We now move on to the short debate. If Members are going to leave the Chamber, please do so quickly and quietly. So, we now move to the short debate and I call on Llyr Gruffydd to speak on the topic he’s chosen.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Could I thank you for the opportunity to have this short debate this afternoon? I want to start my contribution by trying something that will underline the point that I want to make, and make that much more effectively than I can, perhaps, in a speech. I don’t doubt that this will be perhaps the first time in any parliament in the world that Siri will contribute to the discussion, and will be quoted in the Record of Proceedings, perhaps, afterwards. So, we’ll try this now.

Hey, Siri, what is the National Assembly for Wales?

Siri: "I couldn’t find silk appreciate can your telephone company and your music."

Well, evidently, Siri hasn’t quite understood what I asked. I’ll try another one.

Hey, Siri, who is the First Minister of Wales?

Siri: ‘Sorry, I can’t search that.’

No. Well, there we are. We’ll try once again.

Hey, Siri, do you understand Welsh?

Siri: ‘I rather enjoy what I’m doing right now.’

Well, evidently, from that answer, ‘no’ is the answer, in truth, and that is a regret, of course, and a disappointment, because the future is digital, and devices like Apple Siri, which recognise speech and answer questions, are becoming more common in our everyday lives. But, as you can see, there is a risk that that digital future is a future without Welsh if we don’t show leadership and meet this challenge.

This is the essence of my debate, that the Welsh language must be at the vanguard of technology, and this is going to demand vision and it’s going to call for action. It’s not excessive, in my opinion, to compare the current situation today—and I see this as an opportunity as well as a risk—with a historical event that happened more than 400 years ago.

In 1588, a decision was made to translate the bible, for political reasons as much as any others, in order to try and assimilate Wales, which was fairly monolingual at the time, into the new, developing state. But, whatever the incentives were, in ensuring that the bible was available in Welsh, Welsh received a huge boost as a modern language in a rapidly-changing world. There is no need to emphasise how much more quickly the world is turning now, with new media developing and the world of apps and technological developments astonishing and enchanting us on a daily basis.

Therefore, the period before us offers the same challenges in terms of changes, but this time in technology, the internet, and social media. Digital media is becoming a more central part of our lives, and we are starting to see a new generation of voice-controlled equipment. This is a very different challenge, I would argue, to the recent development of e-books, for example, and the internet. That was something written that allowed Welsh to develop naturally, and Welsh, as it has across the ages, has proven to be a remarkably flexible language.

Voice-controlled technology, however, is very, very different. Some people predict that this is the beginning of the end for minority languages like Welsh, which will suffer digital extinction as English crowds them out. It is only English and some other major languages that Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, and Google Home understand. So, if you have one of these devices, you will speak more and more English at home as you use them.

I’m aware of Welsh households now where children now always speak English with these devices at home. There is a risk, of course, that it changes the language of the home, and that’ll be a matter of some concern to some parents, I know. But what kind of message will that send out to those young people in terms of the language of technology and the language of their future, and the perception that they have then of the irrelevance of Welsh in that future?

There is a new opportunity, however, for the Welsh language. There is no need for technology to be the enemy. Technology like the written word, and the printed word back in 1588, can bolster the language, give it new platforms on which to flourish, and can provide useful tools to help people use it. The success of the ‘SaySomethinginWelsh’ online learning course is a cause for celebration.

This challenge is also an opportunity to provide a boost for the IT and creative industries sectors in Wales and to use our bilingual expertise to gain fresh markets and to create new goods and services with innovative software. I know of companies in Wales that have developed software that can operate bilingually that have won contracts across the world because those countries are looking for software that can operate in more than one language.

We’re all now familiar with the use of digital dictionaries and mobile phones, and Geiradur yr Academi and Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru have been digitised, of course. And the Ap Geiraduron dictionaries app from Bangor University has been downloaded more than 90,000 times and is used by Welsh speakers and learners alike. We should take pride in the innovative work that Bangor University is doing in this field. The language technologies unit at Canolfan Bedwyr in Bangor has run with the idea and is challenging the monopoly of the major languages regarding the technology of the future.

It is also a challenge for the notion that tech giants can ignore minor languages and can try to force us to use one of the few major imperial languages that they choose, and, in truth, the minor languages, cumulatively, are much bigger than some of the major languages, and technological collaboration that is innovative and flexible could give us a lead on others, instead of us having to play catch-up all the time.

Text-to-voice technology has already been used in Welsh, with work having been done by the RNIB for people who are visually impaired, for example. In addition, of course, the other side of the technology, namely the ability to speak Welsh to the computer, is already being developed, as we see with the Macsen prototype, a digital personal assistant, similar to Alexa and Siri, in Welsh. Bangor University is behind this as well, of course. If I have one specific plea to the Welsh Government, I’d like to encourage the Government to extend the valuable investment in the vital work on language technology there.

In the past, economic development funds have been used to develop Welsh-language technology, and European funds were used to develop speech and translation technology. At present, there are two significant projects to transfer information to industry happening at Bangor University, where the majority of research and development in this field has happened so far. Small technology in Welsh grants from the Welsh Government have also been of assistance in the field, including the current grant to create Macsen, the first Welsh digital assistant, which I mentioned a moment ago. New opportunities are emerging now to use big data for minority languages such as Welsh. That’s why it’s so important that the Welsh Government and other public bodies in our nation ensure that all their data are open so as to assist research and development in our universities and in the private sector.

It’s time for us now to look at a long-term strategy in this area and to invest properly in the technologies that are going to ensure that Welsh has fair play in the world of digital media. Done properly, research and development in the field of language technology could, yes, promote the Welsh language, but could also regenerate the economy. At present, there are 1.5 million jobs in the digital sector in Britain, and the sector’s going to grow exponentially in the coming years. By 2020, it is estimated that there will be 100,000 new coding jobs in Britain—two and a half years away. The global market is multilingual, of course, and there’s a great demand for software and devices that understand languages other than English. That is something that is growing consistently, and Wales can capitalise on the fact that it is a bilingual nation to create a prosperous digital sector of its own that specialises in language technologies. This would be a win-win situation for us: a win for the Welsh language and a win for the Welsh economy.

As we face the loss of European funding, it is more important still that investment from Westminster and the Welsh Government fills that gap. I welcome, of course, the investment of £1.3 million in coding clubs in Wales that was announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Education recently, particularly given that one of the priorities that was mentioned there was the increase of Welsh language provision. It’s important for us to train the next generation to be ready to capitalise on bilingual and multilingual technological opportunities. But we need sustainable and significant investment from the British Research Council, the Welsh Government, and others, instead of the small, fragmented grants seen at present. This is an opportunity for us to bolster the infrastructure for technology and the Welsh language with a long-term vision for Welsh and the economy in Wales.

The Government’s strategy to create a million Welsh speakers by 2050 is a challenge that we can achieve, but we need to accept that it is not just through Welsh-medium education alone that we will achieve that aim. Technology, and language technology in particular, is vital to realising this ambition. The world of technology by 2050 is almost impossible to envisage here today. My own children will be adults by then, immersed, I’m sure, in the new digital world, and the future generations to come need to know that all the benefits of this brave new world are going to be available to them in Welsh, and that’s the challenge. And, in accepting the challenge and responding to it with enterprise and innovation, we could be a more confident nation in facing the digital future before us and, maybe, in 400 years’ time, historians will look back at our success in responding to this challenge in the same way as was done back then—and that we recognise and appreciate the vision and the political enterprise that were shown today, and not just back in 1588.

I call on the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh Language to reply to the debate. Alun Davies.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to reply to this debate. I’m very pleased that the Member for North Wales has chosen this particular issue for his short debate. I do think that when we discuss the promotion of the Welsh language there isn’t enough discussion of this particular issue, and I am pleased that you’ve chosen to highlight it this afternoon. I look forward to officials in the Senedd translating what Siri had to say earlier on. I’ll make a point of looking at the Record of Proceedings in the morning.

Llyr and I have discussed these issues in the Chamber on a number of occasions and I know that Llyr is very fond of words like ‘challenge’ and ‘risk’. I prefer the second word that he used, which was ‘opportunity’, because I do think we have to look at the changes that you have outlined and described very well this afternoon as an opportunity for the Welsh language. Too often when we discuss the language, we are thinking of it in negative terms and using words and statements that are negative. I want to look at the positives and I want to be extremely positive about how we can ensure that the Welsh language is part of this new world, and also works as a means of innovating for the future too. I think that each and every one of us has an opportunity to contribute to that. But, clearly, I do recognise that the Government has a responsibility and a role in leading in this area too, and I very much hope that people will see that the Government here has been leading in terms of our thinking and in terms of our actions. I think that both of those things are important.

Deputy Presiding Officer, one of the reasons that we had agreed on the aim and objective of creating a million Welsh speakers was because of a decision that things had to change. We could have continued to manage the situation and language policy as we have done over the past 20 years—managing the way that we develop policies on the Welsh language and bilingualism, standards and so on and so forth. But, I think that there is agreement across the Chamber that things have to change and that means that we have to work differently. If you look at the way in which we consider the Welsh language, technology and the digital world are a clear focus for the kinds of change that we have to see and the kind of change that each and every one of us has to lead on.

I know the kind of world that our children will be living in. It’ll be very different to the world in which I grew up—not just in Tredegar, but everywhere else. When I started work, there were typewriters in the office and I still recall persuading colleagues to use electronic typewriters. When the first computers came to the office, there was a particular office space allocated to it, with opportunities for us to visit that computer on a daily basis. When I explain this to my children, they look at me in the way that I looked at my grandfather many years ago. So, the world is changing and there will be continuous change. I am particularly pleased that we recognise this and that we can make an effort now to promote the Welsh language in this new world.

I know that there is so much content, apps and software and so on available online and it’s far too easy on occasion for the Welsh language to be invisible in competing for attention with other languages, particularly the English language, and we have to recognise that. When I see my children doing their homework, they are looking online and the internet is available mainly in the English language, and we need to ensure a presence for the Welsh language. The technological market is a global market. In making business cases, major companies favour those languages with many, many speakers in prioritising and choosing which languages they support. We all know that. This means that it’s difficult for the Welsh language to compete for attention on occasion.

I don’t think there’s any disagreement: no-one would have been able to envisage Apple’s Siri, Amazon Echo or Google Home. I’m reading these names and I don’t quite understand always what they are. When I was elected to this place 10 years ago, if someone had told me that Siri would make an appearance in this Chamber today, I wouldn’t have understood what they were talking about. At the moment, Amazon Echo only understands two languages: English and German. Siri apparently can deal with some 20 languages, but Welsh isn’t one of them as of yet, as we’ve seen this afternoon. They’re available today and Welsh-speaking families are living with Amazon Echo in their homes. We must ensure, when we see these new toys, that they are able to work through the medium of Welsh and understand Welsh, because that’s how we can ensure that the Welsh language can remain the language of the home where families do use the language on a daily basis.

But we also know that 65 per cent of the people in world speak more than one language, many being multilingual. As a bilingual nation we have an opportunity and we must ensure that we can use this to our economic benefit in Wales, not just a cultural, linguistic benefit for Wales, but also an economic benefit. How can we ensure that tech industries for the future do benefit from our experience of being a bilingual nation here in Wales? We must ensure that we develop digital resources that are bilingual, available in English and in Welsh, and can do the same thing with other languages too. Once we have learnt how to use two languages—English and Welsh—then I’m sure that there are opportunities to roll that out for other languages and to show that there are different ways of making economic advances from this starting position.

I hope and suppose that we can develop an economic case for investing in large-scale language technology infrastructure, such as voice-to-text technology in Welsh and the ability to translate using machines. Whilst we type into forms today, we will be speaking to our devices more and more in the future. Voice-to-text technology and artificial intelligence—those words were a test for me—through the medium of Welsh are going to be crucially important for the future and this Government understands that challenge. But we also understand that the Welsh Government doesn’t have all of the answers, and the Government has to work with the organisations that you’ve mentioned, such as Canolfan Bedwyr in Bangor. I spoke at a conference in Bangor some months ago. I do appreciate the kind of skills that we have, not just in Bangor, but throughout Wales. When I had an opportunity in Edinburgh to speak to experts there, I learnt that they need that kind of expertise too. So, we can create alternative networks and ensure that the skills and the expertise that we have are things that we can roll out and use to work with others, not just here in Wales, but across the UK and across the world.

The experience of the National Assembly in using Microsoft Translator to translate the Record from one language to another does demonstrate the potential of machine translation for the future. How can we build on that good practice? There is an opportunity for world languages to collaborate—Welsh, Basque, Catalan, Irish and so on—in order to share resources. I will be visiting the Basque Country in a few weeks’ time to learn how they operate through the two languages that they use, and what we can learn from the Government of the Basque Country to ensure that we can collaborate in order to ensure that we add to the resources available to create some critical mass of skills and experience. We need to look at how technology brings communities together and take the Welsh language to new audiences and create communities of interest—from a Welsh-medium Microsoft to global learning communities. It’s an opportunity for us, an opportunity we’ve never had in the past.

Technology allows people to learn Welsh in different ways. For example, the centre for learning Welsh has been working very closely with Duolingo, which is an app that many language learners use. Over half a million people have registered to use the Welsh language Duolingo. I had an opportunity to experience that during the Urdd Eisteddfod a few weeks ago. But this isn’t the only online service. Say Something in Welsh also provides a similar service for learners and has done for many years. So, there is an opportunity to enhance the Welsh language and deepen the experience of using the Welsh language and securing a place for it in the future. I’m very grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer, to everyone who has been involved in this work with the funding that we have been able to provide in the past few years. Some developments have already taken place, but we can’t compete, necessarily, with some of the multinationals in terms of the scale of investment. So, we have to find different ways of investing for the future.

In developing new technologies, how do we prioritise? I think that we have a role as a Government in investing and I am determined to spend time, money and energy in the best way possible. That’s why I have created a group of specialists, the Welsh technology board—those with experience in the field—so that they can provide me with advice to move things forward. We had an excellent meeting at the national library in Aberystwyth last week and I was particularly pleased to see the kind of skills that we have in order to ensure that we have an opportunity to invest our intellect and our creativity in this project for the future. I know that many people are doing important work already and it’s important that we continue to invest. The challenge for me is to ensure that all of these efforts are brought together.

As Minister, I am more than happy to use the influence of Government to ensure that we bring pressure to bear on the large technology companies to make use of the Welsh language, and we will do that too. The digital sphere is an opportunity to think differently and to innovate. We must create a firm digital infrastructure and there’s a centrally important role in creating a stronghold for the Welsh language in the future. Deputy Presiding Officer, I am convinced that if we do collaborate, work with Government and Members in all parts of this Senedd, and work with national institutions and organisations, that we have an opportunity to secure the place of the Welsh language in the future, and a leading role for the Welsh language in the future too.

Thank you. That brings today’s proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 18:57.