Whitsun Adjournment
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Ian Mearns
Ian Mearns
I have been campaigning with Jim on this very issue. Young people who are deaf can communicate in British sign language, but they are not allowed to take a GCSE examination in their own first language. That is plainly anachronistic and wrong, and the situation needs to be rectified. The Department has been working on this, but if there is some kind of fly in the ointment, it needs to be sorted out quickly. We need to give those young people the opportunity to take an examination in their own language.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman clarify that, when he mentioned who he had been working with, he meant the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick)?
Ian Mearns
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I did indeed mean that I had been doing some work with my hon. Friend.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thought that that was who the hon. Gentleman meant, and I am glad that he has clarified that.