British Sign Language Week

Alison Hume Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jen Craft]

[In British Sign Language: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.] As people will see, we have tried to learn some parliamentary signs ahead of this debate. My hon. Friend is absolutely right—it is a question of accessibility. If someone is a British Sign Language first-language speaker, there are barriers to taking part in this House. There absolutely should not be. This is the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. There are 87,000 BSL first-language speakers and they absolutely deserve their place here as much as hearing people do. Too frequently, Government consultations, including on the national health service 10-year plan and the welfare reform Green Paper, have BSL interpretation as an afterthought, if it exists at all.

In wider society, we need to see a renewed focus on the needs and interests of the deaf community. Some 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents, but support to learn BSL is based on a postcode lottery. Across the country, there is a patchwork of sign language services, with a mix of local authority and third-sector provision. According to research by the National Deaf Children’s Society, almost half of local authorities neither provide, fund nor commission any courses in sign language for families.

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on securing this debate.

In 2023-24, 26 children in north Yorkshire were registered with special educational needs due to a hearing impairment, yet support remains inadequate. To show my support for them and for the other children here today, I will now sign my name in BSL. [In British Sign Language: Alison.] Does my hon. Friend agree that deaf children need access to fluent signers as teachers?

[Jen Craft]

I completely agree: deaf children need qualified teachers of the deaf. I thank Mrs Smith, who is in the Public Gallery today—an exceptional teacher of the deaf in my constituency. I come back to the point about the patchwork of sign language provision for parents. There is an estimate that the availability of courses has fallen by 34% in certain areas since before the pandemic.

Parents are often told to access support through adult community colleges. While they provide an excellent grounding in BSL, it is usually irrelevant for the kind of conversations that parents need and want to have with their child. For example, my one-year-old daughter did not really have too much interest in how many brothers and sisters I have, what job I want to do or what my favourite colour is, but the signs for “milk”, “mummy”, “daddy”, “play”, “book” and, most importantly, “biscuit” very much caught her attention.

It is also hard for adults who are not naturally adept in learning languages to learn a completely new language in a way that meets their learning needs. I ask the Minister to work with me, the British Deaf Association and the National Deaf Children’s Society to build a pathway to ensure that parents of deaf children have access to relevant BSL lessons no matter where they grow up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on bringing this important debate to Westminster Hall. I will attempt to say [In British Sign Language: Good afternoon] to the members of the public and members of the deaf community who have joined us today.

For more than 150,000 people in the UK, BSL is their first or preferred language. That is 150,000 people who cannot routinely follow debates in this Chamber; 150,000 people who may be unable to read information about how to travel to Westminster or, indeed, anywhere across the UK; and 150,000 people—approximately one in 450 people—whose language has been and continues to be misunderstood and whose communication preferences often go unmet. Their language is misunderstood because BSL, as we have already heard this afternoon, is not a translation of English. Many people do not realise that, but it means that too often service providers believe that they have met the needs of BSL users because they provide webchat or email access to customer services, not understanding that many BSL users may not read English.

The lack of understanding was brought home to me all too clearly a few years ago when I was working for an electricity distribution network. Following engagement with our deaf customers, I recommended that the network introduce video relay access to its customer services. That recommendation was initially met with bewilderment, as customer services had only recently introduced webchat and the view was that the needs of deaf customers were therefore met. After several discussions explaining and re-explaining that BSL is not a translation of English, video relay was introduced to those customer services.

Although a growing number of organisations now provide video relay access to their customer services, many do not. I did a quick check ahead of today’s debate and confirmed that although my constituents in Carlisle and north Cumbria can access their water company by video relay, they cannot access their gas and electricity networks. Considering how vital those utilities are, we need to do more; I will certainly be writing to my local electricity and gas distribution networks after today to urge them to introduce video relay.

British Sign Language is a beautiful language, but its users can face less than beautiful consequences from using it. BSL users can face social exclusion as a direct result of linguistic exclusion. That can negatively affect their employment, education, access to healthcare, and navigation of the justice system and victim support. The concerns that we all have about our public services become doubly concerning when people cannot routinely access information about those services.

That is why the 2022 Act introduced by the former Member for West Lancashire—we have already spoken about it this afternoon—was a major step forward. The requirement to produce a report every three years on the use of BSL by Departments is key to ensuring that Government communications are as inclusive and accessible as possible. I welcome the Labour Government’s commitment to continuing to improve the accessibility of Government communications to the deaf community and BSL users.

In conclusion, I want to share with hon. Members that earlier this week, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) and I took part in an introductory BSL training session specifically for MPs. I urge all colleagues to look out for it if it is offered again.

[Alison Hume]

My big takeaway from the training session that was provided here was that the language is a visual language. Does my hon. Friend agree that we are therefore excluding many of our constituents without realising?

Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation

Alison Hume Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on her powerful opening remarks.

According to the latest figures, there are 7,160 women in Scarborough and Whitby affected by the various Acts that made changes to women’s state pension age. As a candidate standing in Scarborough and Whitby, I pledged to support WASPI women, and as an MP, I rise today to speak for them. I sympathise with their anger and frustration. In her statement to the House in December, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said that most women knew that their state pension age was increasing. That may well have been the case—I have no way of telling—but I have been contacted by so many constituents who have told me that they were not aware of the changes to their state pension age, and the reasons are ones that I think we can all understand.

My constituent Kirsty was living in Spain when the letters were sent from the DWP, so was totally unaware of the pension age increase. Another of my constituents told me that she only heard about the changes through a friend while looking after her dad, who was suffering from dementia.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

As the whole House is probably aware, Women Against State Pension Inequality has received 7,607 requests and raised £132,000 for the judicial review. There are 77,000 WASPI women in Northern Ireland, and 6,000 in my constituency, who want justice. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be in the best interests of the Government and the Minister to meet those women to finally negotiate a satisfactory outcome, avoid the costs of a judicial review, and ensure that justice can be given to the WASPI women, who richly deserve it?

[Alison Hume]

As always, the hon. Member makes a powerful point for his constituents, and I support his wider call for the Government to think again.

Returning to my constituent who was looking after her father who suffered from dementia, had she been aware of the changes she would have increased her personal pension contribution and saved more money to enable her to retire sooner to look after her dad, who has since passed away. The carer’s allowance was simply not enough to live on and pay for food and other essential bills. Her experience caring for an elderly parent is very common among women in their 50s and 60s; I have been there myself. It is extremely likely that many other women in that situation will have been preoccupied with coping with the day-to-day challenges that carers face and will not have known about the change to their state pension age.

Another constituent of mine had to sell her home of 36 years after she lost her husband, as she had planned for the future under the impression that she would receive her state pension at 60. Obviously, she acknowledges that even without the changes there is no guarantee that she could have remained in her home, but all the calculations that she and her husband did indicated that she would be all right. Many others had to work longer than they had anticipated or dip into their life savings and change their retirement plans after years of working hard and looking forward to life beyond work.

I acknowledge the action that the Government are taking to tackle the long-standing problems with carer’s allowance, which previous Governments failed to address. The increase in the state pension this April will make a tangible difference to the lives of many women in Scarborough and Whitby. I also acknowledge that the previous Government failed to set aside a single penny for compensation, and left behind a black hole in the public finances, which I appreciate constrains the ability of this Government to offer compensation.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the implicit argument of Ministers in this debate—that they would rather spend the money on other issues—is producing an incredibly slippery slope when it comes to delivering justice for Government maladministration? Does she agree that it gives the impression that we might be moving towards a situation where we means test justice?

[Alison Hume]

It is important that as a Labour Government we recognise the impact on people, including my constituents, of the DWP’s failure to communicate the change effectively. I urge the Minister to look again at giving compensation that will, in some way, acknowledge that WASPI women have lost out on so much more than money.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Hume Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

Yes, we have already met Kim McGuinness, on 19 September, when she set out the actions she is already taking. Let me say to Members on both sides of the House that our strategy will be out in the spring, but we will not be waiting until then to act. Nationally, we have put £421 million into the household support fund to help the poorest families, and mayors such as Kim McGuinness are doing amazing work: they are working with schools to ensure that people claim the benefits to which they are entitled, and, crucially, working with businesses to help them to do all that they can to tackle in-work poverty and ensure that working families receive the money for those children.

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

15. What steps she is taking to tackle carer’s allowance overpayments.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

16. What steps she is taking to tackle carer’s allowance overpayments.

[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

The work of unpaid carers is vital and often heroic, and we are determined to give them the support that they need. We are currently looking at options for tackling the problem of overpayments, including the possible introduction of a text message alert service.

[Alison Hume]

Carers make incredible sacrifices to care for loved ones, but they can be left deep in debt as a result of repaying the allowance after unintentionally breaching the qualifying rules. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we, as a society, have a duty of care to carers, and can he say more about the progress that the Government are making in overhauling carer’s allowance and addressing the earnings cliff edge?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I agree that we need to support carers properly. We want to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong with these overpayments and why so many people have been caught out. We have been piloting the introduction of a text message service, as I have mentioned, which has involved texting 3,500 claimants to alert them when His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs informs the DWP that they have breached the current earnings limit. We are currently looking at the results, and if they are positive, that will be the first step towards addressing the overpayments problem. We will need to do more, but it will be a good first step.