Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 05 Nov 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 5, 2002

Official Report 182KB pdf

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Scotland's Languages

Item 3 is consideration of a report on Scotland's languages by Irene McGugan. I thank Irene very much for the report, which is a considerable piece of work. It has taken some time to pull together the vast amount of evidence that she has received. I ask Irene to make some introductory comments, after which we can have a general discussion.

Thank you, convener. I apologise for the fact that it has taken me so long to prepare the report. I am perhaps redeemed only by the fact that other inquiries were instigated at the same time on which colleagues have not managed to report to the committee either.

Name them.

These delays often make the task more difficult. There has been more interest in Scotland's languages and more developments around them in the past 18 months than there had been previously in my lifetime. That is a good thing, as the issue has risen up the agenda and deserves the committee's attention. However, we have struggled to keep up with the various developments. Given the time scale, the number of developments and the amount of evidence that we have received, I feel that this is an appropriate time to bring the draft report to the committee for members' comments before we begin to finalise it. I am happy to take comments and questions.

I gave Irene McGugan advance notice of this point, as we share an office. There is an element missing from the report; it is a comparatively small one, but it is extremely important in the context of language policy in Scotland. The report makes no reference to the issue of secure status for languages. A bill providing secure status for Gaelic will be published next week and will, I hope, come to the committee.

We will believe it when we see it, Mike.

For the purposes of the Official Report, I record the fact that Jackie Baillie is cheering silently.

No, she is not!

Enough of this frivolity.

There is also an argument for providing secure status for Scots. Of the 36 European minority languages, only three do not have the benefit of some legal protection or secure status. Two of those languages are Gaelic and Scots. Please do not ask me what the other one is, because I have forgotten.

I would like a new section to be added after paragraph 46 of the report—in the preamble to the sections on the languages themselves—containing some brief information on what secure status is; how the concept has changed since the old arguments for legal status; how parity of esteem, a phrase that is used in the Welsh Language Act 1993, has helped the Welsh language; and how that approach needs to be developed in Scotland.

Do other members have any comments?

I congratulate Irene McGugan on a tremendous piece of work. The amount of time that it has taken her to produce the report and its length mean that we perhaps need more time to consider its implications.

I do not think that the matter of secure status for Gaelic or Scots is a simple one. There is a danger that people may have made up their minds without recognising the difficulties. I accept the rationale behind the paper, which is that Scots and Gaelic are valuable parts of our culture and ought to be supported and protected. I get upset every time I hear people say that schools do not respect and teach Scots or that people are forbidden to speak Scots and all that kind of stuff.

We must have a debate on the issues. Irene McGugan's report is a tremendous starting point. We must have an understanding of what goes on and what is possible. I sometimes worry that proponents of secure status for the Scots language perhaps do not recognise what is possible. There are problems owing to the diversity of the language. Scots is not one language; it is a series of bits and pieces that clearly—when one stands back to consider the matter—form a different kind of language from English. The issue is not simple.

Ian Jenkins is right to remind us of the remit of the inquiry. It is geared towards investigating the way in which education and cultural policy could impact on the future of Scotland's languages. That is why the report makes so many references to schools and the education system. It was difficult to produce recommendations or conclusions that included not only Scotland's indigenous languages but the community languages—indeed, all the languages that we speak in Scotland.

I accept that the issue of secure status is quite difficult. I will try to find a form of words that will be acceptable to committee members. I put forward two conclusions. The first is on an eventual languages policy and the second is on work that must be done to provide exactly what Ian Jenkins seeks, which is much more information about the languages, their role, their current status and their future. We do not have as much information as we need to develop the languages policy, but the work that must be done would build on a lot of what is in the report and would lead towards a languages policy as its eventual outcome.

I am happy about that.

I endorse what Irene McGugan has just said. There are issues about secure status, particularly across the range of languages that are covered in the report. The first step is clearly to obtain the evidence that is required to devise a robust languages policy. Depending on the form of words that Irene McGugan uses and how we recognise the desires of some people elsewhere, I am happy to support the broad thrust of the report.

I suggest that we put the report on the committee's agenda for 26 November. In the meantime, we should write to the Equal Opportunities Committee, because there is an issue about translation. It would be helpful for the committee to have the report translated into some of the community languages, but there is confusion as to which of the languages it should be translated into and where we should start and finish. Given the fact that the Parliament has an Equal Opportunities Committee, it is right and proper that we ask that committee for its advice on the most appropriate way forward.

If members are happy with that approach, I thank Irene McGugan for her report, to which we will have an opportunity to give further consideration in three weeks' time. Do members agree to the course of action that has been suggested?

Members indicated agreement.