Hansard

Bu mhath leam meal a naidheachd a chur air Aonghas Dòmhnallach airson an deasbad seo a chur ri chèile. Tha mi den bheachd gur sinne dithis de na chiad daoine anns na teaghlaichean againn fhèin a tha air Beurla a bhruidhinn mar chiad chànan, agus gu bheil an dithis againn airson dèanamh cinnteach gum bi cumhachd aig na daoine anns an àm ri teachd gus Gàidhlig a bhruidhinn.

Following is the simultaneous interpretation:

I congratulate Angus MacDonald on securing the debate. I have the idea that we are both the first people in our own families to speak English as our first language and that we both want to ensure that those who follow us will have the ability to speak the Gaelic language.

The member continued in English.

The Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 was brought forward 10 years ago by the Scottish Executive in which I served. The land, the language and the people of the Gàidhealtachd have always mattered a great deal to my party, Scottish Labour. For me, that act is one of the things that we created the Parliament in order to bring about.

The act affirmed Gaelic as an official language of Scotland and created Bòrd na Gàidhlig to sustain that status for the future. The board has enjoyed cross-party support throughout the past 10 years, and I am confident that that will continue. However, political good will, on its own, is not enough. If Gaelic is to contribute to our future as well as our past, that will require people to speak it and children to learn it as a first language. It will require visible and audible commitments from public bodies across Scotland to its official status, and it will require Gaelic to continue as a language of music and the media, culture and creativity, as well as of home and school.

That is why Gaelic language plans are so important, not just in the Highlands and Islands and the central belt but in the north-east of Scotland. Aberdeen City Council has been considering its Gaelic language plan today, following the adoption of similar plans by the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire Council and the Cairngorms National Park Authority. Although councillors have to be comfortable with the plan, Scotland’s third city must not fall too far behind Glasgow and Edinburgh in providing leadership in delivering public policy on language and culture in our cities, with cross-party support. After all, Aberdeen is the city with the highest proportion of citizens who were born outwith these islands altogether. As a multilingual and multicultural city, Aberdeen should be second to none in recognising and celebrating its cultural diversity.

A good deal is already going on in schools there, as I know from my family. My daughter lona sat her higher Gàidhlig a few weeks ago, having been taught through the medium of Gaelic at nursery and primary school since the age of two. She has spent most of her 17 years learning and speaking the Gaelic language and, incidentally, her skills in the English language are all the better as a result. However, like other places, Aberdeen needs a step change in the scale of Gaelic-medium activity in schools, cultural activities and language learning. That is why the city’s Gaelic language plan needs to be delivered sooner rather than later.

It is important, not just in Aberdeen but across the country, that more is done to enable children and young people to study Gaelic without losing access to other modern languages. A bilingual education equips children brilliantly to add further languages as they progress through school, but in practice many pupils who choose to keep up their Gaelic at secondary school have little opportunity to learn other modern languages until they reach secondary 6. I hope that the minister will say what more the Government will do to increase the uptake of all modern languages in view of the falls at national 5 level that were recorded in the last school year.

A great deal has been achieved in the decade since the 2005 act was passed, but there remains a great deal still to do. Like the other speakers, I look forward to an ever-higher profile for the Gaelic language and culture in Aberdeen and across Scotland in the future.

Mòran taing.