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National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Welsh Language)

I strongly believe that it is perfectly sensible and correct to pass responsibility for legislating on the Welsh language to the Assembly in Cardiff. However, I am surprised that the Assembly Commission now seems to suggest that the one body that is responsible for legislation in Wales will not have its reports published in the two languages of Wales. That is a matter for the Assembly. In my part of Wales, the language is strongest and embraced most enthusiastically in education, because people choose to have their children educated in Welsh. My constituency has an excellent Welsh-language comprehensive school and two very good Welsh-language primary schools. Does my right hon. Friend accept that that is the model that we should persuade our colleagues in Cardiff to embrace? We should encourage people to use the language rather than legislate them into using it, because they will not respond otherwise. Education, where people choose to have their children educated through the medium of Welsh, is the one area where the language is strong and popular, and that is where it will grow.