Announcement on Cornish language funding

It is good that the uncertainty is over.

Last week, Government Minister Andrew Stunell MP announced that the Department of Communities and Local Government will continue to fund the Cornish Language Partnership. The final settlement will be a total of £360,000 over the next three years.

It represents £140,000 for 2011-12, a reduction to £120,000 in 2012-13 and a further reduction to £100,000 in 2013-14. But this is below the budget for the last two years, which was £150,000 per annum. The new settlement therefore represents a significant cut which is disappointing and places great pressure on its important work.

Further to this, a statement has been released by MAGA commenting that: “The Minister’s statement that in the longer term support for the language will need to come from Cornwall itself will need to be challenged in the future, especially in the light of the fact that the Council of Europe Charter, to which the Government is a signatory, is clear that support for indigenous languages should be a state responsibility.”

Quite right! If the central government expects Cornwall to meet such costs in the future, it needs to first back our calls for meaningful devolution and the creation of a legislative Cornish Assembly.