Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Browne, really could not have made a better case for the constitution of this House in its present form. The noble Lord mentioned that the House of Commons did not look at this aspect of the Bill at all. This is exactly what this House has the time and the experience to look at. With the greatest possible respect, I think the noble Lord defused quite a lot of the arguments in favour of his noble friend’s amendment. When I was at school the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, was one of my childhood heroes. He was a wonderfully bombastic loose cannon in the House of Commons when I was still wet behind the ears. However, I do feel incredibly strongly that this amendment would be a total and utter waste of parliamentary time, let alone a waste of money, if it was to be carried. The noble Lord and I obviously have exactly the same figures—58,652 Gaelic speakers north of the border, and it is thought not a single one of them is incapable of understanding fully, speaking and reading English. I would therefore appeal to your Lordships to reject this amendment with the strongest possible feeling.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, it is not a question of numbers, although my noble friend Lord Browne was perhaps tempting fate in suggesting that there are no monoglot Welsh speakers. I suspect that now he has said that, the Welsh media will be searching in the valleys of the Lleyn Peninsula and will find some dear old lady—perhaps there is even some Cornish lady still—who speaks only Welsh, but I am not sure frankly that that is really material to the argument. Nor is the question of cost, as the cost must be very minor indeed. I shall argue on the basis of Celtic solidarity—hands across the Irish Sea—that this is a matter more of dignity and symbolism, and is all the more important for that.

The coalition has made much of overconcentration in Westminster and Whitehall. That has been part of the leitmotif—that there will be decentralisation, that there will be more status and more dignity given to local communities to manage their own affairs. Surely, to recognise the differences within the United Kingdom is very much in the spirit of that. I concede this is symbolic, but it will do no harm and may well do some good. I speak as someone with a Welsh background, although I concede that I am a monoglot English speaker—I went to a Welsh grammar school at a time when Wales was not being pushed, and I was taught Greek and Latin rather than Welsh, which I gave up at an early stage. However, like most Welsh people, even the monoglot majority who speak only English, I have a tremendous feeling of pride in the Welsh language. One of the great debates over the past decades has been over the ways in which we can encourage the use of the Welsh language without making it a divisive issue. I give credit to the Conservative Party for the Welsh Language Act, which I believe avoided making Welsh a divisive and explosive issue, as happened with regard to language in Belgium. Overwhelmingly in Wales there is a pride in the language, and not a nasty response to it. That Belgian-style row has been avoided here by a process of being consensual and by recognising the importance of difference. It is indeed a source of pride for most of us.

I concede that there are differences, because we have gone further in Wales with the principle of equal validity, but the identity of the nation is linked with that of the language and, however small the number of Gaelic speakers may be, the identity of the Scottish nation is also linked with that language. This is wholly consonant with the new spirit of seeking to encourage diversity in Europe by all possible means—not just in the European Union but in the Council of Europe. Doing that is not only politically important to avoid language being a source of division, but a matter of pride in that which is different.

My final principle is to accept this as a symbolic gesture. It will not cost much and it will do no harm. In terms of diversity and recognising the differences within our United Kingdom, it can do some good.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I would be serving the cause of pan-Celticism badly were I not to say that I wholeheartedly supported the amendment; indeed, I support it with great enthusiasm. The situation in Wales is a very powerful and pertinent precedent for the Gaelic situation. In Wales, the Welsh language is a living language; it is some 1,500 years old and has been recognised in statute since 1967. The combined effect of the 1967 and 1993 Acts gave the Welsh language equal validity with the English language in all formal legal situations.

In that regard, there would appear to be an unanswerable case for putting the AV referendum question in Welsh as well as in English. In the clause stand part debate, I will have something to say about the quality of translation, but that is a different matter altogether. The Welsh case is based on the fact that there are a substantial number of people, particularly elderly people, for whom the Welsh language is essentially the only language in which they communicate. They might not be monoglot as one would strictly define that term, but certainly many tens of thousands of people speak Welsh; it is certainly the first language of hundreds of thousands of people in Wales. On that basis alone, it is right and proper that this provision should be arranged. That was the situation in the referendums on the Common Market in 1975 and on devolution in 1979 and the 1990s.

In addition, Welsh is often referred to as “our language” by people who do not speak it. That gives me enormous pride and comfort. I have no doubt that much the same attitude prevails in Scotland. Therefore, there is an unanswerable legalistic case for the Welsh language—a case in chivalry and in the fact that it is part of the rich cultural heritage of the United Kingdom. In the main, that applies equally to Scotland, and it is on that basis that I fervently and proudly support the amendment.