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

One would certainly wish to encourage all suppliers of goods and services operating in Wales, as far as possible and where prudent, to operate a Welsh language policy. However, Welsh consumers will not thank the Government if their access to services is disadvantaged as a consequence of the legislation. I will leave the point there because there are further points that I wish to make. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for indicating that there will be an exhaustive list of royal chartered bodies included in the LCO. That will require close scrutiny. The hon. Member for Caernarfon gave us an amusing list of bodies that will be excluded, but some major bodies might have difficulty complying with Welsh language legislation. A lot of the bodies provide valuable public services. One would not wish the legislation to result in certain bodies not being prepared to operate in Wales. Another point raised by the Select Committee—it did not appear to have been addressed by the Secretary of State in his letter of response—was the issue of professional bodies. The Select Committee expressed concern about whether it was right that all professional bodies operating in Wales should require a Welsh language policy. I would be grateful if the Under-Secretary would address that matter in his response. The Select Committee’s work in connection with the LCO process over the past two years has been extremely valuable. We have gone through a learning process. We have achieved an efficient process that has resulted in prospective legislation being scrutinised efficiently and expeditiously. It is a tribute to the work of the Select Committee, as its Chairman, the hon. Member for Aberavon, pointed out, that the report on the LCO was produced with absolutely unanimity. The gainsayers doubted that that would ever happen, but it did. We need to scrutinise the LCO further, however, and I again ask the Secretary of State to consider the contents of paragraph 12 of our report, in which we indicated that if there are likely to be significant amendments to the draft LCO—which clearly there will be—we will want to revisit the draft and report further. I have no doubt that that process will be completed expeditiously under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Aberavon. Nevertheless, if there are significant changes, I believe that it is right—and the Committee believes that it is right—that we should scrutinise further.