Welsh Affairs Committee in Commons goes bilingual

THE Welsh Affairs Committee of the House of Commons is to go wholly bilingual, with MPs and witnesses able to speak and give evidence in Welsh as a matter of course.

Confirming the decision, committee chairman David Davies, the Conservative MP for Monmouth, said: “Up until now, some witnesses have requested and been given permission to use Welsh on an ad hoc basis, but I think it’s absolutely right that anyone wishing to speak in either language should be able to do so.

“Welsh is an official language in Wales and it’s entirely right that MPs and others should be able to use it.”

Mr Davies, who learned Welsh during his time as an AM also representing Monmouth, added: “I think that allowing Welsh to be used during Welsh Grand Committee debates has been very successful. I enjoyed speaking at it in Welsh myself and would encourage other MPs to do so.

“I would like to see Welsh also spoken at Westminster Hall debates, and I think it would be wonderful to hear it in the House of Commons itself in St David’s Day debates.”

The issue of using Welsh at the Welsh Affairs Committee was raised with Mr Davies by Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts, and she found herself pushing at an open door.

Commenting on the need for the ban on the use of Welsh in Parliament to be lifted, Ms Saville Roberts said: “The farcical situation that only English or Norman French are the permitted languages of Parliament shows how out of touch and antiquated Westminster really is.

“Modern technology enables the easy use of Welsh and other languages, bringing the parlance of Parliament out of the Middle Ages and into the 21st century.

“The National Assembly has shown how easily a bilingual parliament can work. We have seen how the use of Welsh has widened and enriched debate.

“It has not excluded people, but included the thousands of people who speak Welsh every day by enabling their right to use the language. It has not created barriers to communication, but built bridges across old divides.”

However, commenting on what she described as “entrenched inequality of opportunity between Wales and Westminster,” she added: “Although I would of course welcome the dragging of Parliament into the modern era by allowing the use of the Welsh language, it does not distract from the fact that Westminster can never and will never deliver for the people of Wales.”