Tory councillor says non-Welsh speakers are being excluded from jobs
Richard Evans – Local democracy reporter
A Conservative councillor has said non-Welsh speakers are being forced to leave their hometowns in order to get jobs.
Cllr Louise Emery expressed concerns that some policies promoting the Welsh language are not inclusive to the non-Welsh speaking population of Conwy.
Speaking at a finance and resources overview and scrutiny committee this week, Cllr Emery raised her concerns during a discussion on the council’s corporate plan and matters relating to the wellbeing of the population.
She referred to earlier conversations about how the council could lower Conwy’s age demographic by encouraging university leavers to return to the county after completing their studies.
But she expressed her belief that current policies were not “inclusive” as the Welsh language was deemed essential for many public sector jobs, including teaching, excluding some of those who live on the coast, where there’s generally a lower proportion of Welsh speakers.
Schools
According to a Welsh census conducted in 2021, around 17.8% of the population of Wales speaks Welsh, with this figure being around 25% in Conwy.
Figures in a report presented at the meeting show that only 25% of primary school children in Conwy are accessing Welsh medium education.
The same report revealed only 20% of secondary school pupils in the county were accessing a Welsh medium education, with just two of Conwy’s seven secondary schools offering a first-language Welsh education – Ysgol y Creuddyn and Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy.
Consequently, according to the council’s website, dated up to 2024, 5,392 of Conwy’s 6,712 secondary school pupils are being educated in an English-speaking school.
According to the report presented at the committee, 50% of teachers have an advanced grasp of Welsh.
Inclusion
The Conservative councillor argued people were leaving the area, especially on the coast, as they didn’t have a level of Welsh that enabled them to apply for some jobs.
“We just have to be a little bit careful between inclusion and the Welsh language,” she said.
“So if I can speak from a position of learning the language from the last two years, and learning any language is difficult, but we do have to be careful that one of the reasons, I believe, that children in my ward leave Llandudno is because a lot of the best jobs require you to speak Welsh.
“So we have to be very careful about pushing people away from where they live, where they feel they belong, particularly a friend of mine who wants to be a teacher at John Bright, (who) hasn’t got the ability to be a teacher in her hometown.
“She’s having to leave the area to be a teacher.
“So we talk about inclusivity, and we talk about the Welsh language, and we need to get the balance right.
“So until we improve, in this person’s case, the amount of Welsh spoken in Llandudno primary schools so you (they) could have picked that (the language) up and taken that to secondary school, she cannot be a teacher where she wants to be, and she is having to leave the area, and that’s not inclusive.”
Careful
She added: “We need to be very careful about promoting the Welsh language, which you know I’m passionate about.
“We just have to be careful about that for our children that live along the coast. We can’t say ‘inclusive’ when we exclude them.”
Cllr Sian Grady said: “The young children aren’t getting the Welsh they should be.
“Now considering most of the teachers are first language Welsh speaking, and they weren’t back in my day, my grandchildren have a lot less Welsh now than I did, and I think that really needs to be addressed. Language is easier to pick up when you are young.”
Confidence
Plaid Cymru’s Llanrwst councillor Aaron Wynne said he disagreed with Cllr Emery.
“You improve the Welsh language in the county, as Sian (Cllr Grady) has said, by improving Welsh medium education in the county and having all children leave school confident in both Welsh and English,” he said.
“I’m lucky. I spoke Welsh at home. It’s a postcode lottery at the moment, who gets access to the Welsh language.”
He added: “So I have to disagree. We shouldn’t be diminishing the requirement for the Welsh language for some (job) roles.”
Chief Executive Rhun ap Gareth said: “In terms of the Welsh language strategy, it is aimed at everyone. It is not just schools.
“And you’ll see there the strategy is not just aimed at the council. As the largest employer, we aim to set an example of how Cymraeg is used in the workplace and how we deliver our services.”
Cllr Julie Fallon, the cabinet member for schools, said the council was working with Welsh Government’s Guidance on Welsh in Education Strategic Plans.
“Every child has the opportunity to siarad Cymraeg (speak Welsh) in school,” she said.
“Every child will leave school with a certain level of Welsh.
“For some of those, it will be greater than others, but we continue to increase that Welsh language provision within primaries.
“We are working really well with secondaries to offer increased levels of Cymraeg as well, and every parent has the opportunity to choose Welsh education for their children, be that primary or secondary.”
The topic was debated when councillors discussed the Corporate Plan 2025 to 2027, which had been revised to better address the financial challenges faced by the council.
Track-record
The plan focuses on maintaining Conwy’s financial stability and “well-being objectives” under the Well-being of Future Generations Wales Act 2015.
Cllr Anne McCaffrey said Conwy needed to commit to fairly funding schools, “given its track-record”, referring to the authority cutting school budgets by 5% two years running.
Leader Cllr Charlie McCoubrey then said: “How do you define fairly funded? As detailed in the document, 70% of our funding comes centrally. We don’t set teachers’ pay and pensions.”
Cllr Abdul Khan proposed the committee voted in favour of the report, which was seconded by Cllr Stephen Price.
The committee voted to scrutinise proposals and make recommendations to cabinet before the document is discussed by the council.
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Oh dear. I was forced to leave MY home town due to Thatchernomics but that’s ok is it?
If they’re the type of person who is disrespectful enough not to learn the native language, why on earth would you employ them anyway.
Welsh lessons are readily and cheaply available to all nowadays. Ignorance is 100% choice in the time of instant information.
Apparently young people without medical degrees are also being excluded from jobs as doctors.
I wonder if England would employ non-English speakers!!
England does.
In Carmarthenshire most shops I visit have mostly English people working there let alone non-English speakers. In Aldi, B&Q, Lidl, garden centres, M&S, Tesco, Morrisons etc. I would say that more than 90% of workers are English incomers. If the manager is English the chances are that he or she will favour English employees.
Modern colonialism reaches deep into local communities mainly due to the mixed bag of Anglo white flighters that have reached Sir Gar and other western areas.
I don’t think Lidl’s in Porthmadog would agree with you…
Diolch am ‘na. I have no idea about Porth Madog but I am pleased if it’s employing locals. I only know what’s going on in Sir Gâr.
If her interpretation is correct how has the Welsh born element (English or Welsh speaking) been on a constant decline replaced by retirees and English immigrants looking for the good life,27.3% (837,000) in 2011 to 29.1% (905,000) in 2021
The statistics are not good I know, I thought according to the ONS that the English born population was 21%.
Anyway I’m not going to argue if the true figure is 29%.
Do those stats also take into account the number of people born in Chester or at Shropshire maternity hospitals as being English.
I do know that there are many people in North East Wales who were born in Chester but they will tell you straight that they are no way are they English.
Has it not occurred to Cllr Emery that if a number of would-be candidates for a job lack a particular skill, then the solution is to increase the availability of opportunity for everyone to acquire that skill, by raising the standard, and extending the reach, of Welsh-language education in a town in Wales?
She probably belongs to that segment of our population that thinks the Welsh language is an irrelevant imposition. Good modern colonialist, she could go far in Tory party or even Reform if they’ll have her.
You are obviously right. The anti-Welsh parties and lobby-groups have became adept at using this faux-victimhood as a way of making their BritNat outbursts seem less unpalatable.
People are being forced to leave Conwy, especially coastal area, not because of holiday homes / second homes. But because they chose, and are choosing, not to learn a language. The country should not be held hostage to their monolingualism.
I did all my schooling in England, But when I moved home I took Welsh for adults classes in the evening. Which are very good.
It is important to keep local people in the area especially if they are Welsh speakers. Stop local Welsh people selling their houses and land to English incomers. Make it the law that houses for sale must be offered to locals at an affordable price before being allowed to be sold to the Sais.
I do agree with you in principle but human nature will tell you that anyone wanting to sell their homes will sell to the highest bidder.
The answer is to have inward migration from England leveled off to a reasonable level.
I would even advocate an Australian style points system.
The good thing about a language is that it’s a learnable skill. Want a job in a Welsh-speaking area? Learn the language. Simple.
Absolute unfounded bigoted cobblers from the Tory cllr. Just had a look at Louise Emery X timeline, full of disgusting far right stuff aimed at immigrants, Sadiq Khan, free Tommy Robinson stuff. Depressing but not surprising. She’s also complaining about immigrants not learning English – oh the irony.
If that is the case then she should be vehemently opposed to the language issue that she is proposing as a councillor.
I’ve just checked her timeline and you’ve obviously been looking at a different person as there’s not one single thing about far right or immigrants? Perhaps you should retract your comment as it’s untrue and inflammatory.
Is the councillor aware that Ysgol John Bright is English medium i.e no Welsh language requirement except for a handful of posts)?