British Sign Language Bill

Julie Marson Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 18th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

I am privileged to have a second bite at the cherry, because I was extremely proud to support the Bill on Second Reading. I again congratulate the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) on her Bill. She used the word “momentous” and I think it is. I also congratulate the campaigners that she mentioned. After Second Reading, I saw all the campaigners in Parliament Square, and it was joyous to behold them, feeling as they did that tangible progress had been made. I hope that those in Trafalgar Square today feel that further progress has been made today and that, with this Bill, we are taking one of the final steps on this journey.

The Bill has wider implications. Many tens of thousands of people in this country use BSL as their preferred language, and that has a wider implication for society at large. The hon. Member for West Lancashire mentioned equality, and it is of course an issue of equality. It will have an impact on up to 12 million people in this country who suffer from some kind of hearing loss, 50,000 of whom are children. As we have a greater life expectancy—I think it is now up to 82 in the UK—we can expect millions more people to experience some hearing difficulty or loss in the next decades. The hon. Lady movingly mentioned her father, and on Second Reading I mentioned my father, who suffers from hearing loss. The lines between the hearing community and the deaf community are increasingly blurred by people like my father, who uses subtitles and hearing aids. That attitudinal shift to “We are all one people and we can suffer from various degrees of hearing loss at any time, and it could affect anyone” helps to unite and give us that equality of opportunity and experience.

I have joined in a campaign run by a constituent of mine called Turn on the Subtitles. It is interesting to realise that we can learn from the experiences of people with hearing difficulties—the campaign recommends turning on subtitles to help children with their literacy, especially as we come out of the pandemic. It is another example of the symbiosis between our different communities.

By legally recognising BSL as an official language, it will become part of our institutions and a normal part of our society. That is a really good thing to do today. Improving education for children is also important. We invest in this initiative for children with hearing difficulties and hearing loss, and that inclusion will last a lifetime. I could not be more proud to be part of that process. As humans, we should always remember that we do not just communicate in one way. We communicate in many different ways; our gestures and body language have much more of an impact than we realise on a day-to-day basis. As human beings, we can communicate in a variety of ways—we can give thumbs up, thumbs down or the peace sign, for example—and they are all an intrinsic part of our communication. What we are doing today brings BSL and some of those other ways of communicating into the mainstream, and I repeat that it is part of the fundamental imperative for people in this place and outside it to strive for equality—equality of access, equality of opportunity—at every possible opportunity.

Protected language status has already been granted to six languages in our country—Welsh, Scots, Ulster Scots, Scottish, Irish Gaelic and Cornish. Amazing as they are, more people currently use BSL than any of those British languages that already have legal recognition. As has been mentioned, 87,000 people have BSL as their preferred daily language, but on any given day up to 250,000 people could be using it. It is a very important part of our culture and our cultural heritage.

It is also worth mentioning one of the longer-term impacts that the Bill might have. A study by Johns Hopkins University in America found that even mild hearing loss can double a person’s risk of developing dementia. The risk is expected to increase fivefold as people experience more and more severe forms of hearing loss, particularly with our ageing population. That is because hearing loss contributes to social isolation, which is a major factor in the development of some of the most heart-wrenching and difficult illnesses, such as dementia. Reducing social isolation may help us to limit some of those wider impacts.

I mentioned on Second Reading that we have two formidable women driving the Bill—the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), and the hon. Member for West Lancashire. I know that they are both committed to taking it forward, but also to going further. I congratulate them both—and if this is the revolution, then up the revolution! I am proud to be part of it.