Bay backs botany

The National Botanic Garden of Wales is to receive up to £1.9m extra public money to pay off its debt. The money it receives each year from the assembly government will rise from £150,000 to up to £550,000. Daffodils, apparently, are more important than the language.

Wiki Deddfu

Wiki Deddfu, the brainchild of Plaid Cymru MP Hywel Williams who hopes the new format will encourage discussion of an issue – language legislation, was launched at Westminster yesterday:

Anyone will be able to edit the entries on various aspects of language policy, with the hope that, over time, a consensual picture will emerge.

“I don’t want it to be a site for anoraks, I want some direct opinions from people who are interested,” said Mr Williams.

“I don’t think there has been anything like this before; most legislators think in terms of getting the experts to tell them what to do. This is the other way around, and I would claim it fits our little country better than the expert model.”

As Tomos Livingstone explains, the launch comes as the Assembly Government prepares to ask Westminster to hand over a large chunk of language policy:

The move is the most contentious of the requests from Cardiff Bay under the new bit-by-bit transfer of powers introduced in the Government of Wales Act.

The formal request is due in spring, with the powers – provided MPs vote in favour – handed over later in the year. Ministers in Cardiff Bay would then have a relatively free hand to introduce changes to the law.

Current legislation only obliges the public sector to provide services within the medium of Welsh, and there are constant complaints that the 15-year-old Act is now out of date. But small businesses in particular are resistant to the idea of extending it to the private sector.

The Wiki Deddfu site is the latest effort by politicians to use the internet to provoke policy debate. The Standards Committee must be spitting blood.