S4C and Welsh Identity

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) in congratulating the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) on securing this important debate.

Only last year, we were here to celebrate the 30th anniversary of S4C as the world’s only publicly broadcast Welsh language channel. Although at times the existence of the channel has been taken for granted, its importance to the people of Wales has not diminished in the slightest. As I said in the anniversary debate, the existence of S4C is a reminder of a diverse history of people—some of them famous, some of them pretty much establishment figures, and some of them definitely not establishment figures—all of whom came together to campaign for the Welsh language at a time when it was not fashionable to do so. That is important for us to remember. For some, it was a campaign that came from our universities and from this place; for others, it was a different campaign that involved refusing to pay their television licence; but for all those people, from wherever they came, we can never say too many times that we—that next generation of people active in Welsh political life—are in their debt, because without them, the channel would not have been created.

As the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire said, we often have very personal reasons why we are so supportive of S4C. He took us through his own journey in the 1960s—one wonders whether he was long-haired and hippyish in those days, or merely a prize winner at cultural festivals. My personal experience was that of growing up in a bilingual community, where English was the language of the home, so for me S4C was not only a nice way to have a bit of extra Welsh, but a way of enabling me to study Welsh at first-language level at school. It was also the mechanism that normalised the use of Welsh for me, and I know that that is true for many other people. The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) mentioned earlier the crucial importance of S4C in education. For people like me, it was the station that I could listen to when most of the Welsh speakers I knew were people who dealt in Welsh almost 24/7.

I know that that is even truer today. Many children who go to Welshmedium schools are without the advantage that I had of being in a bilingual community. It is an advantage, too, for non-Welsh-speaking parents who are trying to learn the language; for the wider community of people who are unable to speak Welsh themselves, but who are determined, as my father was, that it should be passed to the next generation; and for families with only one Welsh-speaking parent in London, Liverpool or even outside the United Kingdom who are trying to bring up their children to speak Welsh—no easy task and a tough challenge for families living outside Wales in an increasingly globalised world.

I do not propose to tread over old ground in this debate. The Minister remembers many of us from a few years ago. We remember that he watched “Fireman Sam”; I am sure that he has watched a lot more than that now. Many of us had real fears for S4C’s independence and funding when we tried unsuccessfully to get it removed from the Public Bodies Bill. We saw disproportionate cuts that meant S4C’s grant was reduced from £101 million in 2010 to £83 million in 2012. We saw it being chucked away. We have seen reductions of 1% in 2013-14 and 2% more in 2014-15, which clearly places stress on a channel that has already had to cut costs wherever it goes. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire described the experience as traumatic and talked about the difficulties of breaking the inflationary link. We must not forget, whenever we discuss the subject, that UNESCO classified the Welsh language as “vulnerable” and that S4C is the only television channel in the world that broadcasts in that language. To protect the language and not to allow it to disappear, we must support institutions such as S4C that use and promote the language successfully.

That is why I am asking the Minister today for a cast-iron assurance. Given the way the governance and funding of S4C were changed by this Government in 2011, the commitment to funding S4C needs to be included, and indeed, spelt out in the next BBC charter and in the negotiations. There can be no ambiguity about that. If S4C is to invest and thrive, a proper, costed commitment needs to be in there. I very much take on board what the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire said about its importance for the channel in planning ahead, and I would be grateful for a response from the Minister on that point.

However, if I want to make a challenge to the Government, I also want to make one to S4C. I know that S4C has decided to move its headquarters from Cardiff to Carmarthenshire. The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) rightly spoke of the benefits to west Wales, and of course if I had been a west Walian I would have welcomed that. An often quoted figure is that £1 of investment into S4C brings about £2 into the Welsh economy, and the siting of the S4C headquarters in Carmarthen will bring undoubted benefits to that part of Wales.

Of course I realise that, realistically, the headquarters of S4C cannot be everywhere, but I want a commitment from S4C that its partnership working will be in all parts of Wales. A huge proportion—more than three quarters, I think—of S4C’s programmes are made by the independent sector, and we need a commitment from the channel that those companies will be chosen from right across Wales. That should not stop with direct commissioning; I want the institutions with which S4C does partnership working to be Wales-wide, too. That is critical.

S4C is very important to people all over Wales. It is important to people who speak Welsh, to those who are learning and to those who wish to learn. It brings people together and makes the Welsh language accessible in an age when modern media force us sometimes to question the nature of our cultural identity. I have no doubt that as long as Welsh people live and breathe, which, of course, will be for ever, the debates about Welsh cultural identity and the Welsh language will increase, not diminish. However, it is my hope that as the debate develops, we will not all sit in our respective partisan or ideological silos, but we will be open to good ideas from wherever they come. I hope that we will not only debate the channel directly, but look at other things connected with the Welsh language—for instance, the whole system of teaching Welsh as a second language. Last summer, I joined Ann Jones, the Labour Assembly Member for the Vale of Clwyd, and many other people in the letter campaign organised by the veteran Welsh language campaigner Ffred Ffransis, arguing that it is time for a thorough look at the system of second language Welsh education.

We also need to begin the debate again about distinctive policies for our heartland Welsh-speaking communities. I do not say that in any trite fashion: if we do not do this now, in 30 years’ time we are simply not going to have any. It is time that we at least consider models such as the Irish model of the Gaeltacht as one way of revitalising Welsh-speaking heartland communities. Wherever our debate on the Welsh language takes us—I believe that we have to very open and refreshed in our thinking on that—I am confident that S4C and its partnerships with Welsh creative industries will always be a vital part of it.