Your Freedom Website

EDM number 440 in 2010-12, proposed by Hywel Williams on 07/07/2010.
Categorised under the topic of Internet and cybercrime.

That this House notes that the Government's Your Freedom website, which is committed to restoring and defending freedom, has been published in English only; believes that freedom includes the right to participate in democratic decision-making in your choice of language; further believes that communities including large numbers of non-native English literates will feel disenfranchised by the failure to acknowledge that the UK is a multilingual country; further notes that fully bilingual websites are the norm in the government and public sector in Wales and that other Government departments have no policy or practical difficulty in providing content in languages other than the English language; expresses concern that this lack of language choice on the website may have been a deliberate policy to restrict access to non-English literates; worries that this policy may be extended in future and that provision for non-English literates may be further limited in future; firmly rejects suggestions that those who are not fluent in written English have no role to play in the nation's democracy; and calls for the website to be re-launched in a multilingual version, including all of the indigenous languages of the UK and the major community languages, so that all people may have the freedom to participate.

This motion has been signed by a total of 4 MPs.