S4C

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Sir Alan. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Minister and to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), because I shall have to leave at approximately 2.50 pm. Indeed, if you had not been sufficiently generous to call me now, I probably would not have been able to be called at all, so I am most grateful to you.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) on the work that he has done, with the Backbench Business Committee, to bring about this very important debate. I look at it as a parliamentary extension of the birthday party that S4C will have enjoyed on its 30th anniversary. It is an opportunity for us to pay tribute to S4C. As everyone in this room will agree, it is a hugely important organisation for Wales, in terms of Welsh employment, the profile of Wales and the diversity of the economy of Wales. It is particularly important for the Welsh language. I agree with the comments made by the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) in that respect: I do not think that there is any guarantee at all that the future of the language is secure. We have seen recent census figures that show threatening trends. That is an issue that we must concentrate on completely.

S4C has played a very major part in enabling me to learn to speak Welsh. When I was elected to the National Assembly in 1999, I was not able to speak Welsh at all. I would not have been able to appear on “Dau o’r Bae” tomorrow or “Pawb a’i Farn” next week.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

What a loss to the nation!

[Glyn Davies]

It would have been, indeed. Nor would I have been able to do a half-hour programme tomorrow with Dewi Llwyd, “Rhaglen Dewi Llwyd”, based really on my birthday. That is coinciding with the debate about the birthday of S4C.

S4C is hugely popular. We can tell that because the political parties in Wales compete with one another to claim credit for creating it. It was created, of course, at a time when Mrs Thatcher was the Prime Minister of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan has paid tribute to the work of Lord Wyn Roberts and to Willie Whitelaw. We should also refer to the work of Lord Crickhowell at the time, because he played a very significant part in what happened. I, too, want to pay tribute to Mr Gwynfor Evans. He made a massive commitment, over a long time. All we remember is his threat to fast to death if this channel was not created. I do not know whether that threat was a help or a hindrance to what happened, but it certainly demonstrated a massive commitment to the Welsh language.

I still remember what happened very clearly. The most important thing that the Thatcher Government did was not only to create S4C, but to commit to a funding level tied to a mechanism to continue that, linked to inflation. That happened right the way through until two years ago, and this is where I enter what is perhaps more controversial territory. The love of the language, the feeling for the language, caused many people to pressurise me, as a member of the Public Bodies Bill Committee, which was considering the breaking of the link. I know just how much the people of Wales care about it. At the time, I thought that it was inevitable. I thought that it would be unrealistic to retain the position that we had, but without the link, we will occasionally refer again to the funding levels for S4C. It will crop up in the parliamentary timetable. Certainly I and, I hope, the successors to all of us will fight S4C’s corner to maintain a realistic budget, in the economy of the time, and to make certain that we have a strong S4C.

We have had a period when S4C has seemed to be in a bit of a bad place. I felt that there was almost a self-destruct button being pressed three or four years ago, but what do we have now? We have two bodies, two broadcasters in Wales, that are committed to the Welsh language—the BBC and S4C. They are working very closely together. We have seen the operating agreement. We have seen two chief executives who are working very well together. We have seen the two channels produce the “Mathias” or “Hinterland” programme. That is the sort of thing that I hope we will see happening again and again in the future. We are in a position from which we can celebrate S4C. It is in a wonderful place at the moment. Wales is a small country and is very lucky to have a channel that does such a wonderful job.