Lawmakers in Wales have proposed new legislation that would punish companies that fail to provide services in both English and Welsh.

The government of the Welsh Assembly will require major firms in areas such as electricity, gas and telecommunications to comply with the regulations, or face fines of up to £5,000 (about $7,500).

All public services, as well as anyone receiving more than £400,000 (about $600,000) in state funding would also have to offer bilingual services.

The new laws would confirm the status of Welsh as an official language of the country, which is part of the United Kingdom.

Not all the suggestions have been well received, however. The proposal would dispense with the Welsh Language Board in favour of a new post of Welsh Language Commissioner.

Liberal Democrat assembly member Eleanor Burnham described the act as "too long, too cumbersome and something of a damp squib," and said the loss of the Welsh Language Board was "worrying."

Campaigners for the preservation of the Welsh language criticized the legislation for not going far enough.

"This measure doesn't affect much of the private sector," Menna Machreth of the Welsh Language Society (Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg) told the BBC. "The assembly doesn't have the powers for shops to be included in this measure, which we've been calling for because they are a massive part of day-to-day lives, and if we want to see the Welsh language as a living language around us, I think the Welsh language should be mainstreamed and pulled into the private sector as well."

About a sixth of the three-million-strong population of Wales speaks Welsh, though the number is declining.

07 March 2010