British Sign Language Bill

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

I will not detain the Committee for too long, because what is happening today has been set out brilliantly by the sponsor of the Bill. I want to speak on behalf of my constituents and the deaf community as a whole.

I am enormously jealous of the Minister. When I was the Minister with responsibility for this issue, I wanted to be sitting where she is, bringing these measures through as a Government Bill or a Back-Bench Bill—I did not care. As we can see, the Minister has been much more successful than me. We got pushback after pushback, and having spoken to previous Ministers from other Administrations, I know they had similar pushbacks over the years, even though, in theory, we had had recognition in 2003.

I support all the provisions today, but I want to say to the community listening today that there are massive restrictions on any Back-Bench Bill coming through Parliament. I have been lobbied extensively—“Could we have this amendment? Could we have that amendment?” —and I have passed those comments to the Minister so that we can look at them as we go forward to the advisory panel and to the Lords. The amendment is vital to make sure that the Bill is successful. As has been explained, changing the long title in no way changes the importance or the powers of the Bill; it actually takes the Bill in the opposite direction.

For those listening to the Committee this morning who are wondering why we cannot do this or that, there is one key point. This is a Back-Bench Bill and the rules for them are quite difficult, but because the Minister has worked so closely with the hon. Member for West Lancashire we have got around many of those problems. Let us get this Bill on the statute book. Let us get the advisory panel set up.

We can learn from other countries. Some of the papers I passed to the Minister last night show that we do not need to reinvent the wheel very often. If other countries are successfully doing things, we can do them too. When we brought through the Welsh language legislation all those years ago, for instance, a lot of the scaremongering about costs was categorically wrong. The Treasury may have a lot of concerns, and we need to prove those wrong too.

I welcome the amendment and I welcome the Bill. Hopefully we will not detain the Committee much longer and we can get the Bill through this House and do what the deaf community expects of us by passing the Bill.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I very much congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire, who is promoting the Bill and doing so in a way that has enabled it to progress further than one might have expected, given that she came at No. 20 in the ballot for private Members’ Bills. The only time I came up in the ballot, I was at No. 2—we will not go into the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill, but something pretty similar ended up on the statute book. However, I was not at No. 20, which is the last place in the ballot and the one most likely to see a Bill ruled out for time purposes when it comes to the day when these things are given priority. My hon. Friend has done well to use her opportunity to create this consensus.