Meeting of the Parliament 17 June 2025
I will speak to amendments 13 to 16, 1 and 2, all in my name. Amendments 13 to 16 relate to the process by which areas will be designated as areas of linguistic significance. As it stands, the bill will already enable a local authority to designate part of its area as an ALS when certain criteria are met. However, as the legislation is currently drafted, that designation is discretionary. My amendments would strengthen the framework by introducing a clear duty that an area that
“contains a significant number of people with Gaelic language skills ... must be designated as an area of linguistic significance”.
That change is essential. If Gaelic is to be protected where it is most at risk and supported where it is most widely spoken, the bill should provide more than optional powers; it must create obligations.
Amendment 13 would introduce a new subsection into section 1A of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 to require that any area with a significant Gaelic-speaking population be designated as an ALS. Amendment 14 would delete the existing provision that will allow but not require such designations to be made. Amendments 15 and 16 would make consequential changes to ensure that the duty is fully reflected across section 1A.
Taken together, the amendments would shift the emphasis in the bill. We know from evidence to the Education, Children and Young People Committee and from decades of advocacy by Gaelic communities that policy must begin with place. Those amendments would make sure that it does.
Amendments 1 and 2, in my name, would be an important part of the local authority process for designating areas of linguistic significance. Those amendments would ensure that, at certain stages in the process, the local authority must consult community representatives from an area that is likely to be designated. That will be an essential part of the process: the local authority will designate—and that is important—but decisions to designate and the activity that flows from that designation will be for the local community, and it is right that its voice is clearly heard.
Amendment 22 in my name would provide for an important new democratic right: the ability for communities to request that their area be considered for designation as an area of linguistic significance. The bill already establishes a framework in which local authorities can designate an ALS, and other amendments that I have lodged would create duties to do so where Gaelic-speaking populations are significant. However, the amendment would go a step further and give communities the ability to trigger that process. That is important, because, too often, policy is done to communities, not with them—nowhere is that more true than in rural, island, and Gaelic-speaking parts of our country.
The amendment would do three things. First, it would allow any community to make a formal request to its local authority to consider designation. Secondly, if a local authority decides not to proceed with that designation, it would have to set out its reasons and make those reasons public. Thirdly, the amendment would create a right of appeal. Communities would be able to challenge a decision not to designate via a process that would be set out by ministers in regulations. The amendment would ensure that linguistic planning is not only responsive to community need, but accountable to it, and it would empower communities to speak for themselves.
Together, the amendments would create a vital step in realising the community-led approach that the bill aspires to.
I move amendment 13.