Welsh Journals

to the policy, Wyn and I rejected that proposition. I explained in the speech, "The Government is faced with the choice of delegating responsibility or taking it directly upon itself. It is an indication of our seriousness of purpose that we are taking direct responsibility and consulting so widely about the exercise of that responsibility". By 1987, after I had left the Welsh Office, Wyn felt that such important matters could not be left indefinitely to depend on personalities. Peter Walker then set up an advisory group, which Wyn chaired, to examine the issue of fresh legislation and other aspects of safeguarding and promoting the language. The demand for a new act grew apace and Peter Walker replaced the advisory group with a non-statutory board in July 1988, chaired by John Elfed Jones. Among the tasks that it was given was to examine issues related to proposals for legislation. It reported to the Secretary of State, now David Hunt, in February 1991. In his Welsh Political Archive Lecture, Wyn Roberts explains that he was looking for "a creative and exciting piece of legislation which would get us away from the threadbare arguments of the past and open up new prospects for the future". It was a notable achievement to get the Welsh Language Act through Parliament and onto the Statute Book, with a subtle solution to an old problem of drafting, the statement that the two languages "should be treated on a basis of equality". It was also a shrewd move to appoint Dafydd Elis- Thomas as Chairman of the Welsh Language Board where he provided moderate and wise leadership. Nick Ainger, the present Labour Under Secretary for Wales told the Commons last May that, "The Welsh Language Act 1993 has had a huge impact on the use of the Welsh language". The Act was the culmination of many decades of active policy support by Conservative governments for the language. No other Party has made so substantial a contribution to saving the Welsh language as a living tongue. The economy: steel Turning to the theme of economic change, I start with the industries that had been central to the Welsh economy for so long steel and coal. Again I am provoked by the misleading and often inaccurate picture painted by many Welsh historians. One writes, "The run-down of primary industries proceeded apace in the wake of the Conservative victory in 1979. The Steel Works at Ebbw Vale, Cardiff and Shotton closed". No, the closures of Ebbw Vale and Cardiff took place before the 1979 election and Shotton, long foreseen, within weeks of our taking office. Indeed the inevitable closure of Ebbw Vale was the talk of the day at the opening of Llanwern in 1966! Another historian, while acknowledging that "the new crisis was clearly in prospect from the mid-