Mr. Aled Roberts:

As far as the Deputy's constituent is concerned, each and every public body that is subject to the standards is supposed to decide on the language of choice of the constituent. If a planning application was made in Welsh, it would be expected that Welsh would be registered as the language of choice. In those circumstances, the standards require that all future correspondence with that constituent would be in Welsh. Clearly, we have instances where that does not happen but the constituent would then have the opportunity to complain directly to me. Provided the complaint was valid and if, following a full investigation, that complaint was upheld, I would take enforcement actions against the local authority to ensure it had proper processes in place to ensure that did not happen again.

As far as Welsh language signage is concerned, the Welsh Government decided Welsh would come first on all signage. Previously, although there was a requirement for road signage to be bilingual, which, to be fair, goes back to pre-devolution days, it was up to each local authority concerned whether to put English or Welsh first. There were instances where you could travel ten miles and, if you passed three boundaries, the signage would change each time depending on the choice of the council. The Welsh Government changed that so that all new signage has to place Welsh first. There is also a requirement for signage painted on roads and so on to be bilingual. Again, the standards ensure complaints can be made in instances where that does not occur. The only condition I would place on that is the policy only requires signage to be changed when it is being replaced. The Deputy will probably be driving through Wales from Ireland for some decades yet and still be seeing signage on which Welsh does not come first. That is the reason.