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The election stops at the big glass doors of the National Assembly. As the Presiding Officer forcefully reminded AMs in the chamber as business got going again after Easter, there is no election here. The business of legislating, though, never sleeps.

Legislation committee number 2 is currently considering the Welsh Language Measure and today they'll take evidence from the Welsh Language Board, the Royal Mail, and Scottish Power - and it should be a very interesting session. ().

The whispers coming out the Board when the Measure was first unveiled weren't exactly positive and in their written evidence ahead of today's meeting, there's plenty to back that up.

The underlying tension which underpins the debate on the Measure is between the predominantly voluntary system established by the 1993 Act and developed by the Welsh Language Board since and the more regulatory, compulsive approach proposed by the Measure.

The carrot versus the stick, in short.

The government has decided that the way to deliver services in Welsh to those of us who'd choose to have our bills delivered in Welsh, to speak Welsh at the counter in the bank, who choose to use Welsh in work is by ensuring there is a statutory onus on larger private companies - gas, electricity, telecoms and so on - to provide services in Welsh and opportunties to use Welsh. There will be delivery standards they must reach. Rather than give Welsh speakers the right in law to conduct their business in Welsh, as plenty of campaginers argue forcefully they should have done, they've gone for putting a legal onus on companies to provide the services.

The Welsh Language Board and its supporters are fighting a rearguard action here of course. Whatever happens, they're probably on the verge of being consigned to history and replaced with a Commissioner but there are strong indications they're not going to see their cherished voluntary and promotional approach cast aside without a fight.

Consider this quote from their evidence: "Will tensions arise between the compulsory functions (which are much more stringent than the Board's current regulatory functions) and the Commissioner's promotional functions? Would it not be preferable to consider a model in which the Commissioner acts as an advocate for the speakers of Welsh, and engages in regulation only when there is non-compliance in the context of Welsh Language Schemes?"

Or, put more simply, the system ain't broke - so why are you fixing it?

They continue, "We do not believe that the culture of Central Government is apposite to engage in language promotion. We have already referred to the risks of conflict if both the promotional and compulsory functions are given to the Commissioner. A further option, therefore, would be to bestow the promotional functions on a separate body."

Some sort of ... Welsh Language Board, perhaps? They're certainly not going down without a fight.

All of this is, of course, philosophical, and somewhat inside the Beltway. What about the real world? Enter stage right, Scottish Power.

The Measure as proposed, is very, very coy about costs to business. In the Regulatory Impact Assessment published alongside it, the Assembly Government says that it will be impossible to predict costs until after the measure is published and implemented.

This is because only once the Measure is passed will powers be given to a new Commissioner to set those Welsh language delivery standards for organisations that fall under the scope of the new legislation. Only then, the Government argues, can the costs be properly evaluated.

What Scottish Power will tell the committee today is going to put that into some very sharp focus indeed. Scottish Power set out very clearly what they're currently doing under a voluntary system, which includes bilingual billing and customer relations. But, they say, a significant - and statutory - extension of their Welsh language provision could have set up costs of around £1.5m plus ongoing costs of more than half a million a year. These costs, they say, would inevitably need to be reflected in tariffs.

Should the standards be "reasonable", the company argues, then they could be mitigated for a modest cost, and wouldn't adversely affect their ability to provide an efficient and good value service in Wales.

However, they say, "there are some scenarios which could lead to many hundreds of thousands of pounds of costs associated with administrative changes, particularly within our Energy Retail business, due to the complexity of the systems that manage customer contact.

"It is possible that requirements for some of these services could be set at a level which would make the cost of provision disproportionate. Such requirements could constitute a significant undertaking, affecting all business systems, and potentially our ability to provide our customers with a consistent level of service."

Although Scottish Power's approach is much more nuts and bolts than the Welsh Language Board, the feeling from their evidence in today's session is very similar - we don't think anything is broken, and we don't quite understand why you're trying to fix it.

And that's the hurdle this Measure is going to have to get over as it makes its way through the scrutiny process. While plenty are willing it on its way, afraid it's already been weakened by too many compromises, others will come to Cardiff Bay and ask what is the philosophical justification for moving from a voluntary system to a statutory one.

For those giving evidence to the committee today, it's fairly clear that this case is far from being made.

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