Ceredigion opposition leader asks whether speaking Welsh language could be a condition to stand
Katy Jenkins, local democracy reporter
Whether being able to speak Welsh should be a requirement for those applying to be councillors has been raised by one Ceredigion member.
Cllr Gareth Lloyd, leader of the opposition, asked if it was possible to “put a condition of speaking Welsh” when being a public representative as in all areas “there will be a certain number of Welsh speakers”.
Councillors had raised questions about the use of Welsh at community councils and how this could be increased, with a tendency to revert to English if a non-Welsh speaker was present noted.
Cllr Lloyd added that “in order to represent them, to discuss with your electorate, is there an argument for putting Welsh knowledge as a condition or a willingness to learn?”
He was told that there were some rules that prevented people standing as a councillor but language was not one of them, and it was unlikely that Welsh Government would be “going that far”.
Discussions about the Welsh Language Standards Monitoring Report 2021-2022 were held on Monday and Ceredigion County Councillors were updated on the progress made implementing the legal framework relating to the Welsh language.
The council, as will many other organisations, “must not treat the Welsh language less favourably than the English language” and promote and facilitate the use of Welsh, covered by five mains standards and 167 sub-standards.
Awareness
The standards report will be singed off by cabinet before being sent to the Welsh language commissioner and publication online.
The committee heard that millions of words a year are translated by the council a year and there was not the capacity to provide simultaneous translation for community council meetings as well as county council.
The standards report highlights the use of remote working during the pandemic and the move to Zoom of committees, utilising its simultaneous translation channel, with 229 meetings provided with translation between March 2021 and April 2022.
Residents contacting the council can also do so in their chosen language with 15 of the 19 Clic service staff fluent Welsh speakers, although the number of English language calls was higher and the council will be raising awareness of the Welsh services available.
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Dymuniad a chynnig peryglus iawn yn fy nhyb i. Mae pleidleisio yn weithred democrataidd ac mae offer cyfieithu ar gael ar gyfer anghenion y di-Gymraeg pan siaredir neu gweithredu trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg.
Cytuno. Mae tua 85% o gynghorwyr Ceredigion yn siarad Cymraeg beth bynnag, felly dim llawer o broblem yno i fod yn deg.
The standard of Ceredigion Councillors is pretty low as things stand. Better focus serve the language and the people by preventing those who don’t have useful life experience from standing.
This sounds like ghetto thinking to me. It would only make sense if the majority of the population spoke Welsh and the only mono-English speakers were incomers. What we need is to be campaigning to do away with English language nursery and primary schools. That would mean that after 20 or so years the majority of the younger population would be Welsh speaking and many of the English speaking parents would have had a go at learning the language. In Ceredigion the domination of Plaid due, I suspect, to other parties not bothering to field candidates has not done us… Read more »