§ Mr. Andrew GeorgeTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent assessment he has made of the case for(a) Welsh, (b) Scottish Gaelic, (c) Irish, (d) Cornish, (e) Scots and (f) Ulster-Scots to be specified for the purposes of (i) Part II and (ii) Part III of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. [145868]
§ Mr. VazThe Government are required to apply the provisions of Part II of the Charter in respect of all the languages which meet the Charter's definition of a regional or minority language. The Government have decided to recognise that this definition embraces Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic, Irish, Scots and Ulster-Scots. The Department of the Environment, Transport and the 233W Regions is, through the Government Office of the South West, co-ordinating an assessment of whether Cornish also meets the definition, with the help of the findings of an independent academic study completed last year.
The Government have decided that the language whose use in public life should be promoted under the provisions of Part III of the Charter are Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic and Irish.