Call on Commissioner to reinstate Welsh Language Day

In an open letter to the Welsh Language Commissioner, Efa Gruffudd Jones, representatives of Wales’ students’ unions and Welsh language organisations have called for the reinstatement of Welsh Language Rights Day (‘Diwrnod Hawliau’r Gymraeg’).

Among the letter’s signatories are Cynwal ap Myrddin (Welsh-language Vice President of Cardiff Students’ Union), Tanwen Moon (Welsh Affairs Officer at Swansea Students’ Union), Nanw Maelor (President of Aberystwyth Welsh Students’ Union), Huw Williams (President of Bangor Welsh Students’ Union), Deio Owen (President of the National Union of Students Wales), and Aled Thomas (Chair of the Cymdeithas yr Iaith Rights Group).

Between 2019 and 2022, the Welsh Language Commissioner’s Office used to hold ‘Welsh Language Rights Day’ every year on 7 December, with the aim of creating “one major campaign to raise awareness of the public’s rights to use the Welsh language.”

Following the appointment of the current Commissioner, the ‘Use Your Welsh’ (‘Defnyddia dy Gymraeg’) campaign was launched in 2023, replacing‘Welsh Language Rights Day.’

Language campaigners and representatives of NUS Wales have criticised this decision, arguing that it is evidence that the Welsh Language Commissioner’s Office has stepped back from placing emphasis on Welsh-language rights.

In their letter to the Commissioner, they say:

“We also note that section 3(3)(b) of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure places a statutory duty on the Commissioner, when exercising functions under the Measure, to have regard to the ‘rights arising from the enforceability of the duties’ that have been imposed in the form of the standards. These standards provide powerful rights to use the Welsh language with a range of bodies and sectors – the right for a student to apply for Welsh-medium student accommodation, the right to submit assessed work in Welsh in the education sector, and the right to use Welsh when accessing leisure provision from local authorities.”

It continues:

“We believe it is important that we are confident in discussing our linguistic rights in Wales and that citizens know how to assert their rights. We are therefore concerned that, since 2023, Welsh Language Rights Day is no longer being held and that your office has stopped coordinating the event.”

Although the Commissioner has stopped organising the annual event, Cymdeithas yr Iaith has welcomed the intention of UMCA (Aberystwyth Welsh Students’ Union) to hold an event at Pantycelyn Hall in December to independently mark Welsh Language Rights Day as part of the celebrations of the tenth anniversary of the successful campaign against the closure of the hall.

Nanw Maelor, President of UMCA, said:

“Here at UMCA, we are part of a lineage of students stretching back over the past fifty years and more, and we are indebted to those who signed the petitions or created the placards that are now gathering dust in the office today. Our intention is to bridge the memories and the hopes for a thriving future for the Welsh language by marking the struggles for the rights of UMCA students, as well as by recreating and acknowledging the challenges that continue to be part of the struggle today.”

According to Aled Thomas, Chair of the Cymdeithas yr Iaith’s Rights Group:

“Replacing Welsh Language Rights Day with the inadequate and misleading campaign, ‘Use Your Welsh’, is an unacceptable step and part of a wider pattern. The current Commissioner’s public strategy shifts responsibility for the lack of Welsh-language services away from institutions and places it on the shoulders of Welsh speakers. At the same time, the Commissioner does not appear to be paying sufficient attention to taking action against bodies that fail to comply with the Welsh Language Standards, nor to being proactive enough in demonstrating the need to extend her powers to regulate organisations such as phone and energy companies, supermarkets, and banks.

“We are glad that students’ unions recognise the importance of emphasising the language rights of young people in Wales and that Aberystwyth students are holding their own event to mark Welsh Language Rights Day in order to celebrate campaigning to secure Welsh-language spaces. The Standards give students the right to Welsh-medium student accommodation, and the Commissioner should be promoting and enforcing people’s right to receive Welsh-language services without having to ask for them.”