A COUNCILLOR has said non-Welsh speakers are being forced to leave their hometowns in order to get jobs.
Cllr Louise Emery expressed concerns that some policies promoting the Welsh language are not inclusive to the non-Welsh speaking population of Conwy.
Speaking at a finance and resources overview and scrutiny committee this week, Cllr Emery raised her concerns during a discussion on the council’s corporate plan and matters relating to the wellbeing of the population.
She referred to earlier conversations about how the council could lower Conwy’s age demographic by encouraging university leavers to return to the county after completing their studies.
But she expressed her belief that current policies were not “inclusive” as the Welsh language was deemed essential for many public sector jobs, including teaching, excluding some of those who live on the coast, where there’s generally a lower proportion of Welsh speakers.
According to a Welsh census conducted in 2021, around 17.8% of the population of Wales speaks Welsh, with this figure being around 25% in Conwy.
Figures in a report presented at the meeting show that only 25% of primary school children in Conwy are accessing Welsh medium education.
The same report revealed only 20% of secondary school pupils in the county were accessing a Welsh medium education, with just two of Conwy’s seven secondary schools offering a first-language Welsh education – Ysgol y Creuddyn and Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy.
Consequently, according to the council’s website, dated up to 2024, 5,392 of Conwy’s 6,712 secondary school pupils are being educated in an English-speaking school.
According to the report presented at the committee, 50% of teachers have an advanced grasp of Welsh.
The Conservative councillor argued people were leaving the area, especially on the coast, as they didn’t have a level of Welsh that enabled them to apply for some jobs.
“We just have to be a little bit careful between inclusion and the Welsh language,” she said.
“So if I can speak from a position of learning the language from the last two years, and learning any language is difficult, but we do have to be careful that one of the reasons, I believe, that children in my ward leave Llandudno is because a lot of the best jobs require you to speak Welsh.
“So we have to be very careful about pushing people away from where they live, where they feel they belong, particularly a friend of mine who wants to be a teacher at John Bright, (who) hasn’t got the ability to be a teacher in her hometown.
“She’s having to leave the area to be a teacher.
“So we talk about inclusivity, and we talk about the Welsh language, and we need to get the balance right.
“So until we improve, in this person’s case, the amount of Welsh spoken in Llandudno primary schools so you (they) could have picked that (the language) up and taken that to secondary school, she cannot be a teacher where she wants to be, and she is having to leave the area, and that’s not inclusive.”
She added: “We need to be very careful about promoting the Welsh language, which you know I’m passionate about.
“We just have to be careful about that for our children that live along the coast. We can’t say ‘inclusive’ when we exclude them.”
Cllr Sian Grady said: “The young children aren’t getting the Welsh they should be.
“Now considering most of the teachers are first language Welsh speaking, and they weren’t back in my day, my grandchildren have a lot less Welsh now than I did, and I think that really needs to be addressed. Language is easier to pick up when you are young.”
Plaid Cymru’s Llanrwst councillor Aaron Wynne said he disagreed with Cllr Emery.
“You improve the Welsh language in the county, as Sian (Cllr Grady) has said, by improving Welsh medium education in the county and having all children leave school confident in both Welsh and English,” he said.
“I’m lucky. I spoke Welsh at home. It’s a postcode lottery at the moment, who gets access to the Welsh language.”
He added: “So I have to disagree. We shouldn’t be diminishing the requirement for the Welsh language for some (job) roles.”
Chief Executive Rhun ap Gareth said: “In terms of the Welsh language strategy, it is aimed at everyone. It is not just schools.
“And you’ll see there the strategy is not just aimed at the council. As the largest employer, we aim to set an example of how Cymraeg is used in the workplace and how we deliver our services.”
Cllr Julie Fallon, the cabinet member for schools, said the council was working with Welsh Government’s Guidance on Welsh in Education Strategic Plans.
“Every child has the opportunity to siarad Cymraeg (speak Welsh) in school,” she said.
“Every child will leave school with a certain level of Welsh.
“For some of those, it will be greater than others, but we continue to increase that Welsh language provision within primaries.
“We are working really well with secondaries to offer increased levels of Cymraeg as well, and every parent has the opportunity to choose Welsh education for their children, be that primary or secondary.”
The topic was debated when councillors discussed the Corporate Plan 2025 to 2027, which had been revised to better address the financial challenges faced by the council.
The plan focuses on maintaining Conwy’s financial stability and “well-being objectives” under the Well-being of Future Generations Wales Act 2015.
Cllr Anne McCaffrey said Conwy needed to commit to fairly funding schools, “given its track-record”, referring to the authority cutting school budgets by 5% two years running.
Leader Cllr Charlie McCoubrey then said: “How do you define fairly funded? As detailed in the document, 70% of our funding comes centrally. We don’t set teachers’ pay and pensions.”
Cllr Abdul Khan proposed the committee voted in favour of the report, which was seconded by Cllr Stephen Price.
The committee voted to scrutinise proposals and make recommendations to cabinet before the document is discussed by the council.
