§ Mr. Nicholas BennettTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales what information he has as to the number and percentage of people in Wales whose first language is(a) Welsh and (b) English; and how many in each case speak only one language.
§ Mr. Wyn RobertsInformation is not collected in the form requested in that the census does not ask about a person's first language or any language other than English or Welsh. However of the 2.6 million people, aged three and over, usually resident in Wales at the time of the 1981 census, 503,549 or 19 per cent. were recorded as Welsh speaking and of these 21,283 or 0.8 per cent. were recorded as not speaking English.
§ Dr. Kim HowellsTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales what extra resources are to be made available to recruit and train additional staff to teach through the medium of Welsh to meet the requirements of the new national curriculum in Wales.
§ Mr. Wyn RobertsA wide range of measures have been introduced to increase the supply of both Welsh medium teachers and teachers of the Welsh language. These include
(i) the Welsh teacher training incentive supplement scheme introduced in 1988 on a trial basis to attract Welsh speaking graduates to train for Welsh-medium secondary teaching by making a supplementary grant of £1,200 available. This pilot scheme is to be extended for a further two years and will include primary courses;(ii) increasing the amount of money available for LEA in-service training for Welsh from £233,000 to £900,000. This comprises the training of teachers transferring from English-medium to Welsh-medium teaching and teachers with limited knowledge of Welsh who wish to teach it as a second language within the national curriculum.140W(iii) support for the `athrawon bro' mobile teaching force which will be worth some £1 million in 1990–91 and will have an increasingly important role to play in preparing primary school teachers for the demands the national curriculum imposes;(iv) £116,000 being made available to four local authorities in Wales under the teacher recruitment category of the education support grant scheme to support the development of schemes to increase the recruitment of former teachers and mature entrants to teaching. The overall objective is to improve the recruitment of Welsh and Welsh-medium teachers in primary schools and the recruitment of teachers in shortage subjects including Welsh and Welsh-medium teachers in secondary schools;(v) new criteria for the training of primary teachers requires all initial teacher training institutions in Wales to provide opportunities for students to learn the Welsh language while they are training to become primary teachers and to have instruction in the methodology of teaching the language. As an interim measure the Department is providing £110,000 to institutions to enable them to provide additional Welsh language instruction. In the longer term institutions will look to their funding bodies to provide the necessary funds.(vi) grant support of £47,000 to enable Trinity college, Carmarthen to develop courses for the teaching of Welsh to infant teachers and juniors teachers. In addition, grant of £29,000 has enabled the North East Wales institute to develop a training course for Welsh-speaking secondary teachers who are not at present teaching the language to enable them to do so.
§ Dr. Kim HowellsTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he intends to lay the draft measure dealing with the subject of a new Welsh Language Act submitted to the Welsh Office by the Welsh Language Board in November 1989.
§ Mr. Wyn RobertsThe draft Bill proposed by the Welsh Language Board is currently receiving detailed consideration.