European—and see no contradiction there. British and Welsh society must move forward on that, because a person is not any less Welsh or inhibited from being so by being pro-British; nor is anyone any less British for being pro-Welsh.

The Minister will understand that we are discussing the British isles and a language in Britain that is thriving and moving forward. There are creative people in Wales and they want to express themselves through the medium of their own language. I am also pleased that the Cornish identity and language are taking new steps forward. I want these British isles to express themselves through their mother tongues. People should be proud to be Welsh and proud to be British. I am very proud that S4C has played a part in my life, and in the lives of constituents in Wales whom I represent.

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[Mr Vaizey]

I am pleased to have given way to my hon. Friend to allow him to make that tribute, although I feel people would have understood that his entire paean to S4C was a tribute to Lord Roberts.

[Albert Owen]

I join in the tributes to Lord Roberts, who lived in the constituency that I represent and was brought up there. He was a pioneer of broadcasting, not only in the Welsh language but in English as well. As for bipartisanship, I was always told that a cigarette paper could not be put between Gwynfor Evans, Wyn Roberts, Cledwyn Hughes and Geraint Howells. It was impossible to do it, because all came from the same mould: the Welsh mould.

[Mr Vaizey]

Hear, hear to that. May I add my tribute to all the Welsh titans mentioned by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn? Of course, Lord Roberts was the predecessor of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), who is widely acknowledged as a great mover in this debate.

Before I move on to the meat of my speech—the debate is becoming an extended tribute session—I should also pay tribute to Dylan Thomas. This year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of Wales’s most celebrated sons, so it is appropriate, as we debate the importance of the Welsh language, the Welsh language broadcaster and Welsh culture in general, to acknowledge that very important anniversary, which is being commemorated in Wales, and, indeed, around the world.

The main subject of the debate is S4C, which is a long-standing and significant part of the UK’s rich public service broadcasting landscape and a stalwart of Welsh language services. Only last year, we gathered in this Chamber to celebrate the 30th anniversary of S4C. I said earlier that it was a privilege to hear the speeches made this morning, but such debates are always a pleasure, because of the deep understanding shown by the Members participating. They have clearly been involved for many years in S4C and the campaigns and debates about the Welsh language. Some have served in the House for many years, but those who have come to the House recently have been involved in the issue for many years. There can be no doubt that for me and my successors, from whichever party they come, the channel and its content make a tremendously important contribution to the cultural life of Wales, as well as economic impacts, and those deserve to be celebrated.

Dylan Thomas, grew up when an English-only education system was the norm in Wales—hon. Members have mentioned that the same was true when they were growing up—and the mother tongue was pushed to the margins. Thankfully, as acknowledged in many speeches, times have changed. The number of children in Welsh-medium primary schools has seen a steady increase over recent years, but we must not be complacent. We must be mindful of the importance of preserving the Welsh language and the important role played by S4C. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire has said previously in the House that, although not brought up a Welsh-speaker, the existence of S4C was critical to his learning and mastering the language.

The media, particularly the broadcast media, are vital to language and to the preservation of culture. Culture and identity are bound up in shared experiences, and TV clearly has an important role to play, whether in sport—we all know how central the game of rugby is to Welsh culture—drama, such as “Pobol y Cwm”, or key cultural events such as the Eisteddfod and the royal Welsh show. It is no coincidence that all those examples are broadcast to the Welsh-speaking public and the Welsh public in general by S4C.

To return to my earlier theme, I pay tribute, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan, to the chief executive of S4C, Ian Jones, and the chairman of the S4C authority, Huw Jones, for their outstanding work in ensuring that S4C has in difficult times not only kept on an even keel, but thrived.

The hon. Member for Clwyd South demonstrated her legendary recall of detail by remembering that in 2010 I was keen to share my experience of “Fireman Sam”, but S4C is obviously much more than “Fireman Sam”. As my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire and others pointed out, S4C is currently enjoying national prominence with the murder drama, “Hinterland”, which shows Welsh television and TV in general at their best. The mean and moody DCI Mathias and the equally mean and moody landscapes around Ceredigion have given us the latest water-cooler TV. The programme was shown on S4C last year entirely in Welsh, migrated to BBC 1 Wales in a bilingual version and is now showing on BBC 4. It has also been sold to Denmark, among other countries, which is perhaps an example of coals to Newcastle and which shows that anything they can do, the Welsh can do—in the spirit of bipartisanship, I should perhaps say “equally as well”. Hopefully, if hon. Members will pardon the pun, the Welsh can make a “Killing” with Welsh drama. Better still, I understand that the show has now been picked up by Netflix and that more episodes have been commissioned. “Hinterland” is not S4C’s only contribution to the genre, either. “35 Days”, which has only recently hit screens in Wales, is another example of great murder drama and is entirely in Welsh.