Wyn Roberts, Baron Roberts of Conwy

A Welsh-speaking Conservative, Roberts served as a Welsh Office minister for most of the Thatcher and Major years and steered the Welsh Language Act 1993 through Parliament. It established the principle that Welsh and English should be treated equally in public business in Wales and created the Welsh Language Board, which required public bodies to adopt language schemes. Coming from a party that opposed devolution, his act shows that language policy and constitutional politics did not always line up neatly.