, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Iwan wants to come in.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Well, Chair, ultimately, the powers sit with Ministers under the 2013 Act, and Ministers can use those powers if there’s an impasse. As I was saying in response to Natasha's question, that's something that happens at the end of the journey. Local authorities…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Thank you to Natasha Asghar for the question, Chair. The biggest challenge at the heart of the Bill is the workforce; it’s to be able to develop a workforce capable of delivering the level of involvement in the Welsh language that the Bill seeks to establish…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
—ie, gwahanol. So, bydd hawl gyda'r ysgolion i ddweud, 'Ni yn y categori hwn', ond dydyn ni ddim yn ei wneud e'n orfodol i wneud hynny, i adlewyrchu'r ffaith bydd disgyblion gydag anghenion gwahanol gyda nhw.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Wel, mae'r Bil yn ei wneud e'n orfodol i ysgolion fel yna greu cynllun a chael y cynllun fel rhan o'r system newydd ni'n ei chreu. Ond dydy'r Bil ddim yn rhoi ysgolion yn orfodol i mewn i unrhyw gategori ac mae hwnna jest yn adlewyrchu'r ffaith bydd…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Na. Dydy'r Bil ddim yn rhoi cyfle i'r ysgolion ailddefnyddio esemptiadau. So, rŷn ni wedi rhoi esemptiadau i mewn i helpu ysgolion i ddod at y 10 y cant—lefel 10 y cant—ac mae degawd gan yr ysgolion i gyrraedd y pwynt hwnnw. Pan fyddan nhw ar y lefel yna…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
So, alongside the support that the Bill gives to Welsh-medium education, we use this broader term of 'Welsh language education', because we will not succeed in getting to that 1 million speakers unless we can turn out, from primarily English-medium schools…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Thank you, Adam, for that question, because that is an important point in the Bill. The Bill supports Welsh-medium education and we want to see more children in Wales being given a Welsh-medium education, and the Bill is supportive of that objective. But we…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Well, the Bill gives powers to Ministers to use new forms of data, new possibilities that are coming to us over the time to come. We've been dependent on the census, but we know that the future of the census isn't entirely clear. In the last Government, there…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Well, I think you've absolutely illustrated, Chair, the difficulties we would be in if there was a Government definition, that you then had to use what we believed to be the case, rather than, as an individual, being able to describe yourself in different…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
So, it's a fundamental principle, which is now reflected in this Bill, that if Welsh belongs to everybody, then it is for individuals to say whether or not they believe themselves to be speakers of the language, rather than for the Government to instruct them…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
That isn't defined on the face of the Bill because we will be sticking with the principle of self-identification.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Well, Chair, there are a number of things in the Bill, and they depend on the timescale, and we've drawn in more flexibility in order to be able to say when things will happen because they will depend on other things in the Bill. In the children and education…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Well, I think that the policy reason behind it was to focus on the schools where the Government impact will be greatest. And, of course, the people who attend those schools in Wales live in Wales. Many children who attend private schools don't live in Wales…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Nac ydyn.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Well, Chair, the national institute will operate in just the same way as any other arm's-length body that is established by the Welsh Government. Of course, Natasha is right that the chair and the board will be appointed by Welsh Ministers, but that's not an…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Well, I think that's the ultimate sanction, isn't it? As I said, you would expect the institute to have contract monitoring. It's the way the Welsh Government would monitor grants, in our case, that we make to third sector organisations. You receive regular…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
So, Chair, the relationship is essentially a contractual one. So, the national institute will contract with a number of Welsh language learning providers. You would expect the institute to monitor that contract, to monitor compliance with that contract, and…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
My understanding—and again, I'll make sure that I give you the best information I can—is that the consultation requirements that this Bill sets out essentially reflect the consultation arrangements around the WESPs that were set out in the founding Act, the…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
The obligation is on the school not on the individual, so the school must ensure that a minimum of 10 per cent of the compulsory part of the school day is devoted to the Welsh language. And just to be clear, Chair, that doesn't mean that the whole of that has…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
The purpose of putting the target on a statutory basis—. And, of course, Natasha Asghar is right that that target existed already—so, it's not a new target in that sense. What the Bill does is to give it statutory force, and, in that sense, statutory stature…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
This has been a Bill in gestation for a long time. The original ideas that culminate in the Bill were there in documents that were published and discussed prior to the pandemic, and the pandemic had the same impact on capacity to legislate here as it did on…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Thank you, Chair. I might see if Iwan wants to add anything to what I'm going to say. The explanatory memorandum doesn't deal directly with human rights. Of course, this is a Bill that essentially operates within the framework that already exists; children…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill: evidence session
Chair, thank you. Yes, of course we are confident that the Bill is within the competence of the Senedd. The Llywydd published a statement to set out her view that the provisions of the Bill are within the Senedd's competence as well.
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language: Welsh language communities
I'd like to thank Delyth Jewell. I think there were two points there. One is to highlight the fact that people who speak English all speak English in an entirely different way and nobody says, 'Well, my English isn't good enough to be used'. So, why do Welsh…
