Catalunya: what happens next

With the final results of the election to the Catalan Parliament declared, I'd like to offer an analysis of the result and what is now likely to happen.

In summary: this is unquestionably a victory for those who want Catalunya to become an independent state, but it is a messy victory. There is a mandate to move forward towards independence, but it will need to be done carefully.

 
Forming a Government

Yesterday's election allowed the Catalan people to choose who they wanted to represent them in the Catalan Parliament, and the immediate task ahead of those who have just been elected is to form a Government. As we can see from the graphic below, Junts pel Sí won 62 seats and are by far the largest party. In reality, there is no other alternative but for Junts pel Sí to form the government because the other parties come from radically different parts of the political spectrum and could never work together.

     

It is easy to think that the obvious choice is for Junts pel Sí to form a government with CUP, because they both unequivocally support independence. But CUP are a radical, left-leaning party which will almost certainly not be interested in forming a government with politicians from a centre-right party like CDU. In fact they have specifically said they would not support Artur Mas as president.

One option would be for CUP to abstain in the vote to elect Mas as president. But the numbers don't quite add up: if they abstained, the 62 Junts pel Sí candidates could still be outvoted by the remaining 63 deputies from other parties. It would therefore be necessary for at least one of the other deputies to abstain or vote for Mas. If this happened, it would almost certainly be one (or all) of the deputies from CSQEP that does so.

The other option would be for Artur Mas to stand down in favour of someone else. There are two choices: either a neutral, figurehead president such as Raül Romeva, Carme Forcadell or Muriel Casals (the first three on the Junts pel Sí list) or Oriol Junqueras, the leader of ERC. CUP and CSQEP, both on the left of the political spectrum, would probably support Junqueras rather than Mas. This needn't necessarily result in Mas being sidelined. Mas and Junqueras have worked hand in glove on everything to do with the route map to independence over the last three years (though not the day-to-day questions of governance, such as implementing austerity) and would continue to do so now.

In many ways, a change of president might be good. Large sections of the pro-Spanish media have delighted in calling the independence movement the product of Artur Mas' ego, so a change of president would clearly show that it is more than that. Besides that, ERC have supported Catalan independence for far longer than Mas, who was only converted to the idea three years ago following mass public demonstrations in favour of independence.

 
What will the new Catalan Government do?

Whatever question mark there might be over who is president, there is no question that the new Catalan Government's priority will be to set up the institutions necessary for Catalonia to function as an independent state. This is the platform they were elected on, and in this they will have the full support of CUP, so getting these things voted through parliament will not be a problem.

It is equally certain that the Spanish Government will do all it can to prevent these institutions from being set up, using the Tribunal Constitucional de España (Spanish Constitutional Court) to do so. It is worth noting that 10 out of its 12 members are political appointees, who will therefore make political decisions. The new Catalan government will therefore have to ignore its rulings, just as the previous government has already done with its rulings on issues such as the use of Catalan in the education system.

The only real questions will be over what the Spanish Government does when the Catalan Government ignores the TC's rulings. Will it arrest prominent members of the Catalan Government? If it does, there will be plenty of others willing to step up to the plate. So the only other option would be to send in troops and tanks. It is a matter of brinkmanship, and the pro-independence deputies will have to hold their nerve.

 
When and how will independence be declared?

At the start of this post, I was careful to say that the new Catalan Government had a mandate to move forward towards independence, but that things would have to be done carefully. As I see it, there is no real problem in setting up the institutions necessary for Catalonia to be an independent state, but there is a problem over any eventual declaration of independence.

The key question is whether yesterday's vote constitutes a mandate to declare independence, and the reality is that it doesn't.

If Junts pel Sí and CUP had obtained more than 50% of the vote yesterday, there is no doubt that this would have constituted a mandate to make a unilateral declaration of independence, without the need for any further vote on the issue. But this wasn't achieved. Nevertheless, yesterday's election cannot be interpreted as a vote against independence either, because those were not the only two options on the ballot papers.

     

As the graphic above shows, both CSQEP and the UDC are in favour of Catalunya's right to decide about independence in a referendum, but not in favour of a unilateral declaration of independence. They achieved 11.45% of the vote between them, and it is all but certain that some of these voters would have voted for independence if yesterday's vote had been a binding referendum on independence. This would take the figure in favour of independence beyond 50%.

But a matter of this importance needs to be established with complete certainty, and therefore another vote needs to be held before independence can be declared.

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There is more than one way of doing this. The painless way would be for Madrid to allow a referendum to be held and respect the result. But I think this could only happen if Podemos, probably in coalition with the PSOE, were able to form the next Spanish Government. There is absolutely no way that either the Partido Popular or Ciudadanos (the Spanish wing of the Ciutadans) would allow such a referendum. Also, apart from the question of independence, yesterday's election was a marked success for the Ciutadans, making them the main Unionist party in Catalunya with almost the same level of support as the PP and PSC combined. This can only bode well for their performance in the Spanish election in December, making the chances of any sort of agreement between the Spanish and Catalan governments even less likely.

But according to the road map to independence set out by Junts pel Sí, the Catalans are going to be given another chance to vote anyway. The idea is to spend the next 18 months setting up the institutions required to function as an independent country, and for the electorate to then approve a constitution for the new Catalan Republic. The declaration of independence would be made by the Catalan Government on the basis of that approved constitution. This, as it happens, was the main point of difference between Junts pel Sí and CUP: CUP wanted the declaration of independence to be immediate rather than after a second vote in 18 months, which was one of the major reasons why they did not join the Junts pel Sí list.

So things are now trickier than they might have been, but the problem is not insurmountable. If there had already been a vote in favour of independence, the second vote would have been solely about the provisions of the new constitution. This, logically, must mean that if new constitution were not approved by the electorate, the Government would have needed to revise it until it was approved. Now the second vote will need to be not only about the provisions of the new constitution, but also about the principle of independence.

One could say that this second vote always implied acceptance of the principle of independence; the only change is that the question must now be framed in such a way as to make it explicit.

Catalunya Triomfant

This widget from Ara will give the unfolding latest results, but it is now clear that Junts pel Sí and CUP have got an absolute majority in the Catalan Parliament, and will work towards a a new constitution for an independent Republic of Catalunya, with a new constitution being put to the Catalan people for approval in a referendum in the next 18 months or so.

It would have been nice for the pro-UDI parties to get 50% of the vote. But in round numbers the Yes/No margin is 48%/39%, with 9% voting for CSQEP and 2% for UDC. We need to be careful not to interpret the CSQEP and UDC votes as either a Yes or No to independence.

     

The Big Weekend

Apart from the not unimportant matter of what happens at Twickenham tomorrow, the main event of the weekend will be the election to the Catalan Parliament on Sunday. As well as being the most significant election for Catalunya since the death of Franco, it should also prove to be very significant for those of us who want to see other stateless nations such as Wales gain our independence within a European framework.

I'm very conscious that I haven't written much on this subject, or on much else, over the past few months. But this is worth carving out some time for. If you want to be reminded about what I've written in the past, please click here, but this is a brief outline of what has happened recently.

     

In essence, the Spanish Government has steadfastly refused to consider any moves towards an independence vote—or even greater autonomy within the Spanish State—even though a clear majority of the people of Catalonia and their representatives in the Catalan Parliament want such a vote to be held. Because of this, the parties which want independence, Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC), Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and Candidatura d'Unitat Popular (CUP), have called an early vote which they intend to be a plebiscite on the sole question of independence. The CDC split with Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC) with whom they had shared a long-standing and largely successful coalition, over the issue.

There were hopes in some quarters that the pro-independence parties would form a single electoral list, in which politicians would play a secondary role to prominent non-political figures in Catalan society so as to emphasize that this was a matter that transcended normal party politics. After much negotiation this was largely achieved, with only one pro-independence party, the smaller CUP, refusing to join it. This list is Junts pel Sí (JxSí, Together for Yes). So there are two voting options which are unequivocally pro-independence and, if these candidates win a majority of seats in the parliament on Sunday, their declared aim is to unilaterally declare Catalunya as an independent republic within 18 months.

A second cross-party electoral list, Catalunya Sí que es Pot (CSQEP, Catalunya: Yes We Can) has been formed by parties which support the Catalan right to democratic self-determination, but still believe there is room for negotiation with the Spanish Government either for a binding official referendum on independence, or for greater autonomy for Catalunya within the Spanish State. The three main parties in this electoral list are the Green ICV, the leftist EUiA and the anti-austerity Podemos. Within this group, and even within the parties, there are shades of opinion about the preferred end-result: some want independence (but after a referendum rather than a unilateral declaration of independence) while others want Catalunya to be a state within a federal or confederal Spain.

There are four other main parties standing on their own rather than on joint electoral lists. The Partido Popular (PP) and Ciutadans (Cs) are implacably opposed to any change to the status quo. The Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC-PSOE) probably is too, although it has in the past paid lip service to the idea of a more federal Spain. The problem is that those in the party that do not want to retain the status quo have now all left it. Finally the UDC, the CDC's former partners in CiU, are standing, but have paid a high price for the split and have all but fallen off the political map.

     

After our recent experience of opinion polling in the run up to this year's Westminster election, we might well take the polls for this election with a pinch of salt ... but what else do we have to go on?

     

The graphic above is from Ara, and shows the results of a plethora of polls taken over the last few weeks. Nearly all of them show that Junts pel Sí and CUP will, together, get over the threshold of 68 seats and win an absolute majority in the Catalan Parliament. I, too, am fairly certain that this will happen. So far as I can judge from this distance, the momentum is with the pro-independence movement. As it's no fun to write without making a prediction, I reckon Junts pel Sí will get 65 seats and CUP will get 11, giving them 76 seats in a parliament of 135.

This, in itself, would undoubtedly be a mandate for independence. But there are a couple of other factors which need to be addressed.

The first is whether Junts pel Sí and CUP will get more than 50% of the vote between them. The electoral system is proportional (D'Hondt) with separate lists for each of the four provinces (Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona) and a threshold of 3%. These two factors tend to favour larger parties, so that is it quite possible to get a majority of seats with, say, only 45% of the vote. This is, of course, far better than the scandal of the Conservatives winning a majority of 331 out of 650 seats in May under our first-past-the-post system with less than 37% of the vote ... but there are bound to be some people who will claim that the pro-independence parties have no mandate to declare independence if they get an absolute majority of seats, but fall short of 50% of the vote.

This graphic from a poll in El Confidencial shows how a result very similar to the one I expect might result in a comfortable majority of seats, but still fall marginally below a 50% share of the vote.

     

I hope that this doesn't happen, and that Junts pel Sí and CUP will get more than 50% of the vote. But even if they fall short, it won't invalidate the independence mandate. As I explained before, those who vote for Junts pel Sí and CUP want independence and are prepared to see a unilateral declaration of independence, irrespective of the wishes of the Spanish Government. But there will be others who nonetheless still support independence, but would prefer to get it with the consent of the Spanish Government after a referendum. These people will (in all probability) vote for Catalunya Sí que es Pot, and there is every indication that CSQEP will get at least 10% of the vote. Of course not everyone who votes CSQEP on Sunday will want independence: some of them (perhaps most) might prefer greater autonomy in a federal or confederal Spain; but some will want independence, and this would be enough to push the total figure over the 50% mark.

Those who are opposed to Catalan independence can't have it both ways at the same time. They cannot point to a majority of seats but a shortfall in the popular vote as something which invalidates any mandate for independence; for they wouldn't accept that a majority of the popular vote was a mandate anyway, and the simple way of answering that question would have been to allow a binding referendum in the first place.

     

A second objection would be to point to the fact that support for independence is not evenly split within Catalunya. The graphic above is from the same poll in El Confidencial, and illustrates that support for independence is much stronger in the provinces of Girona and Lleida than in Barcelona and Tarragona. This, coupled with the fact that Barcelona has 73% of the population but only 63% of the seats, means that we are likely to hear complaints about the mandate not being valid because Barcelona has not been carried.

Those who are against independence will clutch at anything to claim that the result is invalid. I'm just trying to anticipate the sorts of objections that will be raised. Suffice to say, things will be very much easier if Junts pel Sí and CUP get more than 50% of the vote. I'll put my neck on the block and say that they will ... but that it will be rather too close for comfort.

     

The next question is what will happen after the result is announced. Probably not much. There will not be an immediate declaration of independence. Instead, the leaders of the new pro-independence government will again try and negotiate with the Spanish Government, who will loudly reject their approach. The ruling PP (and PSOE) are far too preoccupied with the upcoming Spanish election scheduled for December this year to make any concessions. It would be seen as being "soft" on the Catalans, and therefore cost them Spanish votes. One thing is sure, the Spanish public want to hold on to Catalunya as part of Spain; mainly because they believe it, and its wealth, "belongs" to them, and because they don't want to see themselves demoted from their current position as one of the big players in Europe. So any meaningful negotiations with Madrid will only happen, if they happen at all, when the composition of the next Spanish Government is known.

In my opinion, the only hope for any sort of accommodation will be if Podemos can form a government or hold the balance of power. The traditional two party dominance of the PP and PSOE has been challenged by the rise of Podemos and the Ciudadanos. For a time it looked likely that Podemos would eclipse them both, but they have fallen back over the past few months. I don't follow Spanish politics as closely as Catalan or Basque politics, but right now it looks as if the outcome will either be a broadly right coalition between PP and the Cs, or a broadly left coalition between PSOE and Podemos. If it is the second, there might well be some room for negotiation about a new constitution for Spain with greater autonomy for Catalunya, and Podemos (who accept that Catalans have the right to determine their own future, even though they'd prefer them to stay) might just be able to deliver a referendum. However I suspect it's all too late for that now.

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The real negotiations are likely to take place at a European level. The EU is renowned for sitting on the fence, and I'm sure it will continue to hold that position until forced to get off it ... in public, anyway. But in private, not even the EU would be stupid enough to ignore a newly elected pro-independence Catalan Government which says, "We have now been given a democratic mandate to declare independence, and we are going to act on it. So let's spend the next 18 months negotiating Catalunya's relationship with the EU so that the transition is as smooth as possible for all concerned."

That's why this election is important not only to Catalunya, but to other stateless nations in the EU. Whatever accommodation is made for Catalunya is likely to form the basis of the way things will work for the Basque Country, Flanders, Scotland and, of course, Wales. I don't for one moment think that the EU will go out of their way to make it easy for the Catalans, in fact we could say that they have done everything they can to dissuade them from voting for independence by not giving clear answers to those questions before now. But a democratic decision will be made on Sunday and, once it has been made, it will be in no-one's interest to make it hard for them either. Pragmatism will prevail.

What a difference a day makes

At the bottom of the BBC report about George Osborne's latest public subsidy to help persuade the Chinese to invest in new nuclear power plants in the UK I linked to yesterday was this statement from Amber Rudd:

Ms Rudd rejected criticisms that this was too expensive, saying nuclear power was "reasonably priced" compared with other low carbon sources of power.

Together with a graphic which was intended to back it up:

    

The inference the BBC wanted us to made was that Amber Rudd was telling the truth.

But, as it happens, the graph was completely incorrect. I was going to write about it, quoting an article from yesterday's Financial Times:

The risks surrounding Hinkley Point, the first nuclear reactor for decades in Britain, mean it will be subsidised. To ensure that EDF earns a 10 per cent rate of return, the government is providing a price guarantee in the form of a 35-year contract with an inflation-linked “strike price” of £92.50 per megawatt hour, in 2012 prices. If the wholesale electricity price falls below this level, EDF will be paid the difference. Likewise, consumers will be reimbursed if it trades higher.

This is more than twice the current market price for day-ahead power in the UK.

Nuclear, though, is not alone in benefiting from inflation-proofed subsidy. Renewables benefit from price guarantee contracts that reward companies offering to produce green power at the lowest cost. The results of a government auction this year showed the winning bids for new onshore wind capacity at about £82/MWh, while those for solar ranged from £50/MWh-£80/MWh, cheaper than nuclear. Offshore wind was pricier, at more than £114/MWh.

Financial Times, 21 September 2015

However, when I went back to the BBC article this evening to take a screenshot of the graph, I found that it had been changed:

    

No explanation or apology was offered by the BBC. In fact there was no indication that the article had been amended at all.

Of course I welcome the correction. But the result (perhaps even the intention) of the original version was that those who read the article yesterday were left with the false impression that the price offered for nuclear power from Hinckley C was substantially cheaper than the renewable alternatives. A number of the comments reflected that.

The fact is that the cost of renewables is coming down, and shows every sign of continuing to come down ... solar PV in particular. The new graph shows the highest bid price in the range. The lowest solar PV auction bid was £50/MWh, which is within touching distance of the current wholesale price of electricity.

Conventional nuclear power is a defunct technology which was never, and can never, be made economically viable. It will only go ahead if ever-larger sums of public money are funnelled into the bank accounts of prospective foreign government investors.

A better alternative to nuclear

On the day when the Tory UK Government has shown that it is as much in thrall as ever to sadism, necrophilia and bestiality (yes, that's a round about way of saying they're flogging a dead horse) when it comes to nuclear power, it's good to be reminded that there is a better alternative.

Today, Greenpeace has published a report called Energy [r]evolution 2015, which sets out a pathway to a 100% sustainable energy supply for the entire world by 2050, ending CO2 emissions and phasing out nuclear energy. Click the image below to download the full report, or click here for the executive summary.

     

This post on the Greenpeace Energydesk should be helpful.

As it happens, the BBC wouldn't dream of giving this alternative the same coverage as it gives the nuclear story (in fact, so far as I can see, no coverage at all) hence this post.

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It is perhaps worth noting that this report is not the same as another report that has just been published on behalf of Greenpeace which concentrates on the UK, showing that it is possible for the UK's power system to be nearly 90% renewably delivered by 2030. Again, click the image below to download that report, or read the Guardian's take on it here.

     

Again, this post on the Greenpeace Energydesk should be helpful.

LibDems condemn the Powys windfarm decisions

I thought I'd follow up yesterday's post about the UK Government's decision to disallow four proposed new windfarms by pointing to two very welcome comments from the Liberal Democrats in this post.

"The decisions regarding these developments have been a long time coming and were never going to be clear cut. The mixed recommendations made by the Inspector reflect the realities on the ground; not all wind farms are appropriate for all areas. But the Secretary of State's decision to depart so radically from the independent Inspector's recommendations belies the sheer narrow-mindedness of the UK Conservative Government when it comes to renewable energy.

"It also begs the question as to how we are to achieve the energy security that families and businesses will need in the time to come. Any headlong rush to new nuclear and fracking would be deeply alarming - for our generation and those to follow. "

 
William Powell
Liberal Democrat Shadow Minister for the Environment & Rural Affairs

"I'm shocked at this grim decision from the UK Government to rule against five of the applications for wind farms in the area. The independent Inspector's analysis of the planning applications and available evidence recommended that three of the applications went ahead and yet this seems to have been ignored.

"There is a growing need for the UK to be investing in renewables in order to effectively tackle the very real threats of climate change and yet, from the outset, this Tory Government has seemed determined to denounce green initiatives at every opportunity.

"These developments had the potential to benefit rural communities in the area, bringing jobs, economic development and much needed investment and it is disappointing to see that opportunity go to waste."

 
Jane Dodds
Liberal Democrat Assembly Candidate for Montgomeryshire

Making decisions about energy for ourselves

It was sad to read that the UK government has refused to give permission for four new windfarms in central Wales, and done all it could to prevent the fifth from progressing. The condensed version of the story is here, and the full details of the decisions are available by following the links on this page.

     

The BBC report was completely wrong to say that the combined schemes would have resulted in about 800 turbines. This was a wild overstatement. In fact the combined total for the four refused schemes is only 126 turbines (17 at Llanbadarn Fynydd, 29 at Llaithddu, 30 at Llanbrynmair, and 50 at Carnedd Wen) and the approved fifth project will replace the 102 existing turbines at Llandinam with 34 larger and more efficient ones). If all five windfarms had been approved it would have resulted in 160 new turbines, a net gain of only 58 turbines). Although Tory MP Glyn Davies manages to inflate this to "several hundred additional turbines". Objectivity and any sense of proportion have been noticeably absent in the protests against these windfarms.

Of course it is, as David Clubb said, a baffling ideological decision that doesn't make any sense. But what else would we expect from Conservatives in Westminster who have shown over the last few months that they have no real inclination to meet our renewable energy targets ... in fact going so far as to tell blatant lies about them, as I reported here only a few weeks ago.

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Of course the only reason why the UK Government at Westminster has been able to make this decision is because of the absurd limits set on our ability to determine our own energy planning policies in Wales. All five windfarms have capacities of greater than the current 50MW limit. Ironically, even the Tories have already agreed that this limit should be increased to 350MW, which would mean that the Welsh Government rather than the UK Government would make the final decision on projects like these. Perhaps this is one reason why the urgent delivery of any new powers has been put on the back burner.

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I would be the last person to say that all windfarm projects should be approved. I am certainly in favour of windfarms, but each individual project needs to be determined on its own merits. However it is obvious to me that the UK Government has made a blanket decision on ideological grounds. No-one in their right mind could have refused the Llandinam repowering project, because it means a significant reduction in the number of turbines on that site; but to refuse all four of the new projects can only be interpreted as a political decision. It should be noted that each of them is within the areas designated in TAN 8 as suitable for windfarm development, so they should only have been refused permission if there were specific local reasons for it. From the Welsh Government's reaction, it seems clear that they would have made different decisions:

However, the Welsh government said the area would now "miss out" on investment, and jobs, while Wales had been "denied the opportunity to further reduce our carbon emissions by a decision made in Westminster".

"Today's decision is not only very disappointing and concerning but once again reinforces the importance of the Welsh government having control of energy consents for projects in our country," a spokesman said.

BBC, 7 September 2015

It would be nice to think that this sense of disappointment and concern would be shared by other parties such as the LibDems and Plaid Cymru. It is doubly outrageous. First, decisions which all political parties agree should be made in Wales have instead been made for us by a government in Westminster which we didn't vote for; and second, we in Wales do not share the UK government's ideological opposition to either windfarms or renewable power in general.

Not so long ago, Plaid made the announcement that they wanted all Wales' electricity needs to be generated from renewable sources by 2030. Although they didn't know (or wouldn't tell us) how they'd do it, it is hard to imagine how this could be achieved without, at least in part, relying on onshore wind projects such as the four that have just been refused. But I'm not sure that we'd ever get as straight an answer about these four new windfarms from anyone in Plaid as Welsh Labour have just made.
 

 
Update - 16:20, 8 September 2015

The BBC have just reported more reaction from the Welsh Government to these decisions.

The rejection of plans to build wind farms in mid Wales is "short sighted" and "hugely disappointing", the Welsh government's environment minister says. Carl Sargeant said communities in Powys would lose millions of pounds and an opportunity to create jobs, claiming energy supply would be put at risk.

Mr Sargeant told BBC Wales: "We recognise that there's a great opportunity for renewable energy in Wales, but they [the UK government] are doing everything they can to stop that, in planning terms and also some of their subsidy schemes.

"In Wales we are pro-wind power and renewable energy - in the UK government and, under the Conservatives, [they are] pro-fracking, which we are certainly not."

BBC, 8 September 2015

It's very encouraging to see this response. If anyone doubts that people in Wales are in fact pro-wind power, I'd point them to a couple of surveys of public opinion which show 64% of Welsh people are generally in favour of large scale wind projects in their local council area: one from 2013 and a second from 2014.

In contrast, David Cameron said in December last year that the public is "basically fed up" with onshore wind farms. "Enough is enough and I am very clear about that," he said. Such a major discrepancy between the Welsh public and the Tories in Westminster is a clear indication that what is happening is politically motivated.

WM education in Cardiff: alarm bells ringing

 
I've just received this press relaease from RhAG. Hopefully, the story will also be reported the mainstream media.

 

 
Serious concerns that a starter class for Grangetown and Butetown will not open as promised this September is an indication of wider failures by Cardiff Council in the planning of Welsh-medium education provision across the city.

This is RhAG’s response to concerns of local parents that the Council will not keep their promise to open the starter class hosted at Ninian Park School, as a seedling of the new school which is proposed to open on a permanent site in 2017.

On the basis of Council figures for July, RhAG is aware that 105 pupils were refused first choice applications for a place in the city’s Welsh-medium primary schools. It is unclear how many children have been lost to the English-medium sector, nor how many are still in the appeals system. This represents a loss of 13% of all applications for the Welsh-medium September 2015 Reception intake. The loss for September 2014 was approximately 5%.

Michael Jones for Cardiff RhAG said, "Warning bells should now be ringing as many problems can be found throughout the city. In the East, between Bro Eirwg and Penypil 13 children have been unable to obtain a place without another nearby school a practical possibility. Glan Morfa has been turning pupils away for 3 years and more, and the same situation has arisen this year with 5 application refused. In the North, the situation at Mynydd Bychan (19 refused) is unacceptable and the Wern, at 75 applications cannot meet the demand with 3 pupils not being offered a place. The applications for Melin Gruffydd is 7 over their Standard Admission Number and Pencae at 21 applications over their SAN. In the West there is an urgent need to do something for Nant Caerau and Treganna is packed with 16 applications above their statutory number.

"We need immediate action by extending current provision as an interim solution and to open new schools to meet the demand. Honouring the commitment to open a starter class to serve Grangetown and Butetown is an indispensable part of the Council's plans to develop Welsh-medium education in the city, as has been incorporated into Cardiff Council’s statutory Welsh in Education Strategic Plan, which has been approved by the Minister of Education. Although the council had announced their intention to proceed with the class, the fact that parents were not made known of this until May and arrangements not confirmed until August, meant it was all far too late; so the current crisis is the result of a lack of acting early enough which has weakened parents’ trust and confidence. The current administration needs to restore this by taking control of the situation and providing firm and proactive action as a matter of urgency.

"In addition, we call on the Council to conduct an urgent city-wide review of the catchment areas for Welsh-medium schools and a thorough review of the school admissions process in order to provide greater fairness, clarity and certainty for parents in applying for places in Welsh-medium schools."

 
Ceri Owen
Cyfarwyddwr Datblygu / Director of Development
Rhieni Dros Addysg Gymraeg
Parents for Welsh Medium Education

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