Language campaigners have called on the Welsh and British Governments not to delay implementing the new language standards which were published today by the Welsh Language Commissioner.
Sian Howys, Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg's rights spokespeople:
"It's about time people started seeing the difference and the better services that should come with the new legislation. After all, the law was passed two years ago. We've had four years of consultation on the legislation and these duties, and hundreds of responses have been received. More than that, people still come to us saying they haven't been able to get a Welsh language service, so it's obvious there are deficiencies which need to be tackled. As more and more children receive their education through Welsh, we need to ensure that Welsh isn't left at the school gates. There's no reason for more delay. We hope that Leighton Andrews will act straight away to get these standards on the statute book and not allow the British Government to delay their implementation.
"We wrote to the Secretary of State for Wales David Jones recently asking for assurance that he will give his consent so that UK Government departments come under these new standards. We haven't had a response yet. We don't understand why he hasn't stated his intention to support the new standards.
She added:
"Generally, we believe the standards, although they are useful as a baseline, show a lack of ambition to improve the state of the language in a number of ways, especially in the geographical areas where the Welsh language has been traditionally strong. To that extent, we feel the standards have missed an opportunity to strengthen the langauge in every area of Wales. We would have liked to see, for example, far stronger operational and promotion standards than that offered in these documents.
"It's becoming more obvious that it's the aspiration of everyone in Wales to be able to live our lives in Welsh and we understand that securing the strength of Welsh language communities is the only way of realising that vision. The standards, like any language strategy or plan should reflect that. We will see the real effect of the standards once they are properly put in place - and the experience of people throughout Wales on a day-to-day basis will show how effective they are."