Protection of Welsh Speakers from Defamation

Debate between Albert Owen and Liz Saville Roberts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Indeed. Much about Welsh is a success story. None the less, the constant undermining—the drip feed—affects the way parents approach sending their children to Welsh medium schools and the way individuals approach using Welsh in services. I will return to that.

There is an idea that Welsh is somehow antiquated rather than new. We need to challenge that. Many of us are frustrated by references to Welsh as a quaint folk antiquity. A language is as venerable as its oldest literature and as vital as its youngest speaker. Yet language is not just a mechanical tool of communication. There is an expression—in Welsh, of course—“Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon,” which means, “A nation with no language is a nation missing its heart.”

For many people, Welsh is their first language. For many, the Welsh language is their mother tongue. It is the language of the home, the language of the community and the language of the workplace. Why would anyone seek to force those people to justify the language in which they think, dream, work and live? It is as natural and as normal to them as the English language is to its first-language speakers. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to learn the language as an adult, but my daughter’s first language is Welsh, as it is for my husband and for the majority of people in my constituency. For them, speaking Welsh is not an optional extra; it is who they are. The Welsh language just is.

Ask almost any Welsh speaker and they will talk about the accumulative effect of centuries of establishment scorn. They will talk about parents choosing not to pass their own first language on to their children, about Welsh speakers being reluctant to use the language beyond a narrow social group, about the social norm of turning to English, about children who lack the confidence to use Welsh outside school, and about adults who are reluctant to access services in Welsh, internalising the negative stereotype. Let us speak plainly. We know that that prejudice is an example of the majority asserting its power over minorities to devalue them. Tolerance and diversity walk hand in hand. This is on the spectrum of oppression.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and thank her for securing this debate. I have the advantage of not reading the Sunday papers, but I understand that the debate originated with Rod Liddle. I am not a defamation lawyer, but does the hon. Lady agree that, rather than changing the law in the long term, we need a respect agenda for the United Kingdom’s four nations and their languages so that we can all express ourselves comfortably in the language of our choice?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I agree entirely that we need a range of approaches. We do not want to be heavy-handed in our legislative approach, but when there is legislation that could be put into effect, as there is in other countries—I will come to that—it would be remiss of us not to consider all the options open to us.

Let me give an extremely brief synopsis of the status of Welsh in law, which is concerned mostly with the rights of Welsh speakers to use and access services in the language. The office of Welsh Language Commissioner was established by the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, which gave Welsh the status of an official language in Wales with legal effect. Most of the commissioner’s work concerns the creation and implementation of language standards, but she also has a remit to ensure that Welsh speakers are treated fairly. In the light of what we are discussing, the commissioner recently stated:

“While it is important that we respect freedom of expression…the increase in the offensive comments about Wales, the Welsh language and its speakers is a cause for concern.”

She called for action to stop such comments and said that

“legislation is needed to protect rights and to prevent language hate.”

I remind Members that Welsh and Scottish Gaelic enjoy European status as semi-official or co-official languages, meaning that they can be used in the European Council and the requesting member state. The UK ratified the European charter for regional and minority languages 17 years ago, and article 7 of the charter includes provision to,

“promote…mutual understanding between all the linguistic groups of the country and in particular the inclusion of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to regional or minority languages among the objectives of education and training provided within their countries and encouragement of the mass media to pursue the same objective.”

I also draw attention to the evident relationship between the characteristics afforded protection under the Equality Act 2010 and how a number of those are reflected in the way police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service record hate crimes on the grounds of hostility or prejudice towards a person’s disability, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation or transgender identity.

It is interesting that some forces have chosen to identify additional protected characteristics, with Greater Manchester police recording hate motivation against alternative subcultures such as goths. North Wales police treat the Welsh language and culture as legally protected characteristics. Such hate crimes and incidents are identified under race and further categorised as Welsh or English, with 42 such crimes and incidents recorded in the last two years in the force’s region. Indeed, it appears that legislation may already cover hate crime on the grounds of people speaking a different language, given that the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003 included national origins within the definition of a victim’s membership or presumed membership of a racial group when considering whether an offence was racially aggravated.

Looking further afield, it is interesting to note that a number of legislatures make specific reference to language as a factor in crime. Those include Canada, Belgium, Croatia, Kosovo, South Africa and Australia. Australia’s federal Racial Discrimination Act 1975 makes it

“unlawful for a person to do an act”,

if

“the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people;”

and

“the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.”

I draw attention to the reference here to both individual and group rights, which is significant to our debate.

As the Welsh Language Commissioner has stated, this matter requires a number of approaches, but I question why Welsh speakers, as individuals within a group, have no legal protection at present. Put simply, that is felt by speakers in the present post-Brexit climate to encourage comments against them that they as individuals feel to be defamatory.

I ask the Minister to commit to respond to the Welsh Language Commissioner’s call for a meeting with interested individuals and groups to explore how to move this agenda forward. I also ask him, in his response, to consider the implications of article 7 of the European charter for regional and minority languages, which we have of course ratified, and the UK’s commitment to encouraging the mass media to play its part in promoting respect, understanding and tolerance across linguistic groups.

Although I understand full well that defamation as a legal concept refers to the individual rather than the group, I beg the Minister to consider that linguistic groups are made up of individuals, as are groups protected from discrimination and hate crime by the Equality Act’s protected characteristics, which in turn are reflected in IPSO’s list of what qualifies as discriminatory.

I ask the Minister to approach his Government colleagues and discuss how to deal appropriately with the prejudiced caste of Welsh language speakers by acknowledging the existence of language hate and thus laying the foundations necessary to identify language as a recognised protected characteristic in equality legislation. That might be on the grounds of the Welsh language’s status as an official language, along the lines of a list of identified languages, or by an alternative method. It might be via greater clarification of the resources already available in criminal law. As this is potentially a protected characteristic, could he comment on the means by which IPSO might then be called on to review its present dismissal of Welsh speakers’ complaints, and on the wider question of IPSO’s handwashing of responsibility for the effects of media incitement of hatred against protected characteristic groups?

Finally, I ask the Minister to join me in welcoming North Wales police’s inclusion of the use of both Welsh and English as protected characteristics in relation to hate crime, and request that we work together to facilitate the complete devolution of policing and the enabling of Wales’s four police forces to establish a hate crime unit best able to address our country’s needs. Would he also note that once again this might well be an example of how a separate legal jurisdiction would better serve the needs of Wales than the England-and-Wales anachronism? Diolch yn fawr.

Welsh Affairs

Debate between Albert Owen and Liz Saville Roberts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), who talks a lot of sense in a very consensual way. I know that he is a strong supporter of devolution and that he has worked with Members from across the parties here in Westminster and in Wales to make it happen. I want to join him and the Secretary of State in paying tribute to Lord Crickhowell and to Lord Richard, both of whom died recently. I have lobbied both of those guys, and I did not agree with some of the things that they did, but they listened to me. They did not always deliver, but they were true servants of the Welsh people in their respective roles.

I also want to join the Secretary of State in thanking the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us our original debate on Thursday 1 March, which was co-sponsored by the hon. Members for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) and for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts). We did not have the debate on that day, however. It was put off because of Storm Emma, which had a devastating effect on Wales. In my own constituency, huge storms ripped apart the harbour in Holyhead and caused untold damage to 80 vessels. The cruel sea really was cruel on that occasion. I am sure that the House will join me in paying tribute to the emergency services for the work that they did during Storm Emma. They dealt with snowdrifts and high winds in my constituency, and the coastguard and lifeboat services were also involved. I declare an interest as vice-president of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The emergency services went out and took staff to the hospitals as well as delivering essential medication and care to people in rural constituencies, and that is worth putting on record.

We are celebrating 100 years since the Representation of the People Act 1918, and I want to put on record the work that the suffragettes from Wales did in getting the vote for women. The first woman MP to be elected in Wales, in 1929, was Megan Lloyd George, in my own constituency. That showed the pioneering spirit of the county of Anglesey, which has also been seen in the field of education. Megan Lloyd George was the first Member of the House of Commons to lead a Welsh affairs debate, in the 1940s. She is historically important in that way.

Since we last met for a Welsh affairs debate in the House of Commons, we have had a general election, and there is a Welsh dimension to that, because the Prime Minister went for a walk in the hills of north Wales and thought that it was a very good idea to have a general election. We called it the hard Brexit general election, because she was seeking a mandate and an increased majority in the House, but the people of Wales and the people of the United Kingdom took away her majority.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Does the hon. Gentleman recall the story about sleeping on the slopes of Cadair Idris? It goes that one will awake either inspired or mad.

[Albert Owen]

I will take the hon. Lady’s word for it. However, I will say that the Prime Minister had told the House on several occasions that she was not going to hold a general election, but she did. She said that she wanted to put her trust in the people of the United Kingdom, and they voted overwhelmingly against a hard Brexit.

Before moving on to Brexit, particularly the links with the Republic of Ireland, I am sure that the House will join me in congratulating the island of Ireland on winning the grand slam this weekend, Wales for being the runners-up and a third Celtic nation on coming third. Eddie Jones’s smirk was wiped off his face.

Rural Economy of Wales

Debate between Albert Owen and Liz Saville Roberts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I genuinely congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) on the tone he set in opening the debate. I pay tribute to him and his predecessor Mark Williams, who for many years adopted the same tone of consensus in Wales. He brought people together to speak as Welsh MPs in the House of Commons.

I congratulate the NFU on providing a concise brief, much of which the hon. Gentleman referred to, and I make no apologies in echoing some of the statistics that it provided. Indeed, farming unions have been helpful to Members over many years, and I pay tribute to the work they do not just for their members, but for the communities of rural Wales. They play a very positive role in the social fabric of Wales, and I thank them for that.

I will concentrate my contribution on a matter that has been affecting my constituents for a long time, but in particular since 2010: the over-centralisation of many of the UK Government’s services, away from rural and semi-rural areas to the towns and cities of Wales and the UK. I will also touch on food and drink and the importance of agriculture, tourism and connectivity.

The Welsh food and drink industry is hugely important, as the hon. Gentleman said, to the whole economy of urban and rural Wales. The backbone of the food industry is Welsh agriculture. As has been said, it is a progressive, outward-looking industry that exports much of its produce across the European Union—some 90% of it is freely traded across the EU. A third of the lamb that the United Kingdom exports is Welsh lamb, which is without a doubt the finest lamb in the UK. It is hugely important, and we need to pay tribute to our agriculture industry and our farmers and offer them help and support.

I know the Minister listens carefully to what is said and represents our views to Government as a Minister in the Wales Office. He talks about securing EU funding to 2020, but I challenge him to go further than that. Our farming industry needs safeguarding post-Brexit. The money we receive from the common agricultural policy needs to be ring-fenced. If the funding is done through the Barnett formula, we will lose out. That is the challenge for the Government. When they talk about agriculture and rural Wales, they need to safeguard the monies we receive now. Alternatively, the Minister can tell us exactly how he will replenish that money.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I beg the hon. Gentleman to bring to bear what influence he can on the Welsh Government to get them to commit to maintaining the same level of income for farmers when that money is transferred from Westminster under the devolved processes, whatever they may be.

[Albert Owen]

That is the point I was making: it should not just go through the Barnett formula, because we would lose out by getting only a certain percentage. We need like-for-like funding, because when the European Union negotiates the amount, it looks at need in a way that is fairer to rural communities.

Connectivity is also important. In north-west Wales, and indeed in Ceredigion on the west coast of Wales, we suffer from a double whammy in being not just rural communities, but peripheral communities. Often a Cardiff or London-centric view predominates in the United Kingdom, so we have to fight harder for services and the connectivity that we deserve. I consider north-west Wales to be the heart of the British Isles. I do not see it as peripheral; it is only peripheral to someone looking up towards it from down south. It is the heart of the British Isles, because to our west is the island of Ireland and Northern Ireland, to our north is Scotland, and to our east is England. We are the heart of the British Isles, and need to start speaking with that confidence.

When there are roll-outs of programmes such as 5G, which we heard about in the Budget, it should be started and test-piloted in difficult rural areas, not just in the large towns and cities of the United Kingdom. That is the challenge for the Wales Office in the UK Government. Swansea deserves its connectivity, but so too does rural Wales. If the Government are serious about spreading wealth across the United Kingdom, they need to pilot projects in rural and peripheral areas.

UK Maritime Industry

Debate between Albert Owen and Liz Saville Roberts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Westminster Hall

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

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Mr Walker. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this timely debate.

Wales exported £11.8 billion-worth of goods last year —an increase of £31 million from the previous year. As a net exporter, Wales’s economic, social and security interests depend on a resilient maritime industry. With 53.7 million tonnes of goods passing through Welsh ports annually, a thriving maritime industry is an essential mechanism for the workings of our economy.

A range of concerns need to be addressed to ensure that a healthy maritime industry is able to flourish, but I will focus my comments on two issues. As the proud mother of a female seafarer, I will discuss the current situation for women in the industry. I will then move on to discuss something that is equally important, given that I am the mother of a female seafarer, which is the safety issues faced by those working in the maritime sector.

Like other Members, I had quite a bit prepared about training. Women have been mentioned as an underused resource in the maritime industry. I will concentrate my comments on women. We need to look at barriers holding women back from entering this sector as a career prospect. I propose that we look at what is preventing them from not only looking at this area but gaining the certificates for higher salaried and higher status jobs. I propose that the Minister considers within that issues related to the facilities on board for female crew members; safety for women in seafaring, including internationally; attitudes towards women; and careers advice for women.

I will rush ahead, because time is of the essence, to the issue of safety. The £38 million of cuts faced by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency last year, coupled with pressure from shipowners who demand a more commercially friendly safety regime, risks jeopardising the lives of British seafarers. The International Transport Workers’ Federation estimates that 2,000 seafarers lose their lives working at sea every year. I estimate that the number is higher than that, but that is what is recorded.

I would like to highlight the case of six Russian crew members who lost their lives on 27 November 2011 when the 34-year-old general cargo ship the Swanland registered in the Cook Islands sank in the Irish sea, 12 miles off Pen Llyn. The 300-hour search and rescue operation demanded that the courageous RNLI volunteer crews of Porthdinllaen, Abersoch, Trearddur bay and Holyhead were called out in atrocious weather conditions. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch’s investigation into the wreck of the Swanland found that maintenance and repair had lacked focus and oversight, and that the cargo of limestone was loaded dangerously.

There is, of course, a great deal of good practice in the industry too. The RNLI has done excellent work in recent years with the man overboard guardian system for commercial fishermen.

[Albert Owen]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I will indeed.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I will give everyone five minutes, but Members have to be mindful of interventions—particularly those who have already spoken.

[Albert Owen]

The hon. Lady talked about women crew members on merchant ships. Will she join me in paying tribute to the RNLI for the increasing number of women who are on our lifeboats, saving lives?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Forgive me, but my daughter is also one of the crew at Porthdinllaen, along with three others; they are an increasing number. I pay tribute to Mike Davis, the cox of Porthdinllaen, who has been outstanding in encouraging young women to join the RNLI.

The RNLI’s latest campaign, in partnership with the Welsh Fishing Safety Committee, will promote the general use of personal locator beacons on lifejackets, which alert rescue services within one minute of a seafarer going into the sea. That has potential for rescuing people and, of course, in tragic incidents where seafarers die, it enables families to recover the bodies of their loved ones. That is a very important initiative, and we should support it. That initiative and many like it increase crew safety and save lives, and the RNLI is to be congratulated for the wide-ranging work the charity does.

It is crucial for the safety of the thousands of men and women who dedicate their lives to work at sea that we do not allow UK shipping companies, or indeed others, to erode safety regulations once the UK leaves the European Union. We must ensure that safety standards are not only upheld but updated and strengthened, to ensure that the lives of seafarers are protected. I therefore call on the Minister to review the issues I have outlined and commit to making the UK shipping industry more diverse, safer and fairer for all those who work at sea.

Macur Review of Historical Child Abuse

Debate between Albert Owen and Liz Saville Roberts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I agree. It seems to have been very much a matter of process and documentation, with survivors and victims as a second consideration. I will return to that.

The report culminates in a bland list of eight conclusions, which mainly state that Waterhouse was necessary, agree with the instigation of this inquiry, say that neither is a substitute for criminal proceedings and that the experience of giving evidence is difficult for survivors. The six recommendations include the platitudes that inquiries should be “above reproach”; that evidence should not be lost; that there is no purpose in further inquiries; and about the hazards of hindsight. I will return to recommendation 5 later.

Macur was the third review of its kind after the Jillings panel and the Waterhouse tribunal. We will have to wait a further two and a half years before we learn of the findings of Goddard’s independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in particular criticised the timescale, saying that despite the “drawn out process”, the report reveals “barely anything”. It expressed concern that that might deter victims from coming forward during the ongoing Operation Pallial.

I turn to redactions: the removal of names and details by which people might be identified. On my count—I may be wrong, although I counted twice—there are 633 redactions in the report. Although many will be duplications, the Secretary of State and the Minister must appreciate that that number is extremely high. The previous Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire, said in his statement last week that redactions had been “kept to a minimum”. While I, and I am sure many people here, accept that some redactions must be made, particularly given the ongoing court proceedings and the potential for further actions, I put it to the House that to claim that redactions in the report have been kept to a minimum is frankly disingenuous.

I am particularly concerned about the extremely high number of redactions in chapters 7 and 8 on freemasonry and establishment figures respectively. Lady Justice Macur made recommendations in her report to the Secretaries of State on what should be redacted in the published report. She said:

“It is for the Secretaries of State to determine any further redaction of my Report weighing public interest with the caution”.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. One of the few positives to come out of Waterhouse was the setting up of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales. Given the strong statement that the commissioner made, does she agree that the Government must be clear about the methodology that arrived at so many redactions?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I agree entirely. I will refer to what the Children’s Commissioner for Wales said anon and I hope that the Minister will be in a position to respond to her call as well as those we are making today.

The previous Secretary of State also said that the rationale behind making the redactions, as set out in the letters to the Secretaries of State by the Treasury Solicitor and the director general of propriety and ethics, “explain the reasons…fully”. However, I put it to the Minister that those justifications are weak and bland. I sympathise with the views expressed by victims and by the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, as just mentioned, who believe that the UK Government need to be more open about the process by which redactions were made. First, I ask the Minister to tell the House how many redactions were made in addition to those suggested by Lady Macur. Secondly, will he publish further information about why those additional redactions were made and what the process was in coming to a decision on them?

Especially alarming—possibly more so—are the numerous serious cases of missing or destroyed evidence at several different points during the various inquiries. Lady Justice Macur’s report refers to individuals who have implied in written evidence that they hold information about abusers who were not investigated by the police or the tribunal. She states that following an interview with—redacted name—she made a request for materials said by that person to be relevant to the review and stored by a solicitor. She goes on to say that that solicitor had since left the relevant practice and that the files in question were destroyed. She even says that the person at the firm dealing with her request recalled that, before the files were destroyed, the solicitor in question had visited the office and

“may have taken any documents he considered worthy of retention.”

The report states that the solicitor in question had failed to respond to correspondence from Lady Macur. Does the Minister consider that a satisfactory conclusion to that line of inquiry? Is simply ignoring correspondence until the problem goes away all one needs to do to get away with a crime? Even ignoring the allegation that the solicitor may have removed evidence, is the Minister satisfied that it would be standard practice to destroy recently archived data?

Unfortunately, that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to missing or destroyed evidence. The greatest cause for concern in relation to the process and documentation is of course the fate of the Waterhouse tribunal’s evidence originally handed over to the Welsh Office in 1998. Those documents—it says this in the report—were supposed to be archived securely for 75 years. That did not happen. The evidence received scant respect at the Welsh Office and it was then shuffled over to the Welsh Government.

This is simply a catalogue of data mismanagement: dependency on technology that becomes dated and corrupted; destruction of hardware and tapes; boxes of evidence in disorder; and a reference index that lists 718 boxes while only 398 were initially made available. It remains unclear how many boxes of evidence were finally handed over to Lady Justice Macur, but documents were still coming to light on 1 December last year. It should be noted that the report was presented on 10 December. That methodology does not instil confidence.

The significance of the destroyed computer database cannot be overestimated. That was the record of all documentation. Against that database, if extant, it would have been possible to come to a view as to whether significant evidence was present or missing. Macur states:

“It is impossible to confidently report that I have seen all the documentation that was before the Tribunal.”

We cannot therefore come empirically to an opinion on whether material has been lost, removed or concealed.