It's also very encouraging to note, in her report, the positive public debate that still persists. Eight-five per cent believe that the Welsh language is something to be proud of, and 76 per cent of Welsh speakers agree that public organisations are improving their Welsh language services. I think that is very encouraging. Also as encouraging is the fact that 68 per cent of people would like to see Welsh being used by supermarkets in Wales, and I strongly endorse that. I think there is no excuse for such large organisations, delivering essential public services, not to be engaging in the spirit of this legislation.401

I think it is important, as we take forward the evolution of our approach, that we set a culture where we are helping organisations to succeed and are not setting in place a series of bureaucratic hurdles that make it difficult for them to comply, where we try to trip them up. I think the commissioner agrees that the current process is overly bureaucratic. The legislation does set out a rather rigid approach which, having spoken to Welsh language officers from different parts of Wales, they themselves are frustrated by. For example, I was quoted the example where, if somebody makes a complaint about a local authority service, for example, the commissioner first has to conduct an investigation into whether she will look into it, which the commissioner's office always does. Therefore, this is an unnecessary part of the process; they could go straight into the investigation.402

So, I think having the benefit of experience of this legislation, there is much we can do to use resources more efficiently and to build goodwill in the process, because there's no doubt that some backs have been got up in local authorities in particular.403

I'm encouraged by the number of complaints there have been. There have been relatively few—151 complaints. Of these, 124 were considered to be valid. Now, what we don't know, and what the commissioner was unable to tell the culture commissioner recently, is how many complainants there have been. There may well have been 151 complaints, and there could, of course, have been 151 complainants, but, equally, there could have been a much smaller number of complainants making repeated complaints. So, it would be useful to have some clarity on that. Of those complaints, a third are about correspondence and telephone services, and 32 complaints related to courses offered. So, this does not indicate a massive groundswell of frustration, although, of course, we should take them seriously. So, I think that is positive.404

Just to go on, then, finally, Llywydd, the commissioner herself makes the point that it's in education that the future of achieving this target, of course, is most essential. She notes that four out of five pupils are learning the language at school, which, of course, suggests that 20 per cent of pupils in Wales are not learning the language at school. This is in the context of where it's been the law for over a generation that all pupils in school, under 16, are taught Welsh. So, I think this lightly touched upon figure is pretty staggering, really, within that context, and I think it should alarm us. Not only are a fifth of schoolchildren not being taught Welsh, but the quality and the provision of Welsh amongst those that are being taught Welsh as a second language in schools that are English medium, which obviously remains the significant majority, simply isn't good enough in many cases. It's something Estyn has touched upon, and those of us who visit English-medium schools in our constituencies will be acutely aware of: it is, in many cases, a token effort. And I don't overly criticise schools for this. We are not developing the skills and the environment where enough of an emphasis is being placed on this. We often have children being taught Welsh by teachers who themselves don't speak any Welsh. This, to me, is the generational challenge for us if we are to meet this challenge we've set ourselves.

The commissioner says it's apparent that the growth of Welsh-medium education—. Sorry, she says that Welsh-medium education shouldn't just be—. Apologies, she's saying that the growth of Welsh-medium education is clearly the way forward. But I would say we shouldn't just be seeing this in the context of growth of Welsh-medium schools, because that is to let off the hook the majority of the schools that are tasked, under the current legislation and our current policy environment, to teach children to speak Welsh as an everyday language. That currently is not being done, and that's where I'd like our emphasis to be in the next period. Diolch.