Leanne Wood will set up an urgent review to safeguard Welsh speaking communities as Plaid Cymru leader, according to a policy paper on the language released today (Thursday, February 23).
If she’s elected as leader, Leanne Wood says she will pull together a policy group to report within six months with measures designed to regenerate Welsh speaking communities. The group will consult on the following ideas and ask for more ideas for other policies will which help to ensure a long term future for the survival of Welsh as a living language:
- A Welsh Language Labour Market to enable people to work through the medium of Welsh.
- Expand the work of Mentrau Iaith to become community enterprises in line with proposals in ‘A Greenprint for the Valleys’
- A sensitive and sustainable planning regime which prevents over-development.
- The Welsh language to be the administrative language of more county councils.
- Support for a Welsh medium digital industry which invests in communities across the country.
- Investment in adult education.
- A ‘think tank’ to pull together and build a research base for matters relating to the Welsh language, to ensure that future language planning can be evidence-based.
Publishing the policy paper, Leanne Wood AM said:
“Plaid Cymru’s campaigns for independence and for the survival of the Welsh language are part of one struggle – they cannot be separated. The Welsh language is a common treasure for us all and we are all duty bound to work to ensure its survival. We must work to create the conditions for it to thrive – it won’t happen naturally. I am convinced that the best conditions for the future prosperity of the language are under an economically successful, independent Wales. That is why we must have the ability to decide on the means to change people’s social conditions in Wales.
“The Welsh language belongs to everyone in Wales. Its opponents wish to paint it as a matter for the elite or a minority. It is not. Neither is it something to be treated as a problem or to be considered in isolation from other issues.
“It was deliberate government decisions that led to generations of Welsh people deciding that it would be better not to pass Welsh on to their children. I, like so many in today’s Wales, lost out on the language because of a deliberate strategy to run-down the language of Wales.
“We must make speaking and hearing Welsh as normal as English is in Wales. It must become a mainstream part of our country if it is to thrive.
“The language question cannot be an optional extra. In our plans to regenerate the economy, we must plan to regenerate Welsh at the same time. As we plan a green future and develop sustainable energy, we must plan for the sustainability and future of the language.”
Among high profile party members that have declared their support for Leanne Wood are former Plaid President Dafydd Iwan, MP Jonathan Edwards, ex- MP Adam Price.
Assembly Members Bethan Jenkins and Lindsay Whittle, former Plaid chief executive Gwenllian Lansdown Davies, the Plaid leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council Allan Pritchard and harpist Elinor Bennett Wigley have also backed the Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales Central’s leadership bid.
Leanne Wood also received the most nominations – 14 – from constituencies and branches across Wales for her leadership bid.
