I will come on to address exactly that politicisation, but it is also about the collective punishment that is applied to children learning Irish in the nursery school. Of course the right hon. Member knows that I would not support language like that, but neither do I damn all protection of Ulster Scots and Ulster British identity because of some words of Ulster Scots or Irish that may appear on a loyalist mural or drum. That is why we need those protections, so that people cannot deny everyday provisions because of the perceptions that they have. I should be delighted to come on to that, and I want to discuss how we build up the confidence of everyone in these cultural provisions by implementing things that were agreed many years ago and which could take some of the heat, poison and damage out of everyday politics.
A fair and wise point was made earlier about the need for things such as a sign language Act as well. It is a fact that the stop-start stand-off culture in which the Assembly has been bogged down over recent decades has damaged the wider rights and entitlements of everyone in Northern Ireland to decent public services and economic opportunities. Those who have withdrawn governance, in this stand-off or the previous one, which was ostensibly
over the Irish language, are doing far more to undermine rights and entitlements than a Bill such as this will ever do.
The measure is far from perfect, and it has been a long time coming. I would like to mention two of my Gaelgóirí colleagues, Patsy McGlone and Dominic Bradley, who tried to bring forward private Members’ legislation in 2008 and 2016, before it was introduced. At least we are on the path now, even if it falls short of what was promised at St Andrews—an Irish language Act based on the experience of Wales and the Republic of Ireland. This legislation is not that, and it is fair to say that it is very far from radical. Language in the Republic of Ireland and Wales thrives in part because it is underpinned and financed by a strategy to focus on promotion, because those nations have been able to proceed without the toxification that language and identity have experienced in our region. I really, really regret that language has become zero sum—if they win this, we lose this—like a lot of other things in our region. That is not unique to Northern Ireland or the Irish language, but we all have to work to counter it.