Formal response to DCMS (Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee) Inquiry into Minority Languages from Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall
1.0 Respondee details:
Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall (MK) is a Cornish political party, which is campaigning for the greater self-government of Cornwall through a legislative Cornish Parliament. Founded in 1951, we believe that the historic nation of Cornwall, with its own distinct identity, language and heritage, has the same right to self-determination as other UK nations, such as Scotland and Wales. As in Wales and Scotland, the survival of an indigenous Celtic language is perhaps the most obvious evidence of our enduring nationhood.
MK has five councillors on Cornwall’s unitary authority and representatives on numerous town and parish councils.
2.0 Our response:
MK welcomes the decision of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee to undertake an inquiry into the future for minority languages in the United Kingdom which includes a specific reference to the Cornish language.
It is our assumption that considerable information about the needs of the Cornish language will be submitted by Cornwall Council and various language and cultural organisations. As a political party, we would wish to supplement this evidence by addressing the failure of the UK Government to meet its obligations to the Cornish people / Cornwall through the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
This obviously includes the lack of support for the Cornish language but we would wish to bring a series of related matters to the attention of the Committee. This is for context and in the hope that our concerns will be addressed by the UK Government in the future.
3.0 Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
On 24th April 2014, the UK Government announced that the Cornish would be recognised as a national minority through the above Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The official government press release stated: “The decision to recognise the unique identity of the Cornish, now affords them the same status … as the UK’s other Celtic people, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish.”
This was a significant commitment from the UK state towards the Cornish nation, covering language, culture, heritage, education, territorial integrity and public life. But sadly, the UK Government has failed to meet its obligations with regard to the Framework Convention and Cornwall has not achieved the promised parity with the other Celtic parts of the UK.
We would like to point out a few (non-language) examples of such failings:
(a) In December 2022, Cornwall was offered a so-called “devolution deal.” This was not a true devolution deal. It would best be described as accommodations with local government. This is very similar to what is being offered to English counties and there is no parity with Wales and Scotland, which achieved meaningful devolution from 1997 onwards.
(b) The Office of National Statistics and the UK Government refused to allow a Cornish tick-box option for the national identity section in the “England and Wales” census. The Cornish were the only “national minority” without a tick-box. A total of 108,860 people “wrote-in” Cornish, which included 96,380 individuals within Cornwall (17% of the population), but this reflects a very significant undercount and undermines meaningful comparison of data with other national minorities. Linked to this, the UK Government and a large number of public bodies / organisations do not collect data on the Cornish, when they do that for other national minorities.
(c) In 2020, the Parliamentary Constituencies Act was passed. The legislation protected Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales as electoral territories for the provision of Westminster seats, but failed to extend the same provision to Cornwall. As a consequence, there is a strong likelihood that future reviews of seats will generate one or more cross-Tamar “Devonwall” constituencies.
(d) Cornwall is the only Celtic nation on the British Isles that does not have official representation on the British and Irish Council.
(e) The UK Government continues to refuse to treat Cornwall as one of the component nations of the United Kingdom. Indeed, the regular promotion of a “SW England region,” stretching from the Isles of Scilly to Wiltshire, or the “Great South West” entity, undermines the territorial integrity of Cornwall. Such border-blurring would not be acceptable to, for example, Scotland or Wales.
(f) Cornwall is also the only Celtic nation within the UK without its own media service.
In terms of the Cornish language, in addition to the Framework Convention, it should be noted that the UK Government acknowledged that Cornish was covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2002. It needs to be stated that, over the last two decades, Cornish has not achieved language parity with the other Celtic languages of the UK and we would like to highlight five examples of how the language has been disadvantaged.
(a) Under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Cornish is only recognised under Part II, but Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh are recognised under Part III, which has a more comprehensive and far-reaching set of obligations.
(b) Cornish is the only Celtic language in the United Kingdom without safeguards embedded in domestic law. The first Welsh Language Act was passed in 1967 and a second one in 1993, while further legislation has been passed by the National Assembly of Wales / Welsh Parliament. The Scottish Gaelic Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2005, while the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act, covering both Irish and Ulster Scots, completed its passage through parliamentary process earlier this year.
(c) Central government is failing to provide year-on-year funding to support Cornish. Annual funding for the language was provided from 2010, but this ended in 2016 – just two years after the UK Government agreed that the Cornish were covered by the Framework Convention. A one-off award of £200,000 was made in 2019 when the Minister for Communities, Lord Bourne, attended a “national minority” summit hosted by Cornwall Council, while the so-called “devolution deal” proposes another one-off pot of £500,000.
(d) In 2016, the BBC Charter was published. It contained commitments to broadcasting in the “regional and minority languages of the UK.” But the languages were specifically defined as “Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic, Irish and Ulster Scots,” meaning that decision-makers had consciously and deliberately excluded Cornish from broadcasting support.
(e) In 2022, the UK Government published a White Paper titled: “Up Next: The Government’s vision for the broadcasting sector.” This was in advance of a proposed Media Bill. In the section on indigenous regional and minority languages, commitments were made to Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Irish and Ulster Scots. Once again, the Cornish language was not even mentioned, which mirrored the ridiculous definition of “regional and minority languages of the UK” in the 2016 BBC Charter.
As part of this Inquiry, we would ask that the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee look closely at the obligations in the Framework Convention and the Language Charter, and the extent to which the UK Government and public bodies are failing to act on its obligations to the Cornish and the Cornish language.
We would request that MPs view the Fourth Cycle Report published in 2017 by the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which raised significant concerns about the UK Government’s approach to the Cornish. We understand that the Fifth Cycle Report has been completed but not yet been fully published. See: https://www.coe.int/en/web/minorities/united-kingdom
4.0 Responses to specific questions from the Committee
In terms of the scope for the Committee’s Inquiry, we note that the promotional information identified four specific questions that MPs would like to see addressed. We would therefore wish to make the following comments in relation to these questions.
4.1 Key factors determining whether an indigenous minority language thrives
It is the view of Mebyon Kernow that there are a myriad of factors which, taken together, can undermine the strength of a minority language.
It is particularly important to acknowledge that indigenous minority languages survive as community languages (for example in West Wales and the Western Isles of Scotland), though many of these communities are in parts of the UK that are economically deprived. The vibrancy of the native languages in these areas can be adversely affected by the dominance of English in broadcasting / media, the impact of tourism and the migration of monoglot English speakers into such areas, while many young speakers of minority languages may move out for economic and other reasons.
Taking the Welsh language as an example, it is worrying that data from the 2021 census shows that the numbers of people in Wales able to speak Welsh has fallen to 17.8% of the population – a dip of 1.2% from 2011 – with the percentage of people speaking Welsh decreasing in all Welsh local authorities except four, and Carmarthenshire seeing the largest decrease, falling from 43.9% in 2011 to 39.9% in 2021.
It is our hope that the Committee will look in detail at the factors impacting on those communities where the minority language is still a community language. We assume such deliberations will be based on representations from native speakers and their advocates from Wales and Scotland.
In addition, we hope that the Committee will also explore how best to promote the use of minority languages across areas where they are no longer habitually spoken as community tongues.
In terms of Cornish, the language is an increasingly important part of life to the west of the Tamar. As well as being spoken more widely, the language is used in numerous sectors for marketing, including business and sport. A number of short films have been produced and can now be viewed on the BBC iplayer, while Gwenno’s album Tresor was the first “non-English language” album to be nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. A topical example is how the proclamation of the new King was read out in Cornish at a number of events in Cornwall, just as Welsh and Scottish Gaelic were used in Wales and Scotland.
But it is especially important to recognise this progress has only been possible because of the dedication of so many people – almost all volunteers – doing fantastic work done to promote the language over multiple decades,
It is the view of Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall that the Cornish language needs (i) greater official recognition, partly through legislation, and (ii) meaningful investment into the language.
In terms of greater recognition, we have already noted that Cornish is the only UK Celtic language not recognised under Part III of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and it is also the only UK Celtic language not protected by domestic legislation.
We therefore call for the UK Government to extend Part III of the European Charter to Cornish and to bring forward a wide-ranging Cornish Language Act. This would ensure greater institutional support for the language and ensure that Cornish is never again excluded by governmental or public bodies (eg. BBC Charter and Media Bill White Paper). It would also engender greater confidence and legitimacy in bringing forward the long-term planning that Cornish needs to thrive into the future.
Linked to this is the need for central government to provide adequate financial support for the promotion of Cornish. It is our contention that the UK Government, as signatory to the Framework Convention and the Language Charter, has the principal obligation to invest in the language.
It is true that Cornwall Council has done considerable work to progress the development of the language, for example, through the production of a Cornish Language Strategy 2015-2025 and working with programmes such as Go Cornish to take the language into a number of schools. But this is all constrained and even undermined by a lack of government investment.
Central government began investing £150,000 per annum into the language in 2010, but this was brought to an end in 2016. The one-off grant in 2019 of £200,000 was for a range of cultural interventions and the funding did not fully go towards the language. Likewise, the sum of money promised in the so-called “devolution deal” would be another one-off payment that does not guarantee the year-on-year funding that Cornish needs to thrive into the future with the language, for example, being an important part of mainstream provision in Cornish schools.
We would ask that the Committee investigates the level of investment that the Cornish language receives compared to the other Celtic languages across the UK and whether Cornish could benefit from similar levels of core funding and initiatives similar to other programmes such as the Investment Fund agreed for the Irish language in Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland Screen’s Irish Language and Ulster Scots Broadcast Funds.
4.2 What lessons can be learned from countries whose populations achieve widespread fluency in both a majority and indigenous minority language?
It is the view of Mebyon Kernow that the key factor in preserving or enhancing a minority language is visibility – in education (especially in Cornish schools), in all aspects of public life, in the broadcast media, in music and film as well as the wider arts, and so much more.
In terms of education, we think it important that the Cornish language is formally included as a topic within the “national curriculum.”
We feel that visibility on the broadcast media is especially important and we would reference the Welsh language channel and the related provision of Welsh language programming
We fully support the call for a Public Sector Media for Cornwall. See:
But to boost visibility, there is a need for significant year-on-year investment to allow long-term plans for the language and its development to be put into place and made a reality.
4.3 What should be the criteria for judging whether a minority language should receive official status?
In terms of this question, it is not clear to us what is meant by “official status,” though we take the view that all Celtic languages should be protected within their historic territories, simply on the basis that the languages still exist and are an intrinsic element of those individual nations.
As noted elsewhere in this representation, the Cornish language has already been recognised through the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, albeit at Level II, though not the more comprehensive Level III. Likewise the Cornish were recognised as a national minority in 2014 through the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
The principle of recognition has therefore already been established for both the Cornish language and the Cornish people, but the issue is that the much-anticipated interventions from the UK Government have not happened.
We would remake the point that UK Government needs to ensure Cornish is covered by Part III of the European Charter and to bring forward a wide-ranging Cornish Language Act.
4.4 What should be the role of the UK Government in supporting and developing indigenous minority languages?
The UK Government has an extremely important role in supporting and developing the Cornish language, especially as it is the signatory to the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
The Celtic languages of the UK comprise a shared heritage and we call on the UK Government to treat Cornish on a par with the other Celtic languages, as already outlined in this representation.
Looking forward, we would welcome responsibility for the Cornish language being devolved to Cornwall, but for that we would need full recognition of Cornwall’s nationhood and a meaningful devolution settlement that includes a Cornish Parliament with full legislative and fiscal powers.
Sadly at this time, we consider that the political establishment has a blindspot when it comes to Cornish nationhood and Cornwall’s national identity and language, with politicians in Westminster oft claiming that the UK has “four nations” while Cornwall remains an invisible nation.
It is the view of Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall that Cornwall merits full parity with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom in terms of culture, media, language, etc, but also political institutions that underpin support for all aspects of life in our future Cornwall.
We would commend our proposal for greater self-government, which can be viewed at: