Deafness and Hearing Loss

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered deafness and hearing loss.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr McCabe. I am even more pleased to see that our debate is being interpreted into sign language, which I believe is a parliamentary first; we may be making history, which is great for all of us who are here to participate. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity to introduce the debate, and am very pleased that so many colleagues have been able to join us to contribute to this important discussion. It is good to see the Minister in his place, even though the subject is not exactly in his brief, and I look forward to hearing the winding-up speeches from him and from the Opposition spokespersons.

I place on the record my thanks to the UK Council on Deafness, Action on Hearing Loss, the National Deaf Children’s Society, Deaf Plus, the Adult Cochlear Implant Action Group and Brian Lamb, DeaflympicsGB, Access Bedford, the network Three and the House of Commons Library for their assistance in preparing for the debate. That is a long list, but given that 11 million people across the UK are living with hearing loss, it could have been much longer. The UK Council on Deafness, for example, represents 43 deafness or hearing loss organisations and has produced a collective briefing. I should also declare that I wear two hearing aids of my own and am chair of the all-party group on deafness.

There are too many issues for me to raise personally and it would be unfair not to share the time available as equitably as possible among hon. Members present, so the bulk of my speech, which I have timed at 13 and a half minutes, will focus on three key issues: Access to Work, legal recognition of British Sign Language and the implementation of the national action plan on hearing loss. First, however, I would like to put down a brief marker on several other issues that I do not have time to raise in detail.

I secured an Adjournment debate on cochlear implants in March, in which the then Minister David Mowat advised me that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence would consult on new proposals by the end of the summer. We are still awaiting that consultation, so any information from the Minister would be very welcome.

Requests to improve paediatric audiology services across the country by accrediting them through the IQIPS —improving quality in physiological services—programme have been made for some time. I would welcome an update on any progress on voluntary accreditation or, if that has proved unsatisfactory, on whether the Government have given more thought to making it compulsory.

On Deaflympics, any information from the Minister about discussions between his Department and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on support for our deaf athletes would be very welcome.

On early years intervention, the first three and a half years are critical for the development of listening and spoken language. I would be grateful for any update from the Minister on Government thinking about ensuring that auditory-verbal is put on the patient pathway as a follow-up to the newborn hearing screening.

Finally, I have some positive news about telecommunication services: the briefing from Three shared how it provides services for its deaf or hard-of-hearing customers. I also have some good news from Deaf Plus, whose BSL advice line was shortlisted this week for a national Helplines Partnership award. Well done!

Let me return to my three key issues, beginning with Access to Work. One person in six in the UK—or approximately 11 million people—is living with some form of hearing loss, and estimates show that nearly 90,000 use British Sign Language as their first language. The Government’s Access to Work scheme provides grants to disabled people to enable them to have equal participation in the workforce. It has revolutionised the career opportunities of deaf people, shattering the glass ceiling that had limited them to manual jobs. It has been largely due to Access to Work that deaf people have progressed as far as their talent allows: there are now deaf chief executive officers, deaf Ministry of Justice intermediaries and deaf theatre directors, among other senior professionals.

In March 2015, however, the then Minister for Disabled People, the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), announced that the Government would impose a cap. The cap means that the scheme no longer properly supports those deaf and disabled people for whom support costs are more expensive. For deaf people who are self-employed or entrepreneurs, there is no employer to make up the difference between the award and the need. In a recent written answer, the Department for Work and Pensions indicated that it was unable to state the number of people still in receipt of awards above the cap.

The UK Council on Deafness conducted its own survey to establish the impact of the cap on deaf people. It received 87 responses, including 60 from those who will be capped in April 2018—a high response rate, given that fewer than 200 people were identified in the equality assessment as potentially in that situation. Deaf people tell us that they are already avoiding applying for work in professional, managerial and senior roles that will be capped. The cap on Access to Work awards risks imposing a glass ceiling for deaf and disabled people in their work. Some 46% said that they would not apply for promotions, 20% said they had not applied because they were worried, and 44% said that they would stay with their current employer for as long as possible because they were worried about a new employer.

Will the Government look again at the evidence opposing the cap on Access to Work awards? Do the Government accept that the cap on Access to Work grants is set too low? The Secretary of State amended it from £42,100 to £43,000 in his statement today, but that is still too low. If the Government will not remove the cap, will they consider raising it to a level that provides deaf people with more of the support they need? Finally, have the Government considered that they may inadvertently have created legitimate financial grounds on which employers can discriminate against job applicants who use BSL? I recognise that those are questions mainly for the DWP, but if the Minister cannot respond to them today, I would be grateful if he ensured they were passed on to the appropriate quarter. In answer to my question in the Chamber about an hour ago, the Secretary of State said that the Government were still looking at evidence. I hope that means that the door is still open, because increasing the threshold by £1,000 clearly does not cut it.

In general employment terms, there are hurdles to getting into work for people with hearing loss anyway. In a YouGov survey commissioned by Action on Hearing Loss, 35% of business leaders stated that they did not feel confident about their business employing a person with hearing loss, while 57% agreed that there is a lack of available support or advice for employers about employing people with hearing loss. Access to Work is still the DWP’s best-kept secret: 63% of the business leaders polled had never heard of it.

Let me move on to British Sign Language. BSL is the first or preferred language of more than 80,000 deaf people in the UK, and more than 150,000 people use it at home. In 1987, the British Deaf Association launched a call for the legal recognition of BSL, and in 2003, following extensive lobbying, BSL was officially recognised as a language in its own right by the DWP.

In 2009, the UK Government ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which states that Governments must uphold rights by

“Accepting and facilitating the use of sign languages…in official interactions”

and by

“Recognizing and promoting the use of sign languages.”

Despite formal recognition by the UK Government that BSL is a language in its own right, there has been no further progress towards establishing a legal status for BSL.

In the devolved Administrations, the situation is different. In 2012, a consultation for a British Sign Language Act in Scotland was initiated, culminating in the passing of the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015. In 2017, the Scottish Government published their first BSL national plan. In 2016, a sign language framework consultation was launched in Northern Ireland. Despite those developments, however, there is still no pathway in place for legal recognition of BSL across the UK. With such legal recognition of BSL would come the rights of deaf people, and the benefits for deaf people and for wider society would be far-reaching.

On education, deaf children are 42% less likely to achieve five or more GCSEs at grade C or above than their hearing peers, but there is no reason a deaf child should do any worse than a hearing child. On health, 70% of deaf people who have not been to a GP recently wanted to go but did not, mainly because there was no interpreter available. Deaf people who have been told that they might have high blood pressure are three times more likely than everyone else not to have it under control. Deaf people are almost twice as likely as others to experience mental health issues, which can be exacerbated by social exclusion. A health economics study showed that eliminating poor diagnosis could save the NHS £30 million annually—and it is worth noting that 90% of deaf children are born into hearing families.

The call to Government is that the deaf community want them to acknowledge the benefits of legal recognition of BSL and commit to establishing a UK-wide sign language framework consultation for a UK-wide sign language Act. The British Deaf Association is asking for this consultation process to be led by an appropriate Department whose remit covers language. However, that is another major obstacle and it prompts a question for the Minister: which Department and which Minister lead on BSL? I have been writing for some time to try to find out. I even tabled a parliamentary question to the Cabinet Office and the answer that question elicited was that

“all Government departments have a responsibility to create inclusive communications. This does not mean promoting BSL as an activity in itself but it does mean identifying and meeting the communication needs of the audiences we are targeting”.

I am sorry, Minister, but that answer is nowhere near clear enough and I think it demonstrates why BSL is stranded. No Department is responsible for it; no Minister is responsible for it; there is no champion in Government who is responsible for it; there is no advocacy for it; and there is no progress on it.

Finally on BSL, there is the case for a British Sign Language GCSE. Although BSL is a recognised language within the UK, a GCSE that can be taught in schools is not available. A GCSE on BSL has already been piloted and is largely ready to go, but the Department for Education is declining to give it the go-ahead. There is a principle of fairness and justice here. BSL is an official language in the UK that is used by tens of thousands of people. Not allowing BSL to be taught as a GCSE implies that it has a lower status and importance than other subjects, and that could even be seen as discriminatory against deaf people. Also, we do not have enough deaf interpreters. Judging by the briefings that we have all received, I think that there are 800 to 900 registered deaf interpreters, which is clearly inadequate to deal with more than 100,000 people.

The last of the three issues that I will raise today is the implementation of the action plan on hearing loss. When the Department of Health and NHS England published that plan in March 2015, it was widely welcomed. This cross-Government plan not only recognised hearing loss as a major public health issue, but highlighted the major impacts of hearing loss. It also committed the Government to improving services for everyone living with hearing loss. In addition, it set out the need to reduce variation in the provision of services, through the development of guidelines by NICE on adult-onset hearing loss.

The action plan set out five key objectives in the following areas: earlier diagnosis; good prevention; integrated services; increased independence and ageing; and good learning outcomes. There was wide support for the plan. As part of the implementation, NHS England published its new national commissioning framework for hearing loss services in July 2016. It is essential that information about that framework is properly disseminated by NHS England and that the framework is fully adopted by clinical commissioning groups. To help with that dissemination, in September, NHS England published its “What Works Guides—Action Plan on Hearing Loss”, which provides advice to commissioners and providers on supporting people with hearing loss in a variety of different settings.

NHS England is also set to publish guidance imminently, setting out the need for health and wellbeing boards to consider people with hearing loss when they are commissioning services, as well as considering its data tool. In this case, the requests made of Government would be fairly straightforward to meet, because the frameworks are in place.

The UK Council on Deafness is asking the Government to work with NHS England, commissioners and professional bodies for medical professionals to raise the importance of early diagnosis of hearing loss; produce an analysis of the case for hearing screening, potentially adding it to the NHS health check that is provided to people in England aged between 40 and 70; and raise the importance of promoting the commissioning framework through NHS England. The framework provides a clear alternative to the decommissioning of hearing aids, and CCGs should be aware of it when designing and commissioning local services.

It is fair to say that on the three major issues I have raised today the Government have a mixed report card. On Access to Work, the Government started very positively, then faltered and now could be going backwards. We need the response of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to my question in the main Chamber today on the need to continue to look at the evidence to make serious progress, because the evidence, as I hope I have laid out, is very much there.

On BSL, the Government never really got started. That is not just the Minister’s Government; that is “the British Government”, a phrase that covers both sides of the Chamber. We are still stalled on BSL and there is no sign of an ignition switch to start us moving again. We need a champion of BSL in Government.

On the action plan, the Government started well and maintained progress, but they need to move through the gears now to ensure that that progress continues and secures the promised outcomes. We only need more of the same, because the start in this area was welcomed by the whole deaf and hearing loss community.

Finally, this is an important debate and I am grateful that so many colleagues have managed to be here to participate. I am also grateful for the opportunity to open the debate and I look forward to the contributions that will follow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I begin by echoing the tribute paid to my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) for securing this debate. As we have heard, there are a number of dimensions and aspects to deafness, but I want to focus on one issue: the criteria for receiving cochlear implants under the NHS. My argument today is simple: the criteria should be reviewed so that it is easier to get an implant. That would transform the lives of those who need this technology, and improve the lives of their families and loved ones. It would be a prudent investment, because it would obviate the need for more expenditure further down the line as a consequence of people not receiving the implants they desperately need.

I will tell the story of my constituent, Lamina Lloyd. Until last year, Lamina had a flourishing career as the manager of a local citizens advice bureau. However, Lamina has Meniere’s disease, which has resulted in progressive hearing loss—so much so that last year she had to give up work. She has two children who themselves have additional needs. She can no longer hear her children, who have to act as her ears. She describes her family as having gone from being an outdoor family to one that rarely leaves the house. Lamina is an intelligent, capable person, but hearing loss has meant the end of her career, a diminishment in the quality of her family life, and increasing isolation.

To try to alleviate her condition, Lamina wears the most powerful hearing aids available, turned up to maximum volume, but they make little difference and give her frequent ear infections and headaches from their feedback and squealing noises. She can no longer hear music or follow conversations, yet she has been in a battle—that is the only word for it—for the past two years to try to get a cochlear implant. She falls just 5 dB short, which is no more than a whisper, of the 90 dB hearing loss threshold for consideration for an implant. That threshold is one of the strictest in the western world. It is estimated that only 5% of those who could benefit from the technology get access to it in the UK.

Lamina describes her condition as being too deaf to hear, yet not deaf enough to get the help that could make a huge difference to her life. Her hearing has deteriorated even further in recent months, and she has an appointment to be assessed at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in two weeks’ time, but she and many others in her position have serious reservations about how the assessments are made. The Bamford-Kowal-Bench test uses short sentences in lab conditions. It does not replicate normal conversation or real-world conditions. Lamina and many others feel that that tool is not fit for the purpose of properly measuring hearing ability and hearing loss.

Even if Lamina is approved for an implant, why has it taken so long? Why do we put people and their families through such pain before giving them the help that could be life changing? My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse raised those issues in an Adjournment debate earlier this year, and briefly at the beginning of his speech today. He was told earlier this year that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence was launching a consultation on the relevant guidelines. That has not happened. The guidelines have been in place since 2009, but technology and costs have moved on a great deal since then.

I wish to ask the Minister a few questions. If he cannot respond to them all today, I would be very happy for him to consult with colleagues and write to me, and other Members participating in the debate, with a more considered response. First, why has the NICE consultation, which we were promised would be launched this summer, not yet been launched, and when will it be? Secondly, does he agree that Lamina’s case and many similar cases around the country show that there is an overwhelming argument for revising those criteria?

Thirdly, whatever hearing loss threshold is picked, does the Minister agree that the hearing loss test needs to be done in real-world conditions that approximate to how people actually live their lives and conduct conversations, and so on? Fourthly, and perhaps most fundamentally, why does it take so long for people to get an implant? Why is it such a battle? The NHS is there for those who need it; it should not be an organisation that people have to battle with to get the treatment that they need. Had my constituent been helped earlier, she might still be in a job. She would not need to rely on the state for financial support, and her family would not have had to go through the huge difficulties that they have all been through together over the last couple of years.

It is time for a step change in the urgency with which the issue of cochlear implants is treated. The guidelines must be revised. NICE needs to move on that soon, so that the suffering of my constituent Lamina Lloyd, and the many people around the country who are in a similar position, can be alleviated.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

On a point of order, Mr McCabe. I asked my staff to monitor the transmission of the sign language. It is not being broadcast; the cameras do not meet the interpreters. Westminster Hall debates do not have subtitles, unlike in the main Chamber. Obviously I would very much appreciate it if you took that matter back to the Panel of Chairs and discussed it in due course.

[Steve McCabe (in the Chair)]

I understand that the sign language is being filmed today, and when the debate is re-broadcast it will appear in a box, as is normal in other TV transmissions. Obviously this is an early stage. I will report back on how the whole debate goes and any points that Members raise, but I understand that the arrangements for today are that when the debate is re-broadcast, the sign language will appear.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful for that clarification, Mr McCabe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

The right hon. Gentleman makes the same points that we have all made. Access to Work is a great scheme. It works. As I understand it, the logic for the cap is that there is only so much money in the pot—that is always the case for Governments—and therefore its purpose is to try to spread what is available as widely as possible. But for people with fantastic talent who could be advocates and champions for the deaf community by becoming chief executives and leaders of their professions and so on, the glass ceiling has been reinforced, because they can now get only £43,000. This is not a criticism—well, it is in some respects—but we need to ensure that the evidence is looked at regularly.

[Sir Mike Penning]

Governments need to be kicked and beaten up when they get things wrong and praised when they get things right. I was proud that a Conservative Government brought in Access to Work, which is massively important. There will always be examples of abuse in the system and so on, but that does not give the Government carte blanche to say, “No, the only way this can work is with a cap,” particularly if the evidence does not show that a cap will work. The Minister will have looked twice when he came into the Chamber and realised what this debate would mostly be about, which is not his responsibility but the DWP’s. I am more than happy to go across to my old Department and sit with my old officials and explain to them exactly where the evidence is in their cupboards.

Let me touch briefly on two other areas, and then on one thing that has not been touched on at all. I do not understand why, in the 21st century, a recognised language is not recognised in the House or across the country. I really do not understand why, all these years after I made a point of order in the main Chamber in 2005 to complain that a hearing loop was not available for my constituents when they were in the House—even when it was installed, it did not work properly—this is the first time a debate has been signed for our constituents. People will always go on about how that must cost more money. The cost is minimal compared with the benefit to our constituents of being part of the democratic process.

[Sir Mike Penning]

The things I do for everybody in this House. It was genuinely embarrassing. I remember it vividly. I said to the Speaker, Michael Martin, “My constituents have come to see this world heritage site and their Parliament at work. I took them on a tour, and frankly they got hardly any benefit apart from visuals, because they couldn’t understand or hear a word I was saying.” I seem to remember that there was the comment, from a sedentary position, “Well, they didn’t miss very much,” but I was trying to get across a point. This is the mother of Parliaments, and as we have heard from colleagues, we are way behind the loop again. I am sorry to use that terrible pun, but we are really behind. I hope that we will have a lurch forward. I have noticed all the Clerks coming in, and have heard that the Speaker will be reported to, and all that, and that is great, but it is absolutely useless unless someone actually does something. Then we can move on. I know this is a trial, but signing should be transmitted live.

Secondly, there should be a GCSE. I find it fascinating: we can see all the different courses that our young people do in schools and colleges, yet they are excluded in this way. If people do not want any more GCSEs, we could drop one of the ones that would not get used anywhere near as much as this. It would make people aware. In my constituency, people who are not deaf or hard of hearing have said to me that they want to be able to communicate like this; they want to do these courses as well. They want to have a GCSE, so that they can chat away with their mates in that sort of way. That is a simple thing, and I cannot see huge cost implications, so it should be moved on, as we have heard this afternoon.

Finally, I will touch on people whose hearing has been impaired by industrial injuries. That has not been mentioned at all in the debate, but not because people think it should not be. It is just one of those issues. People cannot see this type of industrial injury. It is not like the industrial injuries that my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse and I saw in our former jobs as firemen. There is something very wrong about how we measure industrial injuries, and hearing impairment industrial injuries in particular. So many people who have a hearing impairment do not admit it to themselves, their wives and their loved ones, even though their wives and loved ones are probably aware that there is an issue. They certainly do not talk about it to their employer or previous employers.

I can talk about this, because my eardrum is perforated. I did not know about that until I started to miss conversations that I thought I should be picking up. You just do not think there is something wrong. However, when I was a Minister at the Ministry of Defence, I had to have a medical before I was allowed to go into operational fields, and it was obvious that I had a perforated eardrum. It was almost certainly from live firing when I was in the armed forces—the specialists told me that—although it was not picked up then. That is not so important to me, but where industrial injuries are common, it is massively important that there be a level playing field on decibel levels. Completely different levels are used for hearing damage in the armed forces and what I call civvy street, and that cannot be right.

We must encourage people to come forward, not so much so that they can get compensation, but because, as we heard earlier, if we can pick this up earlier, it saves the state and everyone a lot of money, and also makes life much better for that person, who can start to accept the disability that they have and continue to live a happy life.

[Ms Karen Buck in the Chair]

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

When I had the hearing test that identified my audiological loss, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, the printout showed whether it was down to age or genetics, or whether it was industrial. Mine was at least partly industrial. I was told by my clinicians, “Your hearing loss is above the threshold for applying for industrial injury compensation.” I never did, because I had a great job here, so I did not have to, and it was not a matter of money. I have always felt a bit difficult about saying, “Well, I should have gone down as a statistic.” I am sure that, as the right hon. Gentleman says, there are a lot of us out there who have not registered and do not appear in the statistics. The base statistics are only of the people who absolutely needed to make sure that they registered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

The early statistics said that for every £1 spent on Access to Work, the Treasury got a cost-benefit analysis plus of £1.34 or £1.50. A lot of the people the hon. Gentleman describes are senior professionals, chief executives and so on, who will be on a 40% rate of tax, so it is an investment that will give the Treasury more money back than the basic rate of tax does.

[Tommy Sheppard]

I could not agree more. If somebody is in work and gets support through the scheme, not only are they earning money and paying tax, but the people who support them earn money and pay tax as well. There are all sorts of ways in which this makes sense. My key point is that given the small number of people affected, is the cap really worth it? Would it not be better to not have the cap, and assess the situation later? It is expensive because of the nature of the support that people need in this part of the programme if they are deaf and a BSL user. It is expensive because that support is undertaken by hard-working professional people such as the signers here today, who have trained very hard for the job that they do.

Perhaps in the future developments in audio technology and computer graphics will be such that we will get an app on our smartphone that will turn speech into sign in a way that works, but who knows? That is for the future. For now, we need professional human beings to be able to provide the service. We should accept as a society that for the limited number of people affected, the money is a price worth paying. We could perhaps look at other ways, rather than the cap and restricting the services provided, to reduce costs.

I want to finish by talking about Parliament and some of the things that we might be able to do here. It is wonderful that we have our proceedings signed today. I do not know why we do not have a signer standing beside the Speaker’s Chair and filmed for all the proceedings in our Parliament. When we think of the amount of money we spend in this place, the number of staff that we have, the amount we spend on maintenance and the amount we are going to spend on refurbishment, it is not such a big price to make sure that during the 30 hours a week or whatever when the Chamber is in operation and debating, there is a signer there, signing for the people in the Chamber, and, more importantly, for the people who watch live online or wish to check back on proceedings.

Another thing that we could do has to do with the scheme in Parliament, which Members may be aware of—I have not taken advantage of it yet, but I am sure others have—to get tuition in a foreign language. Why do not we add BSL to that? Why does not each MP have an opportunity to learn that as part of our professional development as Members of Parliament, so that we are better able to communicate with our constituents, and more aware of the technological needs?

My central point, which I will stress as I end, is that it is impossible to overestimate the importance of a legislative framework, because of the sense of purpose it creates for civil society and statutory agencies, and the sense of worth, I suppose, that it gives to people who are looking to us to respond to their needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful for the opportunity to sum up, Ms Buck. Invariably, the Member who sums up such debates says, “We have had a good discussion.” Not only is that the case today, but this has been an exceptional debate, and I thank everybody who has contributed. There has been a personal theme, but even those who did not raise a personal experience clearly have a grasp of the importance of the subject to their constituents. If any hon. Members are not on the all-party group mailing list, they are now, but I suspect everybody already is.

The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) put his finger on the big issue. As others mentioned, this is a cross-departmental matter, so we need a champion. I will return to that in due course. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) spoke about cochlear implants and NICE. The Minister says that the work is now back in hand; it will be nine months late, but hopefully it is coming.

The hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), as the Minister said, covered her mum’s story powerfully, bringing a tear to my eye. If she saw me wiping it, it is because it was such a great explanation of an individual’s difficulty, told with clear personal commitment. She made a point about how important it is for organisations such as Auditory Verbal to get to children born deaf within the first three and a half years, when their brains can still learn to speak; after that, it is far too late. That is why the pathway is so important.

The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) also spoke powerfully about his personal experience. I was not sure whether he was making a bid to come back as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group; he will need to wait for the annual general meeting, but he is a great vice-chairman, and I will be pleased to see him there. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) both called me their hon. Friend; that does not do me any favours on this side of the House, but I know what it means. We have done a lot of good work on a number of Committees, especially on fire, and we are friends. That tells people outside the House that although we might not often be in the same Division Lobby, we have friends across the Chamber and we work together when there is a common purpose. That is really important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) spoke about IQIPS and accreditation. The right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead, with his experience as Minister of State on Access to Work, is a powerful ally. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), who just left to catch his train, talked about money being available for BSL lessons here. That ought to be the case, and I am sure that it is the case; we just need to explore it. He made a point by signing, reminding me that so much of sign language is common sense, such as “book”. He used the sign for “Scotland”, which is bagpipes. That tickles me every time I see it. He made a clear point about the power of legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) told a story about Jacob and crowdfunding. It was powerful, as was the personal story told by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist). My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) told her stories about having BSL as her first language, and the Access to Work issues. She spoke about Liverpool minicoms, and her dad, of whom she is clearly and rightly very proud. I am sure that it touched everybody in the room.

The politics came from the three Front-Bench speakers; the place went back to normal when they started talking. I mean no disrespect at all; they deal with things from a political point of view. Judging by their speeches, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) and the Minister clearly understand the issues, and we are grateful for that.

Finally, we need a champion in Government. BSL needs a champion in Government. At some point, a Department or a Secretary of State will have to say to a Minister, “You’re the person for the job.” Then we can all go support that person and get a better hearing in Government. This has been a powerful debate. I am grateful to both signers for being here—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]—and to the House authorities for facilitating that. I hope that this is the first of many opportunities and becomes the norm. I am grateful for the opportunity to say these few words in closing.

[Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)]

On behalf of us all, I thank the two signers, Sally Macreavy and Richard Law. We greatly appreciate their work.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered deafness and hearing loss.