8. Will the Minister set out how the Welsh Government plans to incorporate Welsh language training with vocational qualifications? OAQ(5)0024(EDU)

All providers of vocational courses are required to promote and develop their Welsh-medium and bilingual provision. Welsh Government requires all work-based learning providers and further education colleges to increase the number of learners who use Welsh within their learning and provide opportunities for learners to develop their Welsh language skills.

Thank you for that response, and I’m very pleased to hear that, but, recently, I contacted the company Ynni Cymru, which has received quite significant financial backing from Welsh Government to help support new business in Wales, and that would actually include useful vocational qualifications. The company doesn’t have any Welsh language policy or any understanding of your ambition as a Government to improve bilingualism in the workplace, and, when I enquired about it, they said, ‘Oh, we’ve got somebody somewhere who can speak Welsh.’ They completely missed the point.

We would expect such a company to at least advise new companies that they should bear in mind that the Government is looking at Welsh in the workplace, and to encourage them to consider how they can provide that. With regard to the Welsh language, may I ask what your expectations are of any organisation that is supported by Welsh Government money that offers vocational training or business support?

It may be useful if you were to write to me with the detail of the very incident that you’ve described this afternoon, but may I say in general terms, rather than addressing the example that you gave, that I would expect any institution in receipt of funding from Welsh Government to implement their language policy? When we’re talking about the private sector and private businesses, of course, there is a different statutory framework in place for the private sector. At the moment, we are consulting on a new strategy for the Welsh language, for the target of reaching 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050.

Once we’ve published that strategy, I will start the work of consulting on the statutory framework. If Members, or any individual Members, have any comments to make on the private sector, that would be the time for us to have that discussion.

In a committee meeting on 13 July, the Cabinet Secretary for Education made it clear, in response to a question from the Plaid Cymru education spokesperson, that you’re going to look at the possibility of expanding the remit of the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol to include further education. Please could you provide us with an update about the progress since that meeting, because it would go some of the way towards enhancing Welsh-medium education within further education?

Rwy’n credu bod yr Ysgrifennydd yn glir amboutu ei gweledigaeth hi. Mae hi yn y Siambr ac yn gwrando ar eich geiriau nawr. Mi wnaeth yr Ysgrifennydd Addysg a’r Prif Weinidog wneud datganiad o’r fath yn ystod yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol. Rydym ni fel tîm o Weinidogion wedi bod yn trafod hyn ers hynny. Rwy’n gwybod bod yr Ysgrifennydd addysg ar fin gwneud datganiad.