Labour MP now backing the Welsh language ‘gave up learning it at the first opportunity’

Martin Shipton

Cardiff West Labour MP Alex Barros-Curtis’ backing for the Welsh language has been described as “odd” by one of his contemporaries at school in north Wales.

Last week Mr Barros-Curtis introduced a Bill in the House of Commons that would give people the right to have a birth certificate in Welsh, English or both languages.

He had been approached by his constituent Afryl Davies, who wants the right for birth, marriage and death certificates to be issued bilingually “in honour” of her husband Aled Glynne Davies.

Mrs Davies was married to her husband, a former BBC editor, for 41 years before his death in December 2022.

The couple were both first language Welsh speakers who worked in Welsh, spoke Welsh at home with their family and registered every significant life event including their wedding and the birth of their children bilingually.

“He was very passionate about taking the Welsh language to everybody in Wales. That was his mission… that the Welsh language belonged to everybody,” she told BBC Wales.

An inquest into Mr Davies’ death was heard in Welsh last year and concluded his death was accidental.

English death certificate

Mrs Davies said she received an English death certificate for her husband from the General Register Office (GRO) despite the fact that the inquest was heard in Welsh.

Laws dating from the 1950s and 1960s state that births and deaths can be registered in Welsh and English only where the registrar can speak and understand Welsh.

Welsh-only certificates are not currently allowed and registration in England is currently only possible in English.

Mrs Davies said she requested a bilingual certificate, but the GRO explained “that they will not or cannot, they said, re-register the death”.

The fight to get a Welsh language death certificate took Mrs Davies all the way to the High Court, as well as turning to her MP.

Mr Barros-Curtis said he was “grateful” to Mrs Davies and her family for “channelling their grief from their really tragic circumstance into this kind of cause for action”.

Mr Barros-Curtis said he was surprised to learn it was not already law to ensure certificates were issued in Welsh.

He told BBC Wales: “In 2025 that just seems completely mad, we should have respect for the Welsh language, for our Welsh customs, and at the very least, the ability for there to be by default, bilingual death, birth, and marriage certificates.”

Translated

Under the proposed law, events which have not already been registered bilingually in Wales would be required to be translated into Welsh by the GRO.

Mr Barros-Curtis’ proposals, which are supported by both Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru MPs, go further than previous ones. When birth or death certificates are issued in England, it would allow people the right to receive them in Welsh only, English only or bilingually too, as many people in Wales receive cross-border care.

Birth certificates would be allowed where either parent named on the certificate is a Welsh speaker, and death certificates where the deceased person lived in Wales, was from Wales, was a Welsh speaker or for similar purposes.

After Mr Barros-Curtis introduced his Bill, Nation.Cymru received an email from a reader called Tim Webb, who wrote: “I was at Prestatyn High School with Barros-Curtis. He dropped Welsh as soon as he could and took the far easier Religious Education at GCSE instead.

“Odd that he’s now pretending to care about the Welsh language.”

We asked Mr Barros-Curtis to comment, but he did not do so.

He also would not comment on a recent story in the Daily Mail which revealed that a company he set up to assist Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership campaign was still functioning.

Owen Smith

Last year Nation.Cymru reported how Companies House searches had revealed that Mr Barros-Curtis was one of two directors of Owen2016 Campaign Ltd, set up to run the ill-fated bid of the then Pontypridd MP Owen Smith to displace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

Mr Smith’s campaign was widely seen as disastrous, with him managing to alienate many of the party’s supposedly moderate supporters. Mr Corbyn was re-elected by a landslide, and Mr Smith subsequently decided to end his political career and now works as a pharmaceutical industry executive in Australia.

When Keir Starmer stood for the party leadership in 2020, Mr Barros-Curtis was the sole director of a company called Movement for Another Future Ltd, which was set up to support his campaign. The firm was registered at the same London address as petrol station group Rontec, whose parent company Rontec Holdings was revealed by the Paradise Papers leak to be based in the tax haven of Jersey. Rontec was founded by Sir Gerald Ronson, a businessman and philanthropist who was jailed in the 1980s for his role in a share-dealing scandal, but who received a knighthood in the 2024 New Year’s Honours list for his services to charity and the Jewish community.

The Daily Mail has revealed that while the ostensible purpose of Movement for Another Purpose had been achieved five years ago, with Sir Keir’s election as Labour leader, it was continuing to file accounts that showed financial transactions had taken place.

According to the latest accounts, the company has assets of £9,812 but debts of £19,664.

Mr Barros-Curtis has not explained why it is still functioning.