Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:40 pm on 11 January 2023.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 2:40, 11 January 2023

(Translated)

Well, local councils have legal requirements in that context of course. So, there is already a system in place to ensure that standards are complied with locally. So, that's already in place, so people do have rights, and those rights should be implemented. One of the things that we've been doing as a Government—and he mentioned that question of face-to-face meetings and online meetings—we've been working as a Government to support innovation in that area, so that we can ensure the broadest range possible of ways of holding meetings where the Welsh language is a core part of that. So, recently, we've taken forward work with Microsoft so that there's now functionality in Teams, as there was in Zoom—and lots of public bodies do use Teams rather than Zoom—and it's now possible to have interpretation through Teams. And this is the first place in the world that this has happened. And in light of our work with Microsoft, any international organisation working bilingually, in any part of the world, will now be able to take advantage of that flexibility. So, digital innovation to ensure that a range of meetings can happen is a very important part of expanding use in people's daily lives in the way they live now.