UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 348-iii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

WELSH AFFAIRS Committee

The Proposed National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Welsh language) Order 2009

MONday 20 APRIL 2009

MR BERNAT JOAN I MARÍ AND MR JORDI BOSCH I GARCIA

MR TONY DICICCO, MS SARA VAUGHAN AND MR MATT ROGERSON

Evidence heard in Public Questions 186 - 286

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Welsh Affairs Committee

on Monday 20 April 2009

Members present

Dr Hywel Francis, in the Chair

Mr David Jones

Alun Michael

Albert Owen

Hywel Williams

Mark Williams

________________

Memorandum submitted by Government of Catalonia

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Mr Bernat Joan i Marí, Secretary for Language Policy, and Mr Jordi Bosch i Garcia, Secretary for Telecommunications, Government of Catalonia, gave evidence.

Q186 Chairman: Croeso, welcome to the Welsh Affairs Committee. We give a warm welcome to you today for agreeing to come here to assist us in the examination of the Welsh Language Legislative Competence Order from the Welsh Assembly. Before we begin, could you introduce yourselves for the record, please?

Mr Joan i Marí: I am Bernat Joan, Secretary for Language Policy of the Catalonian Government and a former member of the European Parliament. (Through an interpreter): The welcome was in Welsh I think!

Mr Bosch i Garcia: My name is Jordi Bosch. I am Secretary for Telecommunications and Information Society of the Catalan Government. Thank you very much for inviting us.

Q187 Chairman: Thank you very much. The Welsh Affairs Committee visited your country recently and we gained a great deal of information when we met with representatives of your government and various representatives of the creative industries. Can I begin by asking you a very straightforward question: how effective has legislation in Catalonia been in ensuring that citizens are able to live their lives bilingually or in whichever language they wish to use?

Mr Joan i Marí: We have in Catalonia two official languages, as you know: Catalan and Spanish. Citizens are allowed to act in their lives publicly and privately in each language according to their wishes. The aim of the Catalan Government is to assure the possibility to act normally in one or another language, and the capability to do it. It means that everybody is allowed to do it and that the government has to provide the services in both languages.

Q188 Chairman: Generally speaking is the legislation you have in Catalonia supported by the public and businesses?

Mr Joan i Marí: Yes, I think so, and I am sure that day by day that is clearer, because we have been looking for consensus always before improving legislation. I mean, we have operated in a proactive way with the public sector because there are rights for the citizens as consumers; but not only for this reason but because there is also an opportunity for this public sector. When we act with them we try first of all to find consensus, to find agreement with enterprises, with all the sectors, and afterwards then we operate in our language policy.

Q189 Alun Michael: Accepting the value of seeking consensus first, there are always some people, some organisations, that do not want to be part of a consensus. What sanctions or measures are applied to ensure there is compliance, and how effective have you found these to be?

Mr Joan i Marí: Of course, when you have a law there are penalties for those that do not allow this law, to accord with this law. But in our case we prefer to put the accent on the facilities. We never penalise someone who does not offer services in Catalan, never, in the first step; but we always provide the means to do it in Catalan. We have improved many, many kinds of means. We have automatic translators, we have courses of Catalan online; we have correctors via computers, and we have direct assessment to enterprises. We directly operate with them. It makes possible avoiding these sanctions. This is our policy.

Q190 Alun Michael: Are you saying that you have never had to use the sanctions?

Mr Joan i Marí: In less than 1% of cases where someone announces that this person has not been able to use Catalan somewhere.

Q191 Alun Michael: I accept entirely that you are talking about a very small number of cases, but that in that less than 1% what sanctions are used and how are they applied?

Mr Joan i Marí: Some economic sanctions, but usually they are not so important, and usually we do not arrive to the sanction. That is the rule.

Q192 Mr Jones: You mentioned that both Catalan and Spanish have official status in Catalonia. How are those official statuses governed? Is there an individual, a commissioner or some other official who is responsible for administering that official status?

Mr Joan i Marí: A secretary of the government, and that is myself.

Q193 Mr Jones: So you have responsibility in respect of both languages!

Mr Joan i Marí: Yes, in respect of both languages and on language policy in general, also language competences of people. We want to have citizens able to speak three languages or more, and it means that everybody has to know Catalan, Spanish, usually English, and if possible one language more. It is the individual package of language for each one. Our responsibility is to act on the capability of speaking several languages of the whole population of Catalonia.

Q194 Mark Williams: You touched on the issue of enterprise and how you have relied on the approach of consensus and collaboration, but in your submission you talked about a legal framework in place. To what extent legally is private enterprise obliged to provide bilingual services in Catalonia?

Mr Joan i Marí: We have made a difference according to enterprises, because it is not the same when an enterprise is very small, less than five people. Another thing is medium enterprise - and another thing a big enterprise. To provide services in Catalan for a small enterprise is different than if the enterprise is a big one. We put the stress on the fact that only big ones have to have the services in Catalan. There are no sanctions usually, never, for small enterprises, because we prioritise helping them and have a proactive attitude. We have to make possible the compatibility of language rights of our citizens, because Catalan and Spanish are both official and then citizens have the right, as consumers, to have services in one language or in another as they wish. We have also the responsibility of dealing with enterprises and not disturbing their usual way. Then especially with the small and medium enterprises we have a proactive policy of helping them in order to provide services.

Q195 Mark Williams: So the definition you are using in terms of the applicability of the rules and whether you are using a more robust legal approach or collaboration is based on the number of employees per company; or would it be an issue of how much those companies are in receipt of public grants?

Mr Joan i Marí: It is one of the criteria, number of employees. Then we have to think also about people to whom the service is given. It is not the same as, for example, a private school; then put a kind of office about investing. This is one of the essential public services with a high social and direct value; then Catalan is to be there, necessary, and if not we can have a little bit more flexibility. Citizens as consumers have the right to have services in Catalan.

Q196 Mark Williams: Again, notwithstanding what you have said about the flexibility of your approach, how specific is the legal framework in terms of inclusion, the legal framework that governs it?

Mr Joan i Marí: There are concrete points attending to this fact. I think you have it. You asked for a brief summary of the legislative framework and we have provided you. I think you can concrete these main issues on this framework.

Q197 Hywel Williams: Thank you for your submissions, which are very substantial. Can you tell the Committee a little bit about the services that you provide to businesses in order to enable them to provide services to the public? I was very interested in the section entitled Tools and Resources for Communication of the Optimo Service.

Mr Joan i Marí: I think we have to answer both because it is a little bit wide, and I think it is very interesting, this question, because you give us the opportunity to speak about what is our language policy. First of all, we act as providers of knowledge of Catalan in the lifelong learning framework. It means we teach Catalan to adults through the consortium for language use. This year we have 111,000 pupils in Catalonia. We provide courses for instance in restaurants and in hotels just to teach people who work in these enterprises, without any charge for the enterprises - paid by the government. We have 22 centres for language use all around Catalonia, all around the territory, and all the enterprises can go to these centres and ask for our services. It means if one enterprise wants to have its documentation in Catalan and it is not sure that their Catalan is so good to make the documents, they can go to us and we provide this service. As I said, we have automatic translators. We have courses online and all these technological means. We also have a network of workers for our language centres that work directly with the enterprises, at least one for each centre. It means that a great amount of our workers in the secretariat for language policies are at the service of the enterprises, and through technology also.

Mr Bosch i Garcia: From our responsible point of view this is a telecommunications and information society. We take everything including the Catalan language into IT devices or new technologies. We are working basically in three areas. The first area is to make demand visible. We are showing companies that Catalan is a business opportunity. Catalan is a way of differentiating their products in the Catalan market and we are showing manufacturers, big companies, for instance in the telecoms sector - Nokia, Motorola and all the big manufacturers and the main telecoms companies, that there is a demand in Catalonia of having Catalan included in telecommunication mobile telephony devices. As there is a market the first one to provide this service is going to get the market, so we are talking to the companies in terms they understand, not in terms of language by language but in terms of language by money, by business, by market creation. That is the first point. The second point is that we avoid non-visible investments. It could be a policy to invest or to help companies by paying part of the product. It is a policy. It is a second policy, which is making the product cheaper to the final customer - in this case Catalan - but we are not working on these two lines; we are working in distribution channels and we are working in promotion. We are working in showing which products are available in Catalan and meeting demand and offer. So that is where we are investing our money and our efforts. We are also trying in all the segments to convince the leader. If you convince the leader, then the second, the others follow. So we are attracting the key companies in each segment and each market and we incorporate Catalan, but we have also a translation service support for new words. In technology, in the universe every day we are meeting new words, normally all of them in English, and we need to find the right way to translate these words from English or from whatever is the language into Catalan. The service is supported by Mr Bernat Joan. Basically the policies to the enterprises to incorporate Catalan is showing them that including Catalan has a competitive advantage and makes the market bigger and makes Catalan - I think you received this leaflet, and I think this is a take-away of our policies for enterprises.

Q198 Albert Owen: You mentioned earlier on that there was very little need to have sanctions. In regard to the private sector you say it is mostly done on consensus and collaboration, although there is a legal framework. Do you think a purely voluntary approach would work? Why do we need a legal framework if many small companies - if there is little need for sanctions?

Mr Joan i Marí: As much as we try proactively to make Catalan a strong language in the enterprise world, Catalan becomes more and more a positive element for business. Possibly it should not happen if the legislation should be based only on voluntariness. At the beginning of the process it takes more than 25 years, and we have now this year the celebration of 26 years of the first language act, which was just after Franco's death and the starting of the democratic regime. It is nearly 30 years of language policy, and we have the experience that when we only apply voluntariness the feeling is that something local, if you mean some colourful regional issue, but not a real statement. For this reason we have to have normal laws with sanctions.

Q199 Albert Owen: Do you not accept that with so few sanctions used that this facility approach is working?

Mr Joan i Marí: That is it. The approach that is really working is this one. Fortunately, we have in our society an agreed consensus and also in our parliament. I have to say that the competence in language policy is in the Catalan Parliament, and we have a great consensus among the Government and the main party of opposition now. As Secretary of Language Policy, I feel that I have the support of the three parties in the government but also the main party of opposition, and only less than 10% of the parliament does not agree with our language policy. I think in society it is the same.

Mr Bosch i Garcia: From my point of view of course, it is from a more global point of view, but from the telecommunications information society point of view it is very important to have a legal framework; but from the constructive point of view and not from the destructive or pressure point of view. For us it is key to have a legal framework to work with. Once we have this framework, let us talk with big companies what is the right approach for compliance with the law. The approach of course cannot be the same for a big company or a small company. With big companies the best message they understand is not punishment but the fact that it is not because of the law but because of the business that they can make happen, so it is a win/win combination; you get more money from the Catalan market is the first point, and the second point is that you are in compliance with the law. It cannot be the other way round. At the same time it is not a good approach to talk to the companies that we have a law frame that we need to talk about. You can tell that the first time and after this you keep this in the folder; if you start discussing it, then what is the right approach to get into what you want - companies make more money and from the Catalan point of view make Catalan usage more universal in the information society.

Q200 Albert Owen: Moving on to the Welsh proposed Order, it lists categories of bodies which have a duty in the future, rather than listing actual companies and categories themselves. Do you think that needs greater clarification? Does it need to be clearer whom this applies to in the private sector in particular?

Mr Bosch i Garcia: I do not understand the question.

Q201 Albert Owen: The order lists categories rather than individual specific groups of businesses. Do you think there needs to be greater clarification as to who it applies to, rather than say a company that receives government grants will have to have it; or do you think it is sufficient? Do you think we need to have greater clarity?

Mr Joan i Marí: I think, if I am allowed to say, that each place is each place and each government is each government. We try to do the best in our context in our country, and we are sure that you are the best ones to know what has to be done in Wales and the United Kingdom. I would not be so ....

Q202 Hywel Williams: Presumptuous?

Mr Joan i Marí: Yes, presumptuous to tell you what you have to do!

Chairman: That is a very fair and diplomatic answer.

Q203 Albert Owen: I think I might encroach on another question here, but I am saying that the clarity has to be there for companies to understand and to enter into this voluntary consensus that you are talking about. Would you say there has to be greater clarity, or would you just have a broad list?

Mr Joan i Marí: I think clarification is always good in laws. In our experience, we have to learn very much about it because sometimes you improve a law and then you see that many things can be better; and one has to change things, and it is logical. I think it is good to have clarity.

Q204 Mr Jones: I want to ask you another question about the proposed order, but before I do, can you help us by clarifying this? There are over 13 million people in Catalonia in the Catalan region, of whom over 9 million speak Catalan.

Mr Joan i Marí: Yes.

Q205 Mr Jones: Do they speak it fluently; is that fluent speakers?

Mr Joan i Marí: Yes.

Q206 Mr Jones: So about 70% of the Catalan population are fluent speakers of Catalan.

Mr Joan i Marí: Yes, that is it.

Q207 Mr Jones: Just over 11 million understand it, which is by my reckoning over 75% of the population understand it. It is a romance language.

Mr Joan i Marí: Yes.

Q208 Mr Jones: Quite closely related to Castilian, Occitan, Italian, French.

Mr Joan i Marí: Yes.

Q209 Mr Jones: So it is part of the same family of languages. One of the proposals made by the Welsh Assembly is that any laws that might be made under the new proposed order should extend to companies or individuals who receive over £200,000 of public money in any one year; so they would be potentially subject to the Welsh Language Scheme. Do you have any similar provisions in Catalonia, that people who receive certain sums of public money have to comply with language legislation?

Mr Joan i Marí: No. In fact if you want there is something comparable, we have had a very, very strong migration from 2000 until now, more than 1 million people, new citizens in Catalonia - from 2000 until 2008. It means that we have to make an effort to integrate all these newcomers in our society. It means also of course teaching language, having social and linguistic incorporation of them; and we have new competency with new Statute of Autonomy on Migration. One of the conditions to have the act deep-rooted in our society is some knowledge of Catalan. It is not of course - we do not demand them to speak like - but just to have the means of basic communication. It is something that could be comparable.

Q210 Mr Jones: But that is not associated with receipt of public money!

Mr Joan i Marí: No.

Q211 Mr Jones: That is different money; that is associated with the right to enter or settle in Catalonia.

Mr Joan i Marí: No, there is not a rule according with receiving public money.

Q212 Mr Jones: You are very much central to mainland Europe; you have extensive borders not only internally with the rest of Spain but also with France, Andorra and so on. Do you find that your language policies cause any complications or difficulties in relation to people who provide cross-border services?

Mr Joan i Marí: Just the contrary. We have had the opportunity through the fact that we have the same language and our language policy to strengthen our cross-border relations with southern France, and of course with Andorra, which is historical, and also with Sardinia in Italy. It makes very well the euro-Mediterranean relation that we have within Catalonia, and Languedoc Roussillon in France and the Balearic Islands.

Mr Bosch i Garcia: There is one more point. In certain situations it is the opposite. We are supporting our IT sector in Catalonia to develop, and because of the Catalan sector in Catalonia they are developing problems - they have a lot in Catalan but in Spanish they are moving out from Catalonia - this is France or this is Italy or whatever. They have already the bilingual/multilingual concept incorporated into the problems, the localisation of their problems is fast, easy and cheap, so that makes them more competitive for international transactions or going for external markets. So we are requesting companies from outside Catalonia to be in Catalonia, so it means incorporating Catalan to make business, localisation as a business opportunity, as added value. Our Catalan companies are doing that and they are exporting their products using the local languages. I think they would say from this perspective it is not only good but it is more supportive to the companies in cross-border relationships.

Q213 Mr Jones: You mentioned foreign borders but what about internal borders? Have any tensions been caused with Spain as a consequence of your language policy?

Mr Joan i Marí: I think it is favourable also because we have a part of our language territory that is in Aragon and this is a neighbourhood region with three languages, one of them ours. We have the same language with Valencia and the Balearic Islands, which makes it very easy to improve business among us, and we use also normally Spanish, and that is not a problem with the rest of the Spanish. It is an opportunity more than a problem.

Mr Bosch i Garcia: The world is going to a global basis and global life is multilingual, so I think that that is normal in the world. What is not normal is monolingual status, and this is the one that can cause problems within life, but multilingual it is not.

Q214 Mr Jones: I was interested to see that you translated IT expressions from English to Catalan. I do not know whether an English speaker would be so worried about absorbing a foreign word into his language. For example, I learnt from the papers that you sent us that "groggy" - is that a Catalan word? I just wondered why you take the trouble to translate IT expressions into Catalan. I do not think it would have been a problem if it had been the other way round.

Mr Bosch i Garcia: For instance, when you are looking against the digital divide and you are trying all people to use computers, and you have a meeting in front of them something which is external to them - if this is talking to them in their own language they can understand "copy" or "paste" or much more difficult than learning the translating of "copy" and "paste" into Catalan.

Q215 Mr Jones: Those are not technical expressions!

Mr Bosch i Garcia: No, they are not technical expressions, but it is copy for all person in Catalonia who only speak Catalan or Spanish, that is as technical as any physical or nuclear physical term that you can invent.

Q216 Mr Jones: I understand that, but I thought that you meant more technical IT expressions. "Copy and paste" is -----

Mr Bosch i Garcia: No, for this we do not need super experts - but we have super experts for new idiomatic expressions that today do not exist.

Mr Joan i Marí: It should be a very, very interesting subject for our institute, the Termcat, where we regularise the terminology, technical terminology in our language. The issue that you have proposed is the subject of long, long debates among the workers in this institute in order to regularise, because language is alive. It means that it changes, that we have incorporations from other languages, but also we have to regularise it according with the future of our language, as you have done in English, and I suppose as you have done in Welsh, because many words come from other languages, and then you regularise words like "garage" and in Welsh I do not know which word, but it is an adaptability that this institute, the Termcat, is working on.

Mr Jones: What is the Catalan word for a hamburger?

Chairman: I think we need to progress!

Q217 Hywel Williams: Can I add supplementary question, Chair? You have emphasised the commercial opportunity that Catalan provides. There are some companies in Wales that are worried that there might be extra costs in using Welsh. In Catalonia are there companies that have become less viable in Catalonia because of the extra cost of using Catalan?

Mr Joan i Marí: I think this extra cost could be felt as a problem at the beginning because it is logical that when something is changing there is some fright about what is going to happen. Perhaps at the beginning it was this suspicion on companies in Catalonia, but in fact the feeling has changed so much and I am absolutely sure that nowadays no-one avoids Catalonia because of the language, because big companies provide normally services in Catalan - and here we are talking about Microsoft and about these companies that provide all the services in Catalan - Easyjet is another good example of a company that has incorporated the Catalan language without any problem. It means that there are no enterprises that go out of Catalonia or do not come to Catalonia. If you want outside the enterprise world, I could show another example. There is somewhere in some parts of Europe - perhaps not here - the myth that students that go on an Erasmus programme are afraid of coming to Catalonia because of the language. Catalonian universities are the second all around Europe receiving Erasmus programme after English. If we talk about cities, the first one is Florence and the second one is Barcelona. It means that language is not a barrier to come to our country.

Mr Bosch i Garcia: Perception is very important, but do not call it extra cost; let us call it extra investment. It is not the same.

Q218 Hywel Williams: I would say, Chairman, that Barcelona has other attractions apart from the language, as well! Can I ask you about the principle of language legislation in Catalonia? In Wales, the principle is that Welsh and English are treated on the basis of equality, and that has a certain condition to it, which I will not go into. Would you see that as an achievable aim for Wales, and what is your experience of similar provisions in Catalonia?

Mr Joan i Marí: In Catalonia the basis is that we have Catalan and Spanish like official languages. We do not speak usually of co-officiality, but officiality of each one, because documents in only one language are perfectly legal. The reasons of officiality are different and they are stated by our autonomous statute. Catalan is official because it is the language of Catalonia and Spanish is official because it is the official language of Spain. These are the main bases for the officiality of both languages in Catalonia.

Q219 Hywel Williams: We might have a problem in the UK as we have no written constitution and no statement that English is the official language, so how can Welsh be an official language if English is not? That is a real problem that we, as a committee, are exploring. Is the creation of a definition of official status therefore necessary for any legislation, do you think? Is it essential?

Mr Joan i Marí: First of all, if you allow me, I think that sometimes it should be better not having a constitution! For the minority languages it is important, officiality, because the situation is not the same. For the very, very extended languages if you let a language - what happens if the language is everybody, very spoken, then the future is assured; but if it is not a very spoken language, co-existing with another, much more spoken - and that is the case of the Catalan relation to Spanish, but also a case of Welsh in relation to English - then the possibilities of surviving as a leading language are few. We have the idea that in Catalonia to assure equality we have to correct inequalities that have been done by history. We have suffered - that is not the case in the UK, fortunately for you - dictatorships; we have suffered deprivation and so on and so forth. We have thought at the beginning on language policy as a way to correct inequality. I think that this principle can be set for all minority languages. If we do not provide legal instruments for equality, it is sure that in the future only a few languages should survive. In the same way that we work for maintaining biodiversity, we work also for maintaining cultural diversity; and it means language diversity.

Q220 Hywel Williams: Does Catalan have official status in the Balearics and Valencia and Aragon, and also in France; and what is the effect of that?

Mr Joan i Marí: That is very complicated. In Andorra, is the only official language, for this reason; Catalan has been used in the General Assembly in the United Nations for instance. In Andorra it is the only official language; it is an independent state. That is smaller than Ibiza Island, just to compare. It is official with Castilian, with the Spanish, like in Catalonia, in the Balearic Islands and in Valencia, and it is not official until now in Aragon but they are working on a language act for the three languages of Aragon. It is not official in France because of the French constitution, but it is co-official in Perpignan, for instance, in the capital city of Pyrénées Orientales, that is north of Catalonia for us. It is not official in Algeria or in Sardinia where the only official language is Italian in spite of the fact that Sardinia is an autonomous community within Italy. But it is taught in the schools in Sardinia. If we speak of all our territory, we have seven different legislations applicable to Catalan languages.

Q221 Mr Jones: I am interested in the way that the language operates in the business context. I have read the very full memo you sent us. You refer to the Consumer Statute Act as amended by the Language Policy Act, which provides that people who deal with the public must be able to provide services in Catalan to the members of the public, if they so wish; and also standard form contracts that individuals have - and you list the various sectors - with supply companies must be supplied in Catalan if the consumer asks for it. Does that mean that it is only supplied in Catalan if the consumer asks for it, or is it supplied in the natural course?

Mr Joan i Marí: It is according with the wishes of the consumer. If the consumer wants it in Catalan, it is in Catalan. If the consumer wants it in Castilian or Spanish, it is in Spanish.

Q222 Mr Jones: So the consumer would tend not to get bilingual documents. The consumer would get documents in the language of his choice!

Mr Joan i Marí: That is the most common way, but there are also bilingual documents and bilingual services many, many times.

Q223 Mr Jones: Would, for example, a telephone bill or an electricity bill be bilingual or would it be in the language of the choice of the consumer?

Mr Joan i Marí: It could be both, according to the company; you can have bilingual or you can have in the language that you have asked for.

Q224 Mr Jones: But it would be quite possible for the consumer to elect to have it entirely in Catalan or entirely in Castilian?

Mr Joan i Marí: Yes.

Q225 Hywel Williams: Finally there is the question about the right to use Catalan or the right to use Welsh, because in Wales at present we are talking about the freedom to use Welsh rather than the right, and there is a fine distinction. Do you have any feelings on that, whether there should be rights or freedom?

Mr Joan i Marí: As I have told before, I am not going to be so presumptuous to give you research for Wales because you have those who have to do it. I think in our case we have a long way of 30 years of competence for the Catalan Parliament in language policy. We have been working quite a long way. Now we put it in the framework of the rights and perhaps 20 years ago we stressed more the position of freedom because we have not had freedom in Catalan, and that is according with the way that we have been doing it. This is a fact that changes, because history changes and wishes of people change.

Chairman: (The Chairman spoke in Welsh) Can I thank you, on behalf of the Committee for your very comprehensive evidence before this Committee today and the written evidence you provided previously! I must say that you have impressed us all with your confidence and your faith - the words in Welsh are "hyder" and "ffydd".

Memoranda submitted by RWE npower, Virgin Media, E.ON

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Mr Tony Dicicco, Head of Government Relations, RWE Npower, Ms Sara Vaughan, Director of Regulation and Energy Policy, E.ON, and Mr Matt Rogerson, Senior Media Affairs Manager, Virgin Media, gave evidence.

Q226 Chairman: Good afternoon, welcome to the Welsh Affairs Committee. For the record, can you introduce yourselves?

Ms Vaughan: Sara Vaughan, Director of Regulation and Energy Policy in E.ON.

Mr Dicicco: I am Tony Dicicco, Head of Government Relations in RWE npower.

Mr Rogerson: I am Matt Rogerson, Senior Media Affairs Manager at Virgin Media.

Q227 Chairman: Thank you for coming today and thank you for the written evidence that you have provided. Can I begin by asking a single question to each of you: do you support the transfer of legal responsibility for the Welsh Language to the National Assembly?

Mr Dicicco: I think it is a matter for the two assemblies to decide how it should be taken forward. We do not have any views.

Ms Vaughan: I can certainly understand why the Welsh Assembly would wish to take powers in this area, and we think that it is logical that they would wish those powers and that they should have those powers.

Mr Rogerson: I would agree; it is logical that the Welsh Assembly should have those powers.

Chairman: The acoustics are not very good in the room and people behind are straining to hear, so do not be afraid to raise your voices and shout occasionally if we look as though we are not hearing you properly.

Q228 Mr Jones: I was surprised, Mr Rogerson, to hear you say that because I have read the memorandum that your company has submitted, and it appears to be very sceptical and concerned about the transfer of powers to the Assembly.

Mr Rogerson: Our scepticism about the proposed measure comes from the fact that we see very little demand within our customer base for an extension of billing and other customer services in the Welsh language. I speak to a number of people in the company who have been there longer than I have and they do not recall ever having a request for a bill to be sent in Welsh, or a request at our customer service centre to be spoken to in Welsh.

Q229 Mr Jones: Can I widen the question to all three witnesses, please: do you believe there is a need for more legislation on the Welsh language, in the commercial context?

Ms Vaughan: I think it is quite important actually to distinguish between the principle of the transfer of powers to the Welsh Assembly and the question of the need for legislation in itself. We would tend to support Virgin Media's position on this, that we do not see the need for legislation, and we would prefer to continue the voluntary approach to providing the Welsh language that we see currently.

Q230 Mr Jones: Have you read the Draft Order?

Ms Vaughan: I have.

Q231 Mr Jones: Have you read the explanatory memorandum that accompanies it?

Ms Vaughan: Yes.

Q232 Mr Jones: You will know, therefore, that the transfer of competence would be followed by more legislation on the Welsh language; that is the intention of the Welsh Assembly Government.

Ms Vaughan: I understand that, but it is fair to say that at the moment the scope of that legislation, exactly what it says and the obligations that it would put on those who fall within field 20.1 is not clear.

Q233 Mr Jones: Let me just come back to the question: why do you think it is a good idea to transfer competence to the Welsh Assembly?

Ms Vaughan: Because I think it is natural and logical that the Welsh Assembly would wish itself to control the use of the Welsh language within Wales.

Q234 Mr Jones: You expressed concern about more legislation; what would you like to see as an alternative to more legislation?

Ms Vaughan: I believe that the way that the system currently operates with the voluntary provision of Welsh language services works for companies like ours that operate in the Welsh market. I believe there is some scope for some firmer legislation or provision. Clearly, as I say, it is not clear yet what the scope will be, but one could see, for example, the provision of a charter mark scheme whereby companies are accredited to the level of Welsh language provision that they provide.

Q235 Mr Jones: You expressed concern about "the possibility that legislation could lead to disproportionate costs which put at risk our ability to offer competitive services to Welsh customers."

Ms Vaughan: Yes.

Q236 Mr Jones: Is that a concern that the other two witnesses have?

Mr Dicicco: Yes, I would share that concern. At the moment RWE npower offers a very good service to our customers who want to speak to us in a language other than English. We offer a live translation service, where hopefully our customers can speak to us in a second language. Our call centres are based in England. So far we think the arrangements we have made work very well. To date I know of one request where we have had a customer in Wales requesting to speak in Welsh. That is the only request we have had so far.

Q237 Mr Jones: You make the point in your memorandum that you were concerned "that some businesses with a smaller customer base in Wales could be deterred from competing for customers in Wales due to the additional cost burden".

Mr Dicicco: That is true.

Q238 Mr Jones: Is that concern based upon a gut feeling or any other evidence that you have?

Mr Dicicco: Basically, if you change bills, if you make bills either bilingual or you produce bills in a second language, that will increase our costs. At the moment where we make available a bill in, say, large print for our customers, for a bill it is something between £5 and £10 per bill and that is four times a year, so obviously costs start to mount up. Those are the concerns we have in providing additional services to the services we produce now. It might affect our profitability.

Q239 Mr Jones: Well, your profitability -----

Mr Dicicco: Not profitability, competitiveness.

Q240 Mr Jones: Indeed, but presumably you are speaking on behalf of your co; but you said in your memo that you were concerned that other companies might be deterred from entering the Welsh market.

Mr Dicicco: Yes, because we are a very small supplier in Wales. We are not the largest suppliers in Wales, and there are other suppliers of both energy services and other services which might face the same sort of problems that we may have in incurring increased costs, which might affect our competitiveness when we try to compete with some of the more established players.

Q241 Mr Jones: What discussions have each of you had with the Welsh Assembly Government as to the potential impact of the proposed legislation on your businesses?

Mr Dicicco: I actually gave evidence at a session on 31 March at the Welsh Assembly at the committee looking at this Competence Order. I outlined the issues that we might face as a company in Wales if there were onerous legislation.

Q242 Mr Jones: I appreciate you have given evidence to a Welsh Assembly committee, but have you had any discussions with the Assembly Government?

Ms Vaughan: Our trade association, the Energy Retail Association, has met with the heritage Minister on behalf of the industry to discuss the position.

Mr Rogerson: I believe the trade association that represents the telecoms companies has been discussing this.

Q243 Mr Jones: But your company has not.

Mr Rogerson: Not individually.

Q244 Hywel Williams: Mr Dicicco, I speak Welsh but I also speak English adequately, and if I was telephoning your company I do not think I would ask for a translation service; I could speak in English. Did you consider that when you were setting up your live translation service? Most people who speak Welsh also speak English and as a matter of courtesy they tend to speak English.

Mr Dicicco: Given our customer base, most of our customers would possibly prefer to speak English to us than Welsh, given the geographical split of our customers.

Q245 Hywel Williams: I am just concerned that you might be setting up a service which nobody in their right minds would want to use.

Mr Dicicco: that is not the sort of intention of setting the service up. We use the service for a number of languages. Obviously, Polish is a fairly important language for us at the moment, and there are other ethnic minority languages; so we try to make sure that our customers can deal with us on a fair and equitable basis. I would hope there would be no real difference between speaking in English and speaking in Welsh to our call centres.

Q246 Hywel Williams: You said that bills would cost £5 more apiece to produce in large print. Have you made an assessment of the cost of providing bilingual bills over an extended period of time and the initial set-up costs; and, if you have, can you make those figures available?

Mr Dicicco: Those are estimates. I have not gone into any detailed cost calculations, but that is an estimate we looked at in changing the nature of the bill.

Q247 Hywel Williams: Ms Vaughan, have you made an assessment of the costs, initial and long-term, say of providing billing in two languages?

Ms Vaughan: We have not done that. As I mentioned earlier, it is unclear at present what the scope of the order may be. It may be in relation to oral services or in relation to billing or in relation to codes of practice; and it may go further than that - so I am afraid at this stage I cannot offer you any figures.

Q248 Hywel Williams: On the question of principle, you said earlier on that you were in favour of using the voluntary principle. However, Mr Rogerson said he was unaware of anyone requesting services in Welsh. It seems to be peculiar that you are saying on the one hand that nobody seems to want it and that there are voluntary arrangements, and yet you want to persist with those voluntary arrangements, which do not seem to elicit the latent demand that is there.

Ms Vaughan: But would the answer to that be that we withdraw the voluntary service? I do not think that would be the right answer. I completely take your point that a simultaneous translation service of the sort we offer does not pick up somebody who would just prefer to speak in Welsh but can also speak in English. It doers not truly reflect demand for those services; it shows who is the most interested in using them, and that probably would explain why our figures are similar to the ones that Tony has seen, that over the last quarter we have not had the demand.

Q249 Hywel Williams: My question was more a matter of principle; that the voluntary system does not seem to elicit demand and yet you want a voluntary system, which, on your evidence, is manifestly failing to elicit the demand that might be there.

Mr Dicicco: The voluntary system is there for people who speak a number of languages, and I am sure there are people in Wales who do not just want to converse in Welsh and English; there are other languages that they feel more comfortable speaking. We would like to make sure that they are treated as equitably as everyone else.

Q250 Hywel Williams: Welsh and English have a different legal status to Polish or Italian or whatever, and of course the numbers speaking Welsh are infinitely more than those other languages.

Mr Dicicco: Yes.

Q251 Albert Owen: To follow on that line of inquiry, do your companies have a Welsh language scheme? You have all said in your submissions and verbally today that take-up is very low. What are you doing to market the Welsh language service? As Hywel said, he speaks two languages and so do most of my constituents, and if you go on a line that is in English the chances are that they automatically speak English, but if they were told that this service is also available through the medium of Welsh, that would give a choice. Would you mind answering that individually? First, do you have a Welsh language scheme?

Mr Dicicco: We do produce documentation in Welsh as well as English, not just on my side of the business but on the generation side as well. We are a big investor in Wales and we try to build -----

Q252 Albert Owen: Potentially bigger.

Mr Dicicco: Yes, potentially bigger, but it is important to us. We do offer documentation in Welsh.

Ms Vaughan: We do not have a specific Welsh language scheme, no. The scheme that we offer, which is a language line translation service, deals with Welsh and also deals with other languages that our customers may wish to speak.

Mr Rogerson: We do not have a specific Welsh language scheme. The basis on which we would provide a Welsh speaker if it was requested at a call centre is that we would get the number of Welsh speakers that we have got to ring that customer back. It is not marketed in any general sense.

Ms Vaughan: I am sorry, you did ask the question about marketing and I realise I did not answer that question. The availability of translation services, again not specifically Welsh translation services appears in our codes of practice.

Q253 Albert Owen: The market is limited. If I were to receive a bill from either of your companies, E.ON or RWE, it would not say at the bottom "this is also available in Welsh".

Mr Dicicco: I think it does say it can be available in a second language, or services can be in a second language, but we would not specifically -----

Q254 Albert Owen: Even though I had a Welsh address?

Mr Dicicco: No, not at this stage.

Ms Vaughan: I do not believe that those services are available, no.

Q255 Hywel Williams: Can I ask a question to Virgin Media! You, reasonably, have concerns about the costs that might be entailed, but you also say that you already employ some Welsh speakers in your call centre. Would those costs be as great if you just deployed the legitimate occupation and skills that your workers have in a slightly different way?

Mr Dicicco: Our concern around cost is the extent of the scheme; would it go to billing or would we have to change our systems and processes for billing as well as call centres; would our installation teams have to learn a second language so that when they go to customers' homes they have to offer the service in Welsh? That is where the additional costs come in. We do have people within the company that speak Welsh at no extra cost, so that is not where our concern is in terms of cost.

Q256 Hywel Williams: Essentially it is a matter of cost, because I take it that all three companies operate in other countries - in fact I think you all operate in various parts of England, Europe and elsewhere.

Mr Rogerson: We only operate in Gt. Britain.

Q257 Hywel Williams: Do you operate in Ireland?

Mr Rogerson: Northern Ireland, yes.

Mr Dicicco: RWE npower only operates in Gt. Britain.

Ms Vaughan: E.ON UK operates in Gt. Britain; clearly, the EO.N Group operates across Europe.

Q258 Hywel Williams: One of the points that has been made to us by the Welsh Language Board is that there is a lack of consistency in provision, which does not lead, as our Catalan friend said a moment ago, to making the demand visible. The lack of consistency makes the initial approach that the customer might have to, and use English, which they are quite able to use, although they might use Welsh in other circumstances. Do you think that if we had legislation establishing a minimum standard of provision that that might lead to an increase in demand, if everybody knew that at a certain basic level you could have a certain amount of service - perhaps the man who comes to fix whatever it is in your home. Would that elicit a higher demand, do you think?

Ms Vaughan: answering the question as it has been put, absolutely straight; if there were a minimum level of provision, then I suspect it would elicit a higher level of demand, but I was quite struck by what colleagues from Catalonia said about the availability of the provision of language as a differentiating factor. I am sorry, I was not able to check the gentleman's name, but he was painting a picture of a company that came in and took Catalan as its own, moved forward and used that to distinguish itself from its competitors and promote the language; and he saw that as a great benefit to that company and the space that it would occupy. Clearly, that is something that a company could do under current arrangements as well. In a voluntary scheme a company is able to come in and to make the Welsh language available and promote that as its selling point, if you like.

Q259 Hywel Williams: As I said, I think you are having a problem in comparing Wales with Catalonia, in that there are more of them and the commercial advantages are more apparent. Do you have any understanding what you might be expected to provide under any subsequent legislation? I take it you have not, because you said there is a range of possibilities that are more of a disincentive than others.

Ms Vaughan: Yes.

Mr Dicicco: There will be a scale of increased costs that we would face, depending what the provisions are.

Q260 Mark Williams: Turning now specifically to the scope of the order as it is written - and reference has been made to matter 20.1 and your conclusion under (h) in that section - this may be an obvious question, but do you think the services you provide are public services, and on that basis what are your views on the inclusion of your sector specifically? You have voiced your support for the general principle that the Assembly should have control in these areas, but specifically your inclusion in the Order of your sector?

Ms Vaughan: I think, as E.ON, we can answer this question on a number of levels. I do not want to move on to what might be a further question about competition of electricity because the order is clear that it is people providing the public with the following kinds of services, as you say. In electricity production the direct customer is not the general public; it will be the supply company or the purchaser from the production company. So I think there is a question about the appropriateness of the inclusion.

Q261 Mark Williams: You are right; there is a question coming later!

Ms Vaughan: I am sorry about that! In relation to supply companies, supply is a competitive market, and with private companies competing in that market. We believe that the provisions of the competitive market are the better way of encouraging differentiation in the production of services; indeed, in the way I elaborated earlier, it could become an element on which people could compete. The third element is the distribution of electricity through the wires. We have 5,000 connected customers in Wales, and it just slips over the border from the West Midlands area of Wales. There, it comes back to the principle that is enunciated in the memorandum in paragraph 16 about the principle of reasonable and practicable provision of services. Where you have 5,000 customers out of our total distribution of connected customers of 2.4 million, it is a very small percentage. It is 0.1% of our total distribution of customers, and 0.4% of the total of customers in Wales. It is a question of proportionality, which companies you include under the head of claim.

Mr Dicicco: I think I would agree on the competitive side. On the supply side, I think competition is always probably the best means of ensuring that customers get the best service. RWE npower does not have any disbursement assets in Gt. Britain and so we do not face that issue that Sara's company faces.

Mr Rogerson: The only question I have around this is why broadcasting, radio and television are excluded from the scope of the order, given that telecommunications and all these other services are convergent. It seems slightly odd.

Q262 Mark Williams: As it is written at the moment, would you welcome omission of telecommunications?

Mr Rogerson: The services we provide are still non-discretionary. Broadband is no longer a luxury but it is not a utility in the same sense that electricity and water are; so in that sense I would welcome the omission.

Q263 Mark Williams: When you said the Energy Retail Association had discussions on 24 February with the Minister for Heritage, I was rather cheered reading his comments when he said the Energy Retail Association did not have great concerns. He said that by and large the companies that the Energy Retail Association represents are already fulfilling their obligations and provide a good bilingual service. What do you think of that discussion, because there is a mismatch between what we have told of the discussion and what the minister has said, and your feelings this afternoon?

Ms Vaughan: I have not seen the report of that. I do not know if it is something that I should have seen, but I think you have to differentiate between the companies that are larger players which are part of the Energy Retail Association and are larger players, so that would be Manweb and South Wales - and also British Gas, which clearly had a lot of ex-incumbent customers in Wales - and those of us that are much smaller in Wales. We have 90,000 customers in Wales - so that might be the way.

Q264 Mark Williams: The Minister in the Assembly committee - another quote was that the Association does not see any need to be alarmed. That was quite a positive statement from the Minister. I appreciate what you say.

Mr Dicicco: One would hope the ERA would not be alarmed by what potentially would be any legal provision. The Energy Retail Association is a broad church and there are a number of companies that have different interests in Wales to, say, Sara's and my own company.

Q265 Mark Williams: The amendments you would like to see to the list of bodies covered - you have specifically mentioned the differences against your work at 20.1 - quite clearly and simply under section 1 for gas, water and electricity services, but what amendment would you like to see to that in the LCO?

Ms Vaughan: I still cannot see the logic for including production, so I think I would take out production from that list. In relation to supply and disbursement, we would rather not see them in there, as they are private companies and we prefer to continue on a voluntary basis. But it is clear that they do provide services, and ultimately it will be for yourselves to decide which companies are within that scope. There are clearly other bodies that provide services to the public such as the people who come and fill oil tanks and the suppliers of LPG, who provide heat in a very similar way to the way a gas supplier does, for example. It did strike me as a bit of an anomaly that the electricity and gas companies were included and not those other providers of services.

Q266 Mark Williams: Did you have those discussions with the Energy Retail Association when you met with the Minister? Was there a spirited discussion within the broad church?

Ms Vaughan: Apologies - I was not at that meeting.

Mr Dicicco: Nor was I.

Mark Williams: I would be interested to know!

Q267 Mr Jones: Getting back to these discussions you had, your trade associations have been in discussions with the Welsh Heritage Minister. Have you had any discussions with the Welsh Economic Development Minister?

Ms Vaughan: Not to my knowledge. I would have to take the point away to check.

Q268 Mr Jones: I would have thought he was a fairly obvious port of call. What about the Department for business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform here in Whitehall - Victoria Street, to be more precise; have you spoken to them about your concerns?

Ms Vaughan: Again, not to my knowledge; we would have to check that.

Q269 Mr Jones: Do you think it might be a good idea to do so?

Ms Vaughan: Absolutely.

Q270 Mr Jones: What about you, Mr Rogerson, have you spoken to the Welsh Economic Development Minister and your association?

Mr Rogerson: I am not sure whether our trade association has spoken directly to that gentleman, but we are constantly in discussions with BERR and specifically around digital Britain, so this issue has probably come up in those discussions.

Q271 Mr Jones: Whilst I fully understand that the Welsh Heritage Minister has the responsibility for steering this legislation through, you have got different concerns, have you not? You have expressed them very eloquently this afternoon. Your concern is not simply about the Welsh language, but you have economic and business concerns. It seems to me odd that neither of your trade associations seems to have had any discussions with that particular minister either in Cardiff or in London. It is just a thought.

Ms Vaughan: Thank you; we will take that thought away.

Q272 Mr Jones: You touched on it, Ms Vaughan, but other witnesses have also commented on what I think you referred to as an anomaly that the proposed Order relates solely to electricity and gas supply. You have actually commented on this. Given that you identified that as an anomaly, are you saying that these other energy suppliers or LPG and biomass et cetera, should be brought into the ambit of the proposed Order, or that you should be taken out of it?

Ms Vaughan: That is clearly not a matter for me but a matter for yourselves.

Q273 Mr Jones: If you think there is an anomaly, how do you think that anomaly ideally should be addressed?

Ms Vaughan: We believe that the coverage should continue to be voluntary, as it is at present. The logical result of that would be that we would be taken out of the order. I pointed out the anomaly because it is such and it seems strange, particularly when we know that many households in Wales are not connected to the gas main. It was really trying to explore more the underlying reason for the exclusion.

Q274 Mr Jones: So you would like to see electricity taken out of the ambit of the order. Would you, too, Mr Dicicco?

Mr Dicicco: I think I would. As I said before, the competitive market will generally give the best position for customer service because we need to try and keep customers and win new customers, and if by doing that we can offer more services in Welsh or other languages, then we will do that. I do not think we want anything that is mandated because that potentially will increase our costs and make us uncompetitive in a market where we do not have a very large presence.

Q275 Mr Jones: Neither of you, I suppose, as an axe to grind for the gas suppliers, but logic would dictate that you would want gas suppliers taken out of the ambit of the order too!

Ms Vaughan: We are gas suppliers as well.

Q276 Mr Jones: You are! So you do have an axe to grind!

Ms Vaughan: Yes.

Mr Dicicco: We do not supply gas but we supply LPG though.

Q277 Mr Jones: Can we go back to the other point you made about the inclusion of the electricity procedures in the proposed Order because they do not have customer-facing operations. Again, you referred to that as an anomaly in your memorandum. Do I take it on the basis that you would like to have the gas and electricity suppliers taken out of the ambit of the order so that you would wish the electricity producers to be taken out of the ambit of the order?

Ms Vaughan: Yes, that would be correct. I think the justification is slightly different in that they do not supply services direct to the public, and I would certainly suggest that in the case of electricity and gas suppliers.

Q278 Mr Jones: The logical progression from that would be, I guess, that any part of the economy that does not have a customer-facing, consumer-facing operation, be excluded from the ambit of the order. Would you say it is fair to extend the argument to that extent?

Ms Vaughan: No, I do not think that would be my conclusion. I am looking at matter 20.1 as drafted, and clearly matters (a) to (g) are defined within their own scope; (h) has specifically the persons providing the following kinds of services. Forgive me, I am merely looking at it on the basis of the words I have in front of me.

Q279 Alun Michael: We have heard a lot of different views about whether the proposed Order would effectively provide a level playing-field for businesses, and obviously that is something that one hopes the legislation will seek to achieve. What are your views about that?

Mr Dicicco: We are slightly at a disadvantage because we are very small suppliers in Wales. We do not have historical incumbent customers. Some other suppliers in Wales, Scottish Power and Manweb and British Gas, and also south Wales Electricity Board, do have historical customers in Wales and probably have services in place geared up to cater for those, and at the moment we do not.

Ms Vaughan: Whilst you might have less sympathy for us despite our lack of incumbency, you might have more sympathy for a new entrant who is looking to come in to the market and is looking at the whole of England and Wales. The question might be whether the requirement to offer this additional service had any impact on their decision to enter the market. It could have an impact both ways. They might decide that they want to come in and be a niche supplier, supplying Wales and using the Welsh language; but equally the additional costs might be a disincentive.

Mr Rogerson: We would prefer to see providing Welsh in our call centres and billing as differentiated as a value-added service rather than as an across-the-board obligation.

Q280 Alun Michael: Is it not true that most UK companies that seem to expand their businesses go to countries overseas where they have to provide services in two, three, perhaps four languages. As you head to eastern Europe and so on, British companies have been very competitive in moving into those markets. Is it that different?

Ms Vaughan: If we look at the Welsh market currently, coming back to this point that neither my company nor Tony's company are incumbents - although he might have had some incumbent customers, we did not. We have 90,000 customers in Wales and we have won all of those 90,000 customers; we started from a basis of zero. We have gone in with our proposition, which involves a provision of Welsh language services through the translation system that I described to you, and that has obviously been seen as an attractive proposition by those customers who have signed up to us. Nobody compelled them to sign up to us; they had a free choice to do so; and on the basis of price or whatever they found attractive, that is what they have done.

Q281 Alun Michael: I do not think that quite answered the question of whether providing a service in Wales is really as complicated as is suggested, compare to the complications if you intervene in an overseas market.

Mr Dicicco: I suppose it depends which market it is. Perhaps going to Catalonia might not be quite as expensive. I said before that we offer a good service to our customers in Wales, and although we did have a few incumbents through our mains electricity heritage across the border, most of those customers we won from the incumbent suppliers, Swalec and Manweb.

Q282 Alun Michael: Can I put one question specifically to Virgin Media? In the submission you raised concerns about the effect of legislation on the cost of telecommunications services and potential impact on the Government's aims for digital inclusion.

Mr Rogerson: Yes.

Q283 Alun Michael: The Assembly's Minister for Heritage has commented basically that the inclusion of the term "communications sector" in the order is an attempt to future-proof the Order, given the rapid pace of change in this sector, in a sense looking beyond telecommunications to the wider converged media that we are increasingly having to deal with. What is your view of that comment?

Mr Rogerson: The first thing to say is that I do not see the reason for excluding broadcasting, radio or television from the Order. If telecommunications is going to be in the Order, then, as you say, converging services would suggest that they should be included within it. In terms of the point about digital inclusion or exclusion, while broadband is no longer a luxury, there is certainly a split in the market between people who want a low-cost broadband product and a premium broadband product - 50 meg is what we offer; and any additional costs associated with increased costs of operating in Wales because of mandation to bill in Welsh could have the impact of either putting people off signing up for broadband, which still a third of the country does not take broadband - or those people that do have it, because broadband is discretionary they could decide to downgrade or ditch their broadband connection altogether. That is where our concern comes from.

Q284 Alun Michael: You told me specifically about cost, but what would you regard as the impact of the cost on your charges? Have you made any estimate?

Mr Rogerson: No. We are not entirely sure what the Order would dictate. Would it be just bills or when customers speak to call centre operatives? Would it be installers; would they have to learn Welsh as well? Until we know that we cannot know what processes and systems we would have to change. Knowing how much it costs to change processing systems, it would be a significant amount of money, I believe.

Q285 Mr Jones: The supply market is becoming increasingly competitive and people are a lot more inclined to switch these days than they used to be and you do not get the loyalty to one particular supplier. In fact websites such as uSwitch have been set up precisely to encourage people to switch as often as they can. What effect would you see upon that particular flexibility that consumers enjoy these days if an electricity or gas supplier were to be subject to a Welsh language legislative obligation?

Mr Dicicco: It may slant the market in favour of the incumbent suppliers, the old Manweb and Swalec companies, if it increased the costs of smaller suppliers and new entrants into the market in Wales. It may affect competitiveness.

Q286 Mr Jones: Do I infer from that that you are saying some small suppliers would be reluctant to enter the market or accept customers in Wales?

Mr Dicicco: Potentially. It depends on how onerous the provisions were and how costly. We would have to see what they were. That is one of the problems that we think we may face and for the suppliers, new entrants, might face. I share your comment that the electricity and gas markets are very competitive, and rightly so - and that is one of the big successes of privatisation.

Chairman: Thank you all for your attendance today, for the evidence you have given and also for the written evidence. If you feel there are points which we have not covered, we would be very happy to receive a further memorandum from you.