The Assembly committee charged with scrutinising the order to devolve Welsh language powers to the Assembly published its report on Friday. I was Plaid's member on the committee, which agreed unanimously that the order we scrutinised doesn't go far enough, and that the Assembly should have the widest powers possible. It makes sense no sense for the UK government to have the powers to legislate on the Welsh language now that the assembly has law-making powers.
Gordon's cabinet reshuffle ensured the report got virtually no coverage in the press. I issued the following statement:
"This report is great news, it's another sign that politics in Wales has moved on from the days when the language was a political football. After receiving hundreds of consultation responses, the overwhelming weight of evidence we have received favours decisions on the Welsh language to be taken in Wales. The fact that all parties in the Assembly have signed up to this report is a major breakthrough. We are calling for a strengthening of the legislative competence order (LCO), meaning its passage should be a straightforward matter.
If any attempt were made to water-down the One Wales government's powers-bid, it would be a severe blow to devolution. The draft LCO that our committee scrutinised was a compromise between two parties in government and then a further compromise between two governments, a compromise which took 18 months to agree. The evidence we heard and the consultations responses we received were overwhelmingly supportive of the Assembly having the widest possible powers over the language, and our report reflects this."
Paul Murphy as Secretary of State was widely expected to try to water down the LCO, reducing the Assembly's ability to make laws to safeguard our language. With a new Secretary of State for Wales can we expect a new Wales Office position?
1 comment:
That's a long winded document. LOL.
I hope this gets passed pronto, because the time frame for such political matters is against us. The English have upped their assimilation of our country ten fold. The anti all things Welsh brigade is running riot in west Dyfed alone. The Cymry now being minority, and most of them havn't got a clue what is going on around them regarding any political matters. Local governments seem to be doing their utmost hardest to remove Welsh identity altogether. An example, the council celebrates the murderous saint Patrick over our own Dewi sant, and if you complain about it you get bullied. So what chance have we got getting our language recognised by these anti all things Welsh bigots? Dysgu Cymraeg is nearly impossible for most children in west Dyfed with only one hour a week being allocated for lessons in a lot of cases. Most of these children are going all the way through school without learning a thing. But the local authorities will rubbish this. All one has to do is to speak to the children on the streets to get a true picture of how much our language is suffering under this tyranny.
Mp's, Am's, quangos & Co, will just drag this out over many, many, many years, until Cymru, Cymry and Cymraeg has been totally assimilated, and the only reference of our ancient culture/bloodline (gods chosen ones) is a museum attraction.
Cymdeithas Yr Iaith Gymraeg members are doing a fantastic job fighting for our language freedom, and in return they loose their own by being sent to prison with NO rights under this English dictatorship, complete with media blackout.
It would seem that the stealth approach is not working, just look at tonight's EU results.
Maybe it's time that we the Cymry stopped begging the suppressors for their heritage back.
As for BT, I'm still waiting after 18 months for a written apology regarding being called a Welsh C**t when reporting a faulty line. This was also reported to the Senydd at the time. Wouldn't do anything.
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