THE MS for Ynys Môn has called on numerous supermarket chains to have Welsh voices on their self-service tills at their stores in Wales.

Rhun ap Iorwerth, who has held his current position since 2013, initially tweeted Tesco about the issue on Tuesday, September 14.

He later got in touch with Sainsbury’s after Tesco reassured him they working to resolve this.

Mr ap Iorwerth tweeted: “Hi @Tesco. When you introduced Welsh on self-service tills, it was ground-breaking. Commerce giant Tesco spoke Welsh! It started conversations and was powerful.

“Your new system still has Welsh on-screen instructions, but your Welsh voice is lost. Will you find it again? Diolch.”

Tesco replied later on Tuesday saying: “The Welsh audio language was recorded last week. Once this has been checked off and tested, we will get this out to stores. This is being fixed as soon as we can.”

Mr ap Iorwerth said: “This wasn’t as a result of one event, or the visit to one shop in particular. It’s some years since Tesco introduced a Welsh option on their self-service tills, with both on-screen instructions and the audible ‘voice’ being in Welsh.

“I thought it was great, not only because many people like me want to use Welsh interfaces like this, but also because it was another very ‘public’ use of Welsh by Tesco – and hearing a commerce giant ‘speaking Welsh’ in this way is brilliant.

“However, Tesco changed their tills some months ago, and whilst the Welsh option is still available on-screen, the voice you hear is English.

“I’m pleased that Tesco is getting ready to bring back to Welsh voice again, and I would encourage other supermarkets that don’t yet offer a Welsh option, or don’t have an audible option in Welsh, to do so.

“I remember having an official meeting with bosses of Barclays in Cardiff back in the early 1990s, on behalf of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, to push for bilingual cashpoint machines. They said it wasn’t possible.

“We kindly encouraged them to just make it happen, because of course it was possible. And now we’ve had bilingual cash machines for many years. Things change because people make the case for them!”

Tesco was the first supermarket to introduce a Welsh language option on its self-service tills.

A spokesperson for Tesco said: “We have been updating our self-service checkouts to provide an even better user experience for our Welsh customers.

"Part of the project involved recording a new Welsh language voice for the tills.

"Unfortunately, there were unavoidable delays to the recording due to the pandemic, but that work has now been completed and new voice prompts will be rolled out in Welsh stores very soon.”

A Sainsbury's spokesperson added: "Customer feedback is very important to us. We’ve not announced anything yet but will keep our customers updated."