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Mental Health Bill [Lords]

I, too, welcome the proposals on advocacy, but I am concerned to ensure that advocacy services in Wales are widely available in both Welsh and English. The reason why I intervened on the Minister earlier and asked whether advocates would be assumed to be working for a public authority is that public bodies in Wales are subject to the Welsh Language Act 1993, and must produce language schemes. That might ensure that help was available in Welsh or English, as required. My second point is that if advocates are employed by a public authority, the system should be set up on an entirely bilingual basis. I refer the Minister to the way in which the post of Children’s Commissioner for Wales was set up by Peter Clarke. That started out properly on a bilingual footing. I refer the Minister to the recent speculation in Wales that the new Welsh Assembly Government might seek a legislative competency in mental health. One of the reasons for that would be to ensure that the service was available in Welsh. Commenting on that, the First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, said that although he was sympathetic to the proposal, he was concerned about whether undevolved aspects of legislation could be disentangled. Some subjects are properly the concern of Parliament, but some are properly the concern of the Assembly. That may be resolved by new clause 3(2), which states:"““The appropriate national authority shall make such arrangements as it considers reasonable””" to enable people to act as advocates. Will the Minister confirm that, to her mind, that requires whoever sets up the advocacy system in Wales to ensure that the system is bilingual from the outset?