Written question asked by Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party) on Tuesday, 19 July 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 21 July 2005. It was answered by James Plaskitt (Labour) on Wednesday, 5 October 2005 on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.

Correspondence

Question: (2) what facilities his Department has to deal with telephone inquiries in (a) Welsh, (b) Scots Gaelic and (c) Irish Gaelic.

Answer: For customers in Wales, DWP has a Welsh Language Scheme, which includes a full service for communicating in Welsh. Correspondence will be in Welsh if the customer prefers, and staff will speak to customers in Welsh if they prefer. Corporate publicity material in Wales is provided in both English and Welsh. This service is provided in compliance with the Welsh Language Act.For Scots Gaelic speakers, if the person cannot converse in English, we would use the departmental telephone interpreting service, provided by Language Line, who can provide interpreters. Written Gaelic queries are extremely rare, but we could obtain translation from, and into, Gaelic, if the need arose. The same principle would apply to any contacts from Irish Gaelic speakers, but as responsibility for most social security, child support and pensions matters rests with the Northern Ireland Department for Social Development, this would be most unlikely to happen in practice.

Secondary information