I want to echo some of the initial points made by Jeremy on the importance of the economy in terms of the prosperity of the Welsh language. I have been strongly of the opinion that you can’t separate economic prosperity from linguistic prosperity. Alun Davies will recall that we both occupied a house that is now in my Constituency in Carmel during the Newport eisteddfod of 1998, and the banner outside that house said ‘Housing and jobs to save the language’. It was true then, of course, in terms of the pressure on affordable housing, but it’s so much truer now.

We tend to overemphasise the educational elements and the familial elements in terms of language transfer. But for me, the workplace was the catalyst that meant that I became fluent in the Welsh language, because I came from a mixed-language home. My father was a collier, and the Welsh language was the working language for him. I came to understand that and came to understand the vibrancy of that coalmining Welsh language culture. And subsequently, through the miners’ strike, of course, it was the language of work and politics. In looking across Wales, the economic foundation has been so important. Consider the quarrying areas of north Wales. Think about agriculture, where, in that sector, over 50 per cent of farmers in Wales still speak Welsh, which is twice the percentage in the general population, because the industry itself supports people in that economic sense and also maintains the language and culture. This isn’t an original point. Brinley Thomas made the same points in his work of genius on the industrial revolution in Wales. After the industrial revolution, the Welsh language was saved. There were some people who were suggesting that that diluted the language, but Brinley Thomas argued ‘no’: because of the industrial revolution and because of the regeneration in the Welsh language press in the south Wales Valleys, that created that foundation so that the Welsh language didn’t face the same demise as the Irish language.

Therefore, bringing these lessons to the modern day, there is some unwieldy language here—’jargonllyd’, to use Suzy Davies’s favourite word; jargon—in English and Welsh, because there is talk of ‘current maintainable systems’. We’re talking here about the traditional Welsh-speaking heartlands where the Welsh language is still the language used on the streets and so on. Of course, that economic foundation and the issue of economic prosperity is an integral part of the survival of the language in those areas. What I would like to see as we look at regionalisation for economic development—and we were discussing that the in the economy committee this morning—is that we do create a region for Welsh-speaking west Wales so that we can bring those two things together—language and culture and economy—in a forum of regional collaboration.

There are a number of things that that region—. But it’s good to see that the First Minister yesterday, and the Cabinet Secretary for local government, have welcomed this concept. There’s a great deal that can be done. We can look at this question of outmigration. There was a project back in the 1990s—Llwybro—which tracked young people from mid and west Wales who were going off to university, very often in England and trying to—[Interruption.] Well, yes, and I think the Llywydd was responsible for that project. It was an extremely successful project, trying to keep in touch with these young people when they left and then trying to attract them back by identifying specific opportunities appropriate to their skills. Once again, very often in Wales we succeed with projects and then we cast that information basis aside. But there is an opportunity for us to take hold of it again.

One large-scale project would be the railways: linking the west of Wales and seeing that for the first time we could travel from north to south within our own country on our railway. That is a large-scale vision, a specific vision and we need to learn lessons from the past also. But there are real opportunities now to create something that will counteract the current trend and the overemphasis, perhaps, on the city regions by creating a region for Welsh-speaking west Wales.