Glyn Davies made what might be his last speech in the House of Commons before he retires at the next General Election.

The Conservative Montgomeryshire MP put forward an Adjournment Debate on the Welsh Language on Wednesday night; and fittingly opened his speech in Welsh.

Addressing Parliament, he said: "I tabled my request for this Adjournment debate for several reasons: first, because I believe the Welsh language to be of such importance that it should be on our agenda here at Westminster at least once in every Parliament; and for the rather more selfish reason that this may well be my last speech in the House of Commons before I retire at the forthcoming general election, and I wanted to speak on an issue of special personal interest and importance to me."

Mr Davies spoke about how he was the first generation of his family to not be first-language Welsh speakers, and how at that time, "Welsh was seen as the language of failure".

He spoke about his upbringing and life in Mid Wales at length, how he had become a Welsh speaker, and revealed that he had actually first voted for Plaid Cymru and not the Conservatives.

Mr Davies said: "Today, we have reached the stage in the recovery of the Welsh language at which the Welsh Government have formally adopted the aim of there being 1 million Welsh speakers in Wales. That is beyond the imagination of any of us 20 years ago. I do not know how realistic that aim is, but 20 years ago it would have been laughed out of court. We can now have that sort of serious prediction, which is unbelievable for those of us who care so much about the language.

"Today, yr iaith Gymraeg is in a far better place than anyone could have predicted in the middle of the last century, but those who want to see the Welsh language succeed cannot be complacent. Across the world, there is always ongoing pressure on all minority languages. Survival depends on continuing support, battling against political and economic pressures."

The MP acknowledged that the Welsh language is devolved to the Welsh Assembly, but said: "There are opportunities within the devolved settlement to promote the language here at Westminster".

MPs in the debate thanked Mr Davies for his years in Parliament; and this included fellow Powys MP Jane Dodds. The Liberal Democrat MP for Brecon and Radnoshire said: "Diolch yn fawr iawn. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), who is a good friend, I hope, for the work that he has done in Montgomeryshire. I thank him for his service to his constituency.

"I am sure that he would agree that there is a real need for more Welsh teachers. I was lucky enough to attend a Welsh school, and to have a nain who lived with us who was monolingual and could not speak English. For me—I am sure the Minister will agree—the important thing was to have Welsh teachers in my Welsh school. I hope he supports the initiative being taken to promote the recruitment and training of Welsh language teachers."

Mr Davies revealed that he would step down as MP for Montgomeryshire in May. He'll be hoping that the Conservative Prospective Candidate Craig Williams will be taking his seat in Parliament. The other candidates announced so far are: Kishan Devani for the Liberal Democrats; Elwyn Vaughan for Plaid Cymru and Oliver Lewis for the Brexit Party.

To read the Adjournment Debate in full, click here, or to watch it, click here.