Will the Minister make a statement regarding on what statistical basis it was decided that it would be possible to achieve the target of a million Welsh speakers by ensuring that half of the children that attend English-medium schools are fluent in Welsh by 2050?
Once the target of a million Welsh speakers by 2050 was set, officials in the Welsh Government's Knowledge and Analytical Services developed a projection for the number of Welsh speakers up to 2050, based on data from the 2011 Census and trends in demographic data. On the basis of this projection being realised, it was then possible to see how many more Welsh speakers would be needed to reach 1 million.
Officials from Knowledge and Analytical Services worked with officials from the Welsh Language Division to develop a trajectory based on a number of policy priorities noted in the Cymraeg 2050: A million Welsh speakers strategy, taking several different situations into account. The trajectory which is the basis for the strategy is therefore one possible way to get to a million Welsh speakers.
We are clear in Cymraeg 2050 that our ambition to get to a million Welsh speakers is based on the census. In the meantime, household surveys can give us a picture of the trends since the census, even though the bases for the figures are not consistent.
The basis for our target of seeing an increase in the percentage of the population which speaks Welsh every day, and who can speak more than a few words of Welsh, is the Language Use Survey (along with the census). Other data sources will be used to monitor progress towards our transformational changes, including administrative data from the Pupil Level Annual Schools Census (PLASC) and from teachers' assessments.
One of the transformational changes included in Cymraeg 2050 is to transform how we teach Welsh to each learner so that at least 70 per cent of those learners can report by 2050 that they can speak Welsh by the time they leave school (whether fluently or not). To do this, the aim is to increase the proportion of each school year group educated through the medium of Welsh to 40 per cent by 2050. This means therefore that the presumption is that half of those who will be in English medium education will leave school in 2050 able to report that they can speak Welsh (whether fluently or not). The technical report published hand in hand with Cymraeg 2050 explains the methodology behind the projection and trajectory included in the strategy.
The data for the projection and trajectory for the number of Welsh speakers aged three and over are available on the StatsWales website.
https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Welsh-Language
There is no assumption in the strategy regarding what percentage of children in English medium schools will be fluent in Welsh or not by 2030 and 2040.
There is no statistical analysis available which shows that half the children in English medium education will be fluent in 2050 - as noted in the technical report, the presumption is that half the children in English medium education leaving school reporting that they can speak Welsh will be one way to reach the target of 1 million speakers by 2050.