The Impact of the COVID-19 Outbreak on the Welsh Language December 2020
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Welsh Parliament Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the Welsh language December 2020 The Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee is looking at the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the areas within its remit. Between 24 September and 20 October the Committee received written evidence and heard from organisations teaching and promoting the Welsh language at national and community level. We are grateful to all those who contributed to this inquiry, the organisations and individuals are listed in the Annexe to this report. This short report summarises the evidence on the impact of the pandemic on the Welsh language. Recommendation 1. The Welsh Government should ensure that short term reallocations of Welsh Language funding, due to the pandemic, do not result in longer term funding allocations which could detract from achieving the aims of Cymraeg 2050. The Welsh Government should reinstate the budget allocations for supporting and promoting the Welsh language in full, as soon as possible. Recommendation 2. The Welsh Government should ensure that jobs that support and promote the Welsh language across Wales are central to its economic recovery plan. Recommendation 3. The Welsh Government should review and update its Cymraeg 2050 action plan and the Welsh language technology action plan to reflect the rapid change to online Welsh language learning, activities and cultural events that has facilitated its use at home and grown interest in the language abroad. www.senedd.wales Recommendation 4. The Welsh Government should make training available for organisations and individuals to ensure they make the most of online opportunities to promote the use of Welsh and support their members. Recommendation 5. The Welsh Government should update its Digital Strategy to reflect the greater need for fast, reliable internet service across Wales in light of the increased reliance on digital content following the COVID-19 outbreak. Recommendation 6. The next Cymraeg 2050: Welsh language strategy action plan should take full account of the changes in learning opportunities now available. It will need to consider the ways in which online learning and in- person lessons can be blended to best suit learners, and the level of funding needed to ensure that the growth in online learning can be sustained. The economic impact of cancelling cultural events 1. The Committee heard from organisations responsible for holding live events, such as festivals, which have been cancelled due to the pandemic. The negative economic impact of cancelling these cultural events affects the local area as well as the organisation. For instance, independent research has shown that the week- long National Eisteddfod festival has an economic benefit of between £6 and £8 million locally.1 Betsan Moses, National Eisteddfod, told the Committee: ‘We did have contracts worth £1.9 million out at the time, and we had to negotiate with suppliers in order to shift those.’2 And ‘2,000 jobs are partly reliant or totally reliant on the Eisteddfod for their income, so that disappeared.’3 2. She also cautioned that there are many suppliers who only work on annual events and will have lost all of their income overnight.4 She went on to say ‘It will certainly take until 2022 until we start to get out of this’.5 1 https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2018-12/national-eisteddfod-task-and- finish-group-report-and-recommendations.pdf 2 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p 39 3 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p 40 4 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p 42 5 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p 43 1 3. Likewise, an independent assessment of the direct national economic value of the Urdd Gobaith Cymru (‘the Urdd’) was £8.6m in 2017/18, with the Urdd residential centres producing an economic impact of £6.9m in 2018.6 Siân Lewis, Urdd, said: ‘we have lost £14 million in income, and we're anticipating that over the next two years, and we're going to be in debt of £3.5 million. That, naturally, has had a huge impact on our workforce, which has led to the loss of half of our workforce of 320 staff…. we see that our losses may increase to £18 million over the next few years, and as young people won't be able to attend our residential centres’7. 4. Helgard Krause, Books Council of Wales, said: Just to give you an example of the impact of the loss of the Eisteddfod —the three major books… of the Eisteddfod, account for around £100,000 in sales annually… And, of course, you can never make that up; it's been lost, it's gone forever, and this gap remains. For some small presses and publishers who can only publish three, four maybe five books per year, this can be half of their income in any given year.’8 5. She went on to say that the effect of the loss of income was ongoing and ‘I can't see us coming out any time before 2022, and that's at the earliest’.9 6. Tegwen Morris, Merched y Wawr said ‘our income has virtually disappeared overnight’.10 She said: the events that we usually stage, such as our major raffle or the residential weekend, which usually bring around £10,000 into the organisation, not one of those has been held. So, clearly, we are having to look at using our reserves in order to ensure that the organisation 6 https://www.urdd.cymru/files/7715/4219/7589/Asesiad_Effaith_Economaidd_yr_Urdd_09.11.18 _English.pdf 7 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p16 8 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p48 9 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p48 10 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p199 2 can survive for the next 12 months, and then we will face a very difficult economic situation in two years' time’.11 Welsh Government response 7. The Minister for International Affairs and the Welsh Language, Eluned Morgan MS, wrote to the Committee on 14 July in response to questions on the First Supplementary Budget 2020-21. She wrote: ‘To support the Welsh economy and public services to respond swiftly to the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic, it was necessary to reprioritise budgets supporting the Welsh language. Whilst this has been challenging in the short term, we have worked closely with our partners during this time to maximise the digital opportunities and direct funding to organisations with immediate needs. Consequently, within my portfolio there was a reduction of £1.995m to the Welsh Language budget and reprioritised funding of £0.8m allocated to our iconic national events within the Events Wales budget.’12 8. The Minister said that the Welsh Government had given the Urdd £3.1m. She told the Committee: ‘That's given them an opportunity not just to complete the work of rebuilding their residential centres in Llangrannog and Glan-llyn, but has also given them an opportunity to start the work on Pentre Ifan, and, of course, that has assisted in supporting 180 posts’.13 9. The Minister also said ‘there was a time when it appeared that the National Eisteddfod would find it very difficult to survive, and if the Government hadn't stepped in, there would have been no National Eisteddfod in the future… we do have to prioritise certain things, and this is something that we considered to be a priority.’14 10. The Minister said that the Welsh language is given full consideration as Wales emerges from the pandemic: 11 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p183 12 Correspondence with Welsh Government 13 CWLC Committee 8 October 2020, p30 14 CWLC Committee 8 October 2020, p32 3 ‘So, I've established a round-table to develop the economy, and I do invite people from local government and leaders of local government, indeed from the Welsh speaking heartlands, in order to come together to discuss how we can build the economy, because that link between the economy and the language is so crucially important to me’.15 The impact of the pandemic on the workforce 11. The loss of revenue and cancellation of events has had an enormous impact on those employed by the organisations promoting the Welsh language and the businesses they use. 12. The Committee heard that the Urdd have three quarters of their staff on furlough. By the end of October they will have lost some 150 staff members, and that when they return, their staff numbers will have halved. Siân Lewis said that the reduction would have been far worse without the UK Government furlough scheme.16 13. Lowri Jones said that 200 of the 300 staff across the Mentrau Iaith had been on furlough. A high percentage of those people returned to work in September when schools reopened because they work in childcare. A particular challenge for the Mentrau is that they are reliant on schools and businesses being open in order to stay viable. If there are further closures then they may have to consider redundancies17. She went on to say: ‘the period after October will be very difficult if the furlough programme comes to an end as expected, in terms of maintaining those necessary services for parents, through the medium of Welsh, who are seeking to return to the workplace or are combining working from home with childcare. And, of course, the great value is that those jobs are Welsh-medium jobs within particular sectors, and that we do want to see Welsh-medium workplaces increasing rather than disappearing’.18 14. Helgard Krause, Books Council of Wales, also said that the furlough scheme had been a ‘huge assistance’19 and that about half of their 45 staff had been 15 CWLC Committee 8 October 2020, p21 16 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p 115 17 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p 120 18 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p 121 19 CWLC Committee 24 September 2020, p 123 4 furloughed and that there are concerns about what happens when the scheme comes to an end.