Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Peter Bottomley

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Programme motion No. 3: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. That may be the test of whether the prosecution is brought, but if it is brought because the prosecution is thought to be in the public interest, and the journalists want to say that the public interest defence is why it has been done, then the Government ought to think again. If I may, I ask them to do so.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I rise to speak to new clause 23, which would ensure that all services provided by the UK Government respect the right of the UK’s 700,000 Welsh speakers to receive those services in our language. “Digital by default” must translate as “‘digidol yn ddiofyn”—not something to request but something that is clearly available and welcoming to use. Digital language use increasingly touches every area of communications, from social media to digital government. If a language is not on the web, it can be said, in a sense, no longer to exist for 21st-century communications. The Welsh Language Commissioner has voiced criticism of the UK Government for weakening the Welsh language services on their gov.uk website since its 2012 launch, saying:

“Over the past year I have seen agencies of the Westminster government approaching us complaining about the Cabinet Office and gov.uk and saying that it is now hampering their work and they are concerned that the strong bilingual services that they have put in place have been hampered by gov.uk.”

Given the issues arising from legacy IT systems and designing bilingual platforms, I urge the Minister to consider our new clause and commit to ensuring interactive and user-friendly Government digital services for Welsh speakers on the same basis as that for English speakers.