Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg has welcomed the news today that some AMs are attempting to improve the Assembly's Welsh language policy.

In June this year, the pressure group has called on AMs to make further changes to the Official Languages Bill so that fully bilingual records of all proceedings are published simultaneously in Welsh and English. Today came the news that Aled Roberts AM and Suzy Davies AM had tabled those amendments to the Bill

The group argues that publishing the documents in the two languages simultaneously is a basic requirement and an important principle that has long been established in Wales that the Assembly should not undermine.

Sian Howys, rights spokesperson for Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg welcomed the news:

“We welcome Aled Roberts' and Suzy Davies' amendments to the Bill. Changes which would ensure records of all Assembly proceedings are available in Welsh at the same time as the English versions. We have been working with members of every party in the Assembly to improve the legislation and are calling on other Assembly Members to support these amendments. ”

“Our legislature's documents are vital not only to fulfil people's moral right to use the Welsh language - and vitally, the language's official status - but also for its language corpus. Online tools like Google Translate, Cysill and others benefit from the language corpus developed in the Assembly. So these documents have a direct positive impact on the use of the language.”

“There's no doubt that the Assembly has a bad recent record on Welsh language matters. Over the last three years, the investment in the language by the Assembly Commission has been cut by over 14%, while its budget has risen substantially. For 17 months, the Assembly was breaking its own language scheme, and the use of the language in the institution remains low. That should be a matter of embarrassment for our national legislature. Nor do we accept the comments of some politicians who suggest that this is a choice between translation and use of Welsh. Plenty of research proves that a minority language's status directly affects its use. In order to increase the use of the Welsh language within the Assembly the proposed Bill and the Scheme need further improvement.”

The group has also welcomed the support of Cllr Dyfrig Jones and former Welsh Language Board Chief Executive Meirion Prys Jones for further changes to the Bill. The Assembly will hold its final debate on the bill this Wednesday (3 October).