Meeting of the Parliament 17 September 2024 [Draft]
It is interesting when you look at the debate. When I came to sit on the Education, Children and Young People Committee, it was nearing the end of its consideration of the bill and the evidence had already been taken. I read some of that evidence and had a read-through—for want of a better word—of the committee’s report on the bill. However—to use some local vernacular—ma heid is absolutely meltin wi the negativity that is comin from Opposition members.
Ross Greer brought up the important point that the bill will give legal status to the Scots language for the first time. I come from a generation in which our parents told us not to speak any form of Scots, and in which our teachers constantly told us not to speak any form of Scots. That was our language.
Scots is also a live language. The English that is spoken in certain parts of England is entirely different from the English that is spoken in the north-east of England. It is the same with any language in general, but there is a basis for the language itself.
I have felt some of the frustrations that my committee members felt with the report. I was looking at some of the legislation in the area. I remember the Education (Scotland) Act 2016. I was a member of the incarnation of the education committee that dealt with that legislation. I am a bit like Al Pacino in “The Godfather Part III”—I keep trying to get out of the education committee and they keep dragging me back in again. However, the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 was before my time.
I suppose that the Scottish Languages Bill is more about what is and is not working in relation to those acts—what we got right and, inevitably, what did not work. Steady progress has been made since the legislation was passed, but now is the time to look at both of Scotland’s languages.