Thank you, Llywydd. It's a pleasure to open the debate on this group and to formally move the four amendments—all four tabled in my name on behalf of Plaid Cymru.

We have four amendments in two sets, 158 and 159, and 165 and 166. The intention of this first set of amendments is to scrap the anomaly in law that means that returning officers, or acting returning officers, are not subject to any legal responsibilities in relation to the Welsh language, although their work, in the view of any normal person, would be seen as an integral part of the work of local government, which is subject to clear expectations on the use of the Welsh language under the standards. 

The intention of the second set of amendments is to ensure that any corporate joint committee newly created or established would be required to comply with Welsh language standards, so we would ensure that compliance from the very outset and that the Welsh Language Commissioner can impose standards on them. Accepting these amendments would add returning officers and the corporate joint committees to the Schedules in the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, and would add them to the most relevant set of regulations in this case, namely the Welsh Language Standards (No. 1) Regulations 2015, passed by the Senedd for local government bodies back in 2015. That, in turn, would allow the commissioner to do his work in imposing the most appropriate standards.

The amendments have been drafted in exactly the same way that has been accepted by Government already as an entirely appropriate way of adding bodies and organisations to the standards. The Government supported this approach of taking advantage of a piece of primary legislation as a vehicle to introduce standards in the case of the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Bill and the Health and Social Care (Quality and Engagement) (Wales) Bill, leading to adding, first of all, the ombudsman and the citizen voice body to standards as a result of that. The Government has also mentioned, on a number of occasions during this Senedd, the limitations on its legislative capacity that prevent it from introducing further standards and creating more rights for service users and Welsh speakers. But the Government has said that it remains an ambition for it to see more bodies subject to standards. Therefore, there is an opportunity on a plate here to do that today, and I do hope that I've done you a favour as a Government, by saving some of your capacity by introducing the standards on your behalf. And I look forward to hearing the Minister confirming, therefore, in response to the debate, that the Government will support these amendments.

The need for action is clear, but don't take my word for that. The Welsh Language Commissioner has published a number of reports and has said to Senedd committees on a number of occasions that Welsh speakers have difficulty in seeking simple services, such as Welsh-language forms, and that the Welsh language is often treated less favourably than the English language in presenting the results of elections. 'Inadequate' was the description of the use of the Welsh language in the 2016 Assembly elections, according to the commissioner at that time. It makes no sense that returning officers and acting returning officers who, more often than not, are local authority officials and use local authority resources and are remunerated by local authorities, but are not subject to the same duties as that very same local authority in this aspect of their work.

And it's a concern for the commissioner too, the number of new important national organisations that will be created and that the Government will place standards on in some time. Some are still waiting for this to be addressed. We can't allow the corporate joint committees, given the significant role that they could play in the lives of the people of Wales, to be the latest addition to that lengthy list of bodies that have been forgotten. The Minister suggested at Stage 2 that her intention was to use the regulations establishing the committees to impose requirements in terms of the Welsh language, but there is a question mark as to the ability of the commissioner to set and monitor standards through that approach. These amendments are a more appropriate, clear way of introducing that aim. Thank you.