Statistics published by the Welsh Government. Each chart covers the years since the 2016 Senedd election, or as far back as the figures go, and marks each election since.
People who say they can speak Welsh
27.4%
The year to 30 June 2026
A year earlier
27.2%(the year to 30 June 2025)
The share of people aged 3 or older who say they can speak Welsh, over the twelve months to each date.
The survey gives higher figures than the Census, which the Welsh Government uses to measure progress towards a million speakers: 17.8% in 2021. Interviews were held by telephone from March 2020 to autumn 2023, which slightly raised the share saying they can speak Welsh, so the publisher advises caution when reading the trend. The figures are no longer accredited official statistics because the survey's sample has fallen.
Grow the proportion of children and young people receiving Welsh‑medium education, and improve accessibility to Welsh‑medium education, setting local targets to ensure the steady growth of Welsh‑medium provision in all schools.
Increase the number of students able to access tertiary pathways in Welsh, supporting and developing the work of the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol and working with the Coleg and Medr to increase opportunities to study Welsh as a subject.
Support an increase in the number of teachers able to teach through the medium of Welsh, promoting and developing the Welsh‑language skills of practitioners and developing new sabbatical opportunities.
Publish and implement a new strategy for Cymraeg with a renewed focus on increasing the number of speakers to a million and more by 2050, doubling the daily use of the language, and ensuring that the language belongs to us all in Wales.
Work to strengthen the resilience of Cymraeg as a community language and in workplaces, implementing the recommendations of the commission for Welsh‑speaking communities, and work towards designating areas of higher linguistic sensitivity and protecting Welsh place names.
Work towards extending Welsh Language Standards to UK government bodies and to services operating in Wales, and ensure that Cymraeg is at the heart of all public policy, including health, housing, planning, transport, education, culture and the economy.
Source: Welsh Government, Programme for government 2026 to 2030: New ambition for Wales, first published on 10 September 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Mentions are found by matching the names of plans, bodies and schemes; a mention says nothing about progress.
Key moments in the Senedd
No Plenary statements or debates on this brief in the Sixth Senedd yet.
Related votes
No votes in the Sixth Senedd have been tagged with this.
Votes are tagged from their own titles and the agenda item they were held under.
Each bar is the share of that party's speeches and questions in the Sixth Senedd that touched this brief, so large and small parties can be compared. The upright line marks the chamber as a whole: 0.11%.
Contributions tagged in each month of the Sixth Senedd.Show the numbers
Month
Contributions
January 2024
5
February 2024
4
March 2024
2
April 2024
5
May 2024
2
June 2024
3
July 2024
1
August 2024
0
September 2024
3
October 2024
20
November 2024
6
How this brief is put together
This brief follows the Programme commitments listed above and tags the record with the phrases below. Keyword matching can miss business that discusses the issue in other words, and can tag a passing mention.
Show the phrases it uses
A contribution is tagged when its English text contains one of these phrases. Capital letters don't matter, except in abbreviations, which must match exactly. It is also tagged when the title of the agenda item or question it was part of contains one, as long as the contribution is at least 30 words long. The brief is also tagged whenever one of its themes is.
