6. Will the First Minister make a statement on actively promoting the use of the Welsh language in the delivery of public services? OAQ54109

I thank Helen Mary Jones for that. Welsh language standards provide the basis from which the use of the Welsh language in public services can be extended. One hundred and twenty-five bodies are currently covered by those standards.

I'm grateful to the First Minister for his answer. In the context of the debate that we held around these matters last week in the Chamber, I'd like to invite the First Minister to put on record his very clear understanding that in healthcare and social care the provision of services through the medium of Welsh is not just about people accessing their language rights, it also leads to better clinical outcomes—people get better faster—and this is particularly true of some of our most vulnerable citizens like older persons with dementia.

Given that 90 per cent of our healthcare happens in the primary sector, does the First Minister accept that his Government now needs to be more ambitious in terms of what is expected from primary sector providers, accepting that many of those are independent providers and that his Government's relationship with them is somewhat different from the relationship with the health boards? And could he undertake today to perhaps have a further conversation with the Minister for health and  the Minister for the Welsh language to see if there's anything that can be done to accelerate the provision of primary care through the medium of Welsh for all those patients in Wales who want it, wherever they live?

Llywydd, I'm very pleased to put on record my belief that the provision of services through the language that the user feels most familiar with has not simply a benefit in terms of our wish to see an extension of the Welsh language, but in the field of health and social care, it also has an impact on the quality of the service that is provided. And we've discussed here many times on the floor of this Assembly how important that is, for example, in psychiatric care, where to have to force your thoughts and feelings through a language that is not the one you would normally use adds a different level of difficulty to the diagnostic outcomes for that patient. So, I'm very happy to put that on record. 

I believe that the standards that were agreed last week are a significant step forward in primary care. Helen Mary Jones is quite right to say we don't have the same direct relationship; these are contractor professions. We have to use persuasion as well as other methods to bring our colleagues on this journey with us, and we want to do more to encourage and support those practices that recognise the importance of linguistically sensitive services. But can I just add one other thing to what Helen Mary Jones said? The last report of the Welsh Language Commissioner also says that we have a task to do with users, because not everybody who is able to use the Welsh language chooses to use a Welsh language service when it is available, and there's more for us to do in trying to understand why that might be. Is it a lack of information, is it a lack of confidence, is it a lack of experience of using the Welsh language in those sorts of contexts? So, as we expand the range of services available through the medium of Welsh, so we need to work with Welsh speakers to make sure that they are confident to take those opportunities that are available to them, and then we will create a benign cycle in which the demand for services will grow, the provision of services will grow alongside it, and we will see the sorts of outcomes that were implicit in Helen Mary Jones's question.