Education Committee, 22 Dec 2004

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Official Report 241KB pdf

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Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Item 5 is consideration of the scope of our stage 1 report on the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill. We do not yet have the report; I think that Mark Roberts has the job of producing a draft for us during the recess. However, a preliminary list of potential issues for inclusion in the report has been prepared. I invite members' comments on matters that might be added to the list or taken on board, given the oral and written evidence that we have received. Members have read the large folder of written evidence that they received two or three weeks ago and will be in a position to make full comments or be questioned on the evidence at a later stage. Do members want to add anything to the list of issues?

A useful summary was provided with the large folder.

Absolutely.

The paper covers the issues that the committee has been pursuing.

Do you have a spare copy of the paper, convener?

It should be with the committee papers.

It might be helpful for the Official Report if you ran through the list.

Everyone now has the list, so I do not think there is any advantage in my reading it out. The paper has been published so it is available if people want to see it.

I have one or two thoughts that might be relevant. The point came through clearly that there must be links between Gaelic-medium education at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Funding is also an issue. That is not just about the funding of the bill per se, but about the need to support its provisions and the adequacy or otherwise of the Executive's intentions in that regard.

There is also an issue about Gaelic-medium materials, which is touched on in item 4 in the list of issues. Linked to that is teacher promotion and incentives, which relates to how we can recruit more people and whether we can effect a step change. There is also the question of whether we consider the current demand for Gaelic or the potential of the language, on which a number of people have touched.

We have also to consider support for the family. If a child from a non Gaelic-speaking home is in Gaelic-medium education or is learning Gaelic, we have to consider allowing parents easy access to Gaelic and supporting them to understand what is taking place and how they can help their children, which is important. I would like to see reflected in the bill the principle of generosity and good will, which the Welsh Language Board cited and which would be a good theme for us to take forward. Do members want to raise other points?

I want to raise a point related to viability and choice, on the use of high technology and videoconferencing. Pupils might be interested passionately in Gaelic, but if they are in a school where it is simply not viable to provide a Gaelic teacher—say if only one, two or three pupils are interested—such provision is not going to happen. Given that the minister has set up a working group, a paragraph on that should be included. It could come under choice and viability or the use of high technology.

That could be done.

We are right to acknowledge the debate on the statutory right to Gaelic-medium education, which I support. We need to acknowledge that, in the evidence that we received, a large number of organisations argued in favour of that right, but the minister presented arguments for why he did not necessarily want to see such a right. That needs to be explored fully.

On the education side, we need to cover the points that Highland Council made about the educational drivers for guidance in relation to the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000 and the interaction between that act and the bill. I am not quite sure whether that fits with the arguments about the right to Gaelic-medium education; it is more about the interaction between the bill and the 2000 act. The comments that the minister made last week were particularly interesting. He is, in effect, doing in practice what we might want to do in law. We should explore that and in doing so focus on the good evidence from Highland Council.

We will certainly have to reflect the rights issue one way or another. Everyone would agree that we are on about giving substance to the right. The law against the background of resources is another issue on which we will need to focus our minds.

The list is pretty comprehensive. The emphasis that it puts on education reflects the fact that despite education being an addition to the bill it has dominated much of our discussion of it. The key point that I want to see reflected is that there is broad support for the bill. I do not know about other members, but when we started considering the bill I thought that there would be much more dispute in the evidence that we took. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that everyone who spoke to us—without exception—said that they support the bill and that it is a step in the right direction, although some said that it should go further.

One or two written submissions took the opposite position.

That is true. However, the oral evidence and the bulk of the written evidence were supportive of the bill. Given the arguments in the past about the right way to support Gaelic, that is an important point.

We need to explore whether the bill is intended to arrest the decline of Gaelic and to prevent it from dying out, or whether it is intended to encourage the growth of Gaelic. That has implications for the way Gaelic language plans will be interpreted across Scotland. Clearly, the first role of the bill is to stop Gaelic dying out. However, some people—including me—would like more emphasis to be placed on using the bill and the Gaelic language plans as vehicles for growing Gaelic throughout Scotland, including in areas where it does not have a strong tradition. Other than that, I am happy with the issues that are listed in the paper as issues that were covered in evidence.

We have heard some evidence on potential use of the language.

Yes. That is the second issue listed in the paper.

We are discussing the possible themes and content of the report. However, it would be good if the introduction included something on how the committee views the context of the bill and reflected the fragility of the situation, which our visits helped to emphasise. Everything else could flow from that.

That is a helpful suggestion and reflects our conclusion in our discussions. What is the role of Gaelic? What is the context? I refer both to Gaelic's position as a language and to the surrounding cultural milieu. There are a number of aspects that must be considered.

It would be helpful for the committee to distinguish in its report between Gaelic-medium education and the teaching of Gaelic as an add-on language. In my view, availability of Gaelic as an add-on language helps and complements what we are trying to do, but should not negate the right to Gaelic-medium education. However, in many parts of lowland Scotland there is likely to be more emphasis on Gaelic as an add-on language than on Gaelic-medium education.

The interrelationship between the two is an issue. Unless there is Gaelic for new learners, catchment of people will be limited to the small number of Gaelic native speakers. Some evidence suggests that we need both elements. There are several legs on which the strategy must stand.

We have received reports from the Subordinate Legislation Committee and the Finance Committee. I notice that the Executive has made an undertaking to the Subordinate Legislation Committee to require the national plan to come before Parliament in suitable shape, which is important. Parliamentary scrutiny of the plan will be relevant.

It would be an important signal if the report contained recognition of the fact that Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college, is a centre of educational excellence. It has developed enormously in recent years and is doing extremely well.

That is true. Given the fragility of the language, it is impossible to look to the Gaelic community to replicate in individual institutions all the areas of higher education research, teacher training and cultural development. It is inevitable that success will come from clustering activities in one institution, which should not be disadvantaged in funding as a result. The problem is that Sabhal Mòr Ostaig is obliged to cluster to have an impact, but the Executive does not have funding streams that reflect such clustering in other areas. A nod towards that would be helpful.

Some people have suggested that everybody should be sent to the Gaelic college, whether from Glasgow or wherever. That would be impractical, but the idea of having a period of an entirely Gaelic scenario, if you like, for people who are going to be teacher trainers and so on seems to be valid. That might support people, given that things are not happening in quite that way at the moment.

The first issue in the list in paper ED/S2/04/28/4 is going to be the trickiest for the committee to cover in the detail of its report. We have various demands for the language to have secure status, official status and equal status. The board recommended the idea—with which I have a lot of sympathy—of the language having equal validity, which would overcome many of the problems in the other options. That said, one of the points that the minister made last week was that Gaelic already has, in effect, official status simply because it is used officially by the Executive, local authorities, Parliament and other organisations. In the committee's report you might want to distinguish between official status and the other three options of secure status, equal status and equal validity. The options are mutually exclusive—if you go for one of them you cannot go for another—but they are all compatible with official status. You might want to record in your report the fact that the language has official status and consider whether it is right, necessary or appropriate for that to be stated in the bill.

It is useful to define some of the terms. The Welsh Language Board was useful in that context. I am not entirely certain that Gaelic is an official language. For example, in the courts, there is a facility for translation when it is necessary, but I am not sure that people have a right to give evidence in their own language—that is, Gaelic—where appropriate, although it happens in some northern courts.

There is an issue about what official status means in practice. In the introduction to the bill, the objective is given of promoting and facilitating the language with a view to its gaining secure status, or words to that effect, so there is already a nod in that direction. My mind was turning to whether we could enhance that and cover the prestige element that the Welsh Language Board talked about.

Bòrd na Gàidhlig's contribution was helpful. The phrase "equal validity" would solve a lot of problems.

We will have to form a view on that. The minister had qualms about the phrase, as he did with the other options. We have to be clear about what we suggest and its legal effect. There was a suggestion that we want to go for something reasonably substantial that does not create individual legal rights per se. Creating individual rights to do with education is another issue, but we do not want to go for something that suggests a vague and unspecified possibility of there being legal rights. We need to address the status issue, which I think members feel is the most important angle. Somewhere in there is the answer to the conundrum.

One of the other issues that need to be clarified in the committee's report relates to the powers to require United Kingdom bodies to prepare and submit Gaelic language plans. It is important to acknowledge that we are dealing with two categories of non-devolved body. One category includes straightforward UK bodies such as the BBC, which is a creation of Westminster and represents a reserved function. The other includes bodies that are in between, such as the Forestry Commission, which is a cross-border body that crosses devolved and reserved status. We have to ensure that we cover those bodies as well as the purely UK bodies.

We did not explore that with the minister—perhaps we should have done so.

The Forestry Commission is particularly important, given its role in rural life in Scotland, particularly in many areas where we are likely to see greatest use of Gaelic.

We have to consider whether the fact that bodies such as the Forestry Commission were set up by UK legislation creates a different status for them—I do not know the answer. Perhaps we should see whether we can get guidance on that. UK bodies are referred to in the list of issues.

It was helpful of the clerks to submit such a concise and excellent list.

We will have a draft report early in the new year. I thank everyone for their attendance at this extra meeting. I am told that as I am a member of the SPCB I might be involved in authorising any Gaelic language plan that the Scottish Parliament would be required to produce under the legislation. I therefore have to make a declaration of interests in that context.