Thank you very much for the question. The Table Office checks every document that is laid. If a bilingual version has not been provided, a member of staff will get in touch to ask whether there’s one available. According to Standing Order 15.4, documents can be laid in one language if it is not appropriate in the circumstances, or not practically reasonable to provide a bilingual version. The Welsh Government is subject to this Standing Order.

When collating the statistics for the annual report on the Commission’s official languages scheme last year, a substantial proportion of documents laid by the Welsh Government were found not to have been laid bilingually. The majority of these documents were explanatory memoranda, and the reason for not submitting them bilingually according to the Government was because it was not practical to do so. I was not happy with that, and in my capacity as the Commissioner with responsibility for official languages, I wrote to the Business Committee for further guidance. And the Business Committee requested that officials discuss the matter. Assembly Commission officials met with Welsh Government officials in March. During the meeting, they discussed how the Welsh Government could improve the number of documents laid bilingually, and the possibility of setting targets for this increase, with the aim, ultimately, of laying all their documents bilingually.