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Chamber

Plenary, 26 Sep 2001

26 Sep 2001 · S1 · Plenary

Item of business

European Day of Languages

McGrigor, Jamie Con Highlands and Islands Watch on SPTV

Je suis l'heureux père de deux jeunes filles, qui ont été élevées dans un environnement bilingue depuis leur plus jeune âge. J'ai pu ainsi constater moi-même les immenses avantages que cela représente. Cela leur a permis une plus grande ouverture d'esprit aux cultures différentes de la leur. Cela leur donne aussi une confiance en elles, ce qui est bien nécessaire chez les adolescentes, lorsqu'elles rencontrent les gens d'autres pays.

I start by declaring an interest in that I am the proud father of two teenage daughters who have been brought up in a bilingual climate from the earliest possible age. I have seen the enormous benefits at first hand. They possess a tremendous advantage in appreciating other cultures and in having extra confidence when meeting and making friends with people from other countries. That is why I congratulate Irene Oldfather on lodging this motion for debate and why I thoroughly agree with most of the aims set out in "Citizens of a Multilingual World".

I have always found it embarrassing that people visiting Scotland seldom receive the courtesy of being addressed in their native language, whereas when we go abroad we gaily expect those from other nations to understand English and are surprised and even indignant if they do not. That must often convey an impression of arrogance and bad manners to non-English speakers. The only way to stop that and to enable our citizens to comprehend a new range of cultures and histories is to start at the education level, where it matters.

One of our key industries is tourism. If we want to please customers from other countries, it would be a good start for future generations of Scottish tourism operators to have a basic command of the main European languages. This summer, I was asked to open the great glen raid at Corpach near Fort William. It was a regatta from west to east through the Caledonian canal and organised by a French company. The event was an enormous success and especially helpful to tourism in this year of foot-and-mouth.

For the event, I put on my most beautiful kilt and made a welcoming speech to 150 competitors, most of whom were French. I therefore spoke in French and told them that the Caledonian canal had been constructed to protect British shipping from French privateers. That seemed to amuse them. Afterwards, I received a letter from the company's director, telling me how delighted and surprised the assembled company had been to be addressed in its native tongue. The gesture was small, but valuable.

We should make Scots better linguists. We Conservatives think that the £50 million that the Labour party saved by scrapping the assisted places scheme should be used to bring in specialists to teach foreign languages in primary schools.

Labour's record is not good. It has used money that it said it would spend on cutting class sizes to help such bodies as Scottish Opera. I agree that Scottish Opera deserves support, but ministers should please bear it in mind that most operas are sung in foreign languages. Therefore, will the Scottish Executive please provide future Scottish generations with the ability to understand those languages better? Further, the Executive should fulfil its declared commitment to Gaelic by giving more encouragement to Gaelic-medium education.