Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 3:02 pm on 2 December 2020.
Thank you. Of course, we, as a department, have ensured that we have undertaken a review of the impact of COVID on the Welsh language in our communities, and that will be published in the next fortnight. On top of that, Simon Brooks will be publishing his paper on second homes in the next fortnight. So, the data is there and it’s coming together and it will help us to analyse where we need to target that work.
In terms of what we’re trying to do in practice, one of the things that we’ve been discussing, in particular in working with local government in the round-table last week, is that we’re looking at, for example, procurement processes and how we can do more to use procurement in the public sector to ensure that we do increase the use of that in our communities. We want to mainstream the Welsh language and rural affairs into Welsh Government programmes, so I’ve brought in officials who have responsibility for the economy to ensure that they understand where their responsibilities are in this area. We’re also looking and we’re hoping to follow this ethos of Llwybro and focusing on the themes or specific sectors. I think that another thing that we need to emphasise is the fact that more people are now working from home, and there may be an opportunity there to try and attract more people to live in their home rural communities.