Questions now from the party spokespeople. Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Siân Gwenllian.

Thank you, Llywydd. Five years ago, I represented Gwynedd Council on the Cartrefi Cymunedol Gwynedd board, which is the housing association responsible for managing over 6,300 homes in Gwynedd. The majority of the staff of the organisation are Welsh speakers, the Welsh language is a language of the majority of the population served by this organisation, and the headquarters is in one of the strongholds of the Welsh language. The body is committed to maintaining the practice of administering internally through the medium of Welsh and making the ability to communicate through the medium of Welsh a key skill for all posts in order to implement that.

In 2014, the board decided, contrary to the advice of the Welsh Language Commissioner, and contrary to the language scheme of the body, to appoint to two senior posts within the organisation without requiring Welsh language skills, and that was by a recruitment agency from Leamington Spa. There is a consensus in favour of internal administration through the medium of Welsh in the public sector in Gwynedd, and it’s a matter of social justice that Welsh should be maintained as the language of work, and a living language, in this part of the world. As I saw all of that being under threat back in 2014, I resigned from the board.

Now, it’s become apparent that this body once again is recruiting senior officials, with the assistance of an agency from Birmingham this time. And the post of deputy chief executive, with a salary of £105,000, has been advertised without any requirement in terms of the ability to communicate through the medium of Welsh, only an 'understanding' of Welsh and the culture of north Wales, whatever that means.

You have three questions. Will you ask one of them relatively quickly, please?

Will you intervene to ensure that one of the cornerstones of your million Welsh speakers strategy, in terms of the workforce, is maintained, by sending a public letter to urge Cartrefi Cymunedol Gwynedd to reconsider?

I think this a very sensitive subject, and I think we need to be careful that we don’t close the opportunity to enable more people to have the opportunity to learn Welsh. I think that if there is a commitment to learn Welsh when they come into post, then we should be encouraging that as well. So, I do think that we have to take the opportunity to ensure that we don’t discriminate too much against people who sometimes perhaps have the correct skills in terms of developing housing, but don’t have the linguistic skills that you consider so essential.

The job description doesn’t even mention learning Welsh; it doesn’t mention that it’s desirable, it’s only an 'understanding'—however you interpret that. The truth of the matter is that you do have powers to impose standards on housing associations. And in 2015, following the original fallout, the Welsh Language Commissioner looked into the whole situation, and came to the conclusion—and I quote from the report drawn up at that time—that

'This case has clearly demonstrated that the current procedure of asking providers of social housing to implement voluntary Welsh Language Schemes is not sufficient'.

It was clear at that time, back in 2015, that the Government needed to introduce standards for housing associations. That was four years ago, and this delay means that we are in exactly the same situation now. The work of making draft regulations has been presented to you for housing associations. It is sitting on your desk. So, will you tell us today when we will have standards in place for housing associations?

I think we need to be very careful not to mix both issues. I think we will be moving forward with language schemes—or language standards—for housing associations. I can’t provide you with a clear timetable, because we are in the middle of Brexit and, unfortunately, that is taking up the legislative provision of the Government, and there’s not much left in terms of moving things forward on a legislative basis in other departments. However, we need to be careful that we don’t mix up between standards on language planning within housing associations and saying that everybody within those organisations has to speak Welsh. That is a very big step.

I’ve heard you talk of Brexit in the past as a reason for not recommencing the programme of introducing standards for new organisations. If anything, the threat of Brexit makes it even more of a priority to safeguard our language rights.

You published your action plan for a million Welsh speakers for 2019-20 a few days ago. And this was an opportunity for you to confirm your plans and the action that we should be looking forward to over the next 12 months now that the threat of the Welsh language Bill has been withdrawn. But unfortunately—and you’ve repeated that again today—you’ve shed no light in terms of a timetable for the introduction of more standards. Without doubt, what we’ve experienced today demonstrates that we need them.

I will ask you again: can you give us some idea when workers in Wales and the public can have an assurance about their rights in terms of the Welsh language, and will you commit, therefore, to publishing a timetable for imposing standards on housing associations, as well as all of the remaining sectors, during the summer term, once we’ve returned after recess?

Well, we do intend to proceed with bringing new standards forward. I had a word yesterday with the head of Dŵr Cymru, and made sure that he understands that we intend to move forward with standards in the water sector. That will be the first step and then we will look at other sectors after that.

Conservative spokesperson, Suzy Davies.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. Minister, in your 'Cymraeg 2050' action plan for 2019-20, which was launched last week, you make reference to recommendations made by an independent evaluation of the Cymraeg for Kids programme. I hope you will confirm that you will publish that review at some point soon. How do you anticipate that officials within Cymraeg for Kids will be involved with the developments and revision of the Welsh in education strategic plans, Welsh language fora at a local level, and regional planning for Mudiad Meithrin? How will the child’s voice be heard in this process in accordance with the convention on the rights of the child? May I also ask—? Is there a risk that some councils continue to rely on external groups such as the mentrau iaith in order to comply with their own responsibilities under standards?

Thank you. I think in terms of Cymraeg for Kids, we will be undertaking to understand if that has been a success. And I will undertake to bring the results to you once we have them.

You’re right in terms of the WESPs. What we are trying to do now is to move forward from the steps that we’ve taken in the past to concentrate on schools. There is a strong understanding now that there is a need for us to ensure that children, before they go to school—that we have a strategy for that. Because, of course, that is the way that we get children into school in the first place. I think it is difficult, in terms of very young children, to have the voice of the child in the development of these WESPs, but I want to assure you that we are going to redesign the WESPs activity to ensure that young children—we hope that we focus on that as a route that we would want the councils to follow in the future.

Thank you for that response. I do, of course, accept the fact that very young children can’t contribute much to this process, but, of course, they have parents too who will have their own ideas. And you haven’t answered the question either on how some councils are starting to rely on external groups to help them, as they would put it, with their internal duties and responsibilities. Because it appears to me that too many of them are doing that, rather than trying to generate more capacity within the councils themselves, within their workforce, in relation to the Welsh language.

Just to move on, the action plan also says that the Welsh in Business programme this year will focus on tourism, food and drink and retail, and Wales is often compared in a poor light with Scotland in terms of conveying our tourism offer clearly. We still undervalue our unique selling point, namely that we are a bilingual nation. It differentiates Wales from other parts of the UK in that regard. So, how will your Welsh in Business officials work with businesses that are part of our visitor economy to take advantage of that unique selling point for the benefit of Welsh-speaking communities and as an example to other non-Welsh-speaking tourist areas, where it could be difficult to persuade those in terms of what the Welsh language has to offer?

Thank you. You’re quite right; there is a need to be careful—just to answer the last question—in terms of relying too much on external groups to undertake things relating to the Welsh language. I do think it’s important that we all develop that ability internally, and, of course, councils can learn from each other. Some are further forward than others. We've seen, for example, that North Wales Police have done extraordinary work in developing the Welsh language.

In terms of Welsh in Business, yesterday I spoke with a cross-party group that were asking exactly the same question that you’ve asked now, namely how do we use the fact that we have a unique language to sell our country. What has happened already is that our branding has completely changed recently. We use the Welsh language as part of the international branding so that we do stand out. And, of course, officials who are working on Welsh in Business will be able to provide a lot of support to those who work in the tourism sector. For example, many of them are in restaurants and so forth. We can help them to translate their menus to ensure that they’re able to provide that service through the medium of Welsh, and that makes them stand out, and people like that. Of course, I think there are some areas where that is going to work better than others, but I hope that what we’ll see, as you referred to, is that other people understand and learn from those who are taking those initial steps.

Thank you for that response. I hope that some of this is starting to bear fruit, but I would like to see more progress made in future.

Last month, when I asked you about the Welsh Government translation helpline for small businesses, you told me that much work was being done in this area and that most of that work was being done by the Welsh Government. Your action plan states that there will be a marketing campaign to encourage businesses to use the translation helpline and that the Welsh Government—quote—will collaborate with the Welsh Language Commissioner on this. That’s a new detail since last month. Does that mean that the commissioner will help you to promote the helpline? Because I thought it was the mentrau iaith that were responsible for working with small businesses. Or are you considering transferring the whole responsibility for running this helpline to the commissioner’s office? If so, can you confirm where in the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 the commissioner has the power to provide this service, and how much additional funding will you provide to the new commissioner to meet this new responsibility?

At the moment, what we’re hoping to do is to ensure that that helpline starts within Welsh Government. Of course, that marketing campaign will start soon. But, of course, we do have a new commissioner who has started in post this week, and I do hope that the collaboration between Welsh Government and the commissioner’s office will provide us with an opportunity to ensure that we’re much clearer in terms of who does what in terms of business. I think there is room for us to try and see whether there is a way for us to work together better. I don’t think there’s anything in the Measure that stops the commissioner from entering this field, but what we’ve been concerned about in the past is the fact that the commissioner has been focusing too much, perhaps, on the standards, rather than promoting, and we would hope, in the future, that steps will be taken to go into this field more.

UKIP spokesperson, Gareth Bennett.

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, we've had a couple of debates recently about rugby, which is always an interesting subject. However, the cricket season starts in a week's time, so today I wanted to turn my attention to that. Now, as you'll be aware, Glamorgan have encountered some financial difficulty in recent years. Of course, they agreed a deal with the English cricket board not to host test matches between 2020 and 2024 in exchange for a compensation package that has helped their financial position somewhat. But what can the Welsh Government do to ensure that international cricket is brought to Wales over the next five years and beyond?

Thank you very much for the question, and, indeed, I am a Glamorgan supporter, since I was first taken to St Helen's, not quite understanding what was going on there, about five years old at the time. What I will do is I will undertake to have a meeting with Cricket Wales and a discussion with the Glamorgan cricket club, and I will have an opportunity to do that fairly soon as the season is starting. But I will also undertake, if necessary, to meet formally with the England and Wales Cricket Board, in relation to the decisions made about test matches, because I appreciate the value of such events to Cardiff and the important status of Sophia Gardens as the national home of cricket in Wales.

Yes. Thanks very much for that commitment, Minister, and I'm sure meeting with the English cricket board would be a good idea, and I look forward to a positive outcome from that.

I note that, in 2018-19, the Welsh Government allocated £600,000 to Cricket Wales to support both community and high-performance cricket across Wales. Of course, the popularity of cricket has grown amongst people of all ages in recent years, but particularly amongst young people. I see from Cricket Wales's board minutes that a number of the board members have been working with Glamorgan cricket club to progress various initiatives, with the focus on increasing the number of people involved in cricket from the current figure of 20,000 to 40,000, which is an ambitious target. Can you tell us a little more about what Cricket Wales is doing to help develop the sport at grass-roots level, and do you think this target of doubling the number of people involved in cricket can be achieved?

Well, I hope it can. Obviously, it's a matter of timescale, but, again, I will ensure that, in my future discussions with Cricket Wales this season, I will ask them for a clearer indication of the likely implementation of such a target. As far as I'm concerned, it's always important to increase the spread of interest in sport. We have our major sports, which are no longer limited to the traditional seasons in terms of football and rugby football and netball, which is an increasingly important sport, and I look forward very much this week to the international women's football event, in which I shall be supporting the Welsh women's team at Rodney Parade in Newport, which has become their traditional venue. But I will make sure that, when I have these discussions, I will ensure that the role of cricket, and indeed the role of, potentially, other summer sports, will be matters that I will discuss, and through Sport Wales, of course.

Yes, of course. It's important to foster interest in many sports, and I'm sure we all wish the Welsh women's team well in their endeavours.

The ECB have recently announced a new city-based T20 competition, if I can return to the cricket subject. It is good to see that Cardiff is one of the host venues. One of the problems I think Glamorgan have in appealing to people from all across Wales, though, is that the majority of the games are played now at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff. I know that there are efforts by Glamorgan to take games around the country. They do have their outgrounds in St Helen's, where, of course, you began watching Glamorgan, as you stated earlier, and also Colwyn Bay, where they play county games. What do you think the Welsh Government can do to ensure that cricket in Wales is brought to a wider audience, not just in terms of numbers, but geographically as well?

I certainly endorse the importance of geographical spread, and, again, clearly, I am a regular attender when there are Glamorgan matches at Llandrillo-yn-Rhos, but I would be the first to admit that that is not an adequate ground, because the boundary, unfortunately, is a bit close to the wicket, to the pitch. But I will ensure that those issues are discussed when I have my discussions with Glamorgan, and I'll take some further advice as to what seems to be commercially possible, without making any immediate commitments as to how we should do that. But, obviously, the geographical distribution of cricket, as indeed the distribution of other sports in the north, brings back the whole question of the future of Parc Eirias, because there are issues here where I think we are missing out on a large audience in the north of Wales, but also a substantial audience that would love to travel from the north-west of England into north Wales for their sport venues.