British Sign Language Week

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this important debate during Sign Language Week. Her dedication in advocating for British Sign Language is commendable, and her tireless campaigning is a sign that the 2024 intake of parliamentarians is one of the best.

I am really sorry that I do not have any sign language. My mother lost much of her hearing as a teenager and lived to the age of 93, using aids for as long as I can remember. If she had been able to learn BSL, I am sure her life would have been much easier.

My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I share the belief of the hon. Member for Thurrock that all deaf and hearing-impaired individuals have the right to participate in society fully and independently. That is not a theoretical right: it is a basic human right that too often remains unrealised.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this debate. When I worked at the Royal National Institute for Deaf People 25 years ago, I learned how important BSL is as a means of communication for deaf people.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions must be short.

[Rachel Taylor]

BSL is a rich and important part of the cultural identity of the deaf community. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is essential that deaf people and their parents have access to BSL based not on whether they can pay for the courses but on need? That would enrich the language and cultural identity of the deaf community.

[Clive Jones]

I agree 100% with everything the hon. Lady said.

The Liberal Democrats have a long history of pushing for British Sign Language to be given legal status. We have worked for change since one our councillors, David Buxton, became the first deaf sign language politician in the UK to be elected as a borough councillor. He co-founded the Liberal Democrat Disability Association, and has extensive experience of campaigning and doing incredible work across the UK in advocating for the deaf community.

In 2022, David fought hard for the British Sign Language Act, which officially recognised BSL as a language in England, Wales and Scotland. That was a significant victory, but we must acknowledge that it was only one step on a much longer journey. Recognition is essential, but it is not enough: we need respect for BSL alongside tangible pathways to a world where deaf people can achieve their full potential.

We are concerned about the previous Conservative Government’s legacy of cuts to British Sign Language interpretation services for deaf people accessing health services. Funding for the BSL health access app was withdrawn, and it is deeply unjust that BSL users currently have to ask for reasonable adjustments through the Equality Act 2010 if they want to access information and services. Furthermore, the adjustments provided are usually written notes, rather than the provision of a BSL interpreter.

We are committed to seeing more deaf BSL users elected to public and political office, and a good step towards that aim is wider access to services in BSL. Extensive research suggests the best time to learn a second language is from the age of six to puberty. The opportunity for access to language experience is crucial, especially for deaf children’s language, emotional and cognitive development. That is why the Department for Education should commission a feasibility study into the introduction of BSL lessons in primary schools, which would embed the teaching of basic BSL from an early age, and offer expert findings to devolved Education Departments to share best practice across the United Kingdom.

Furthermore, we support the rapid introduction of GCSE-equivalent qualifications in BSL in England, which would provide a clear formal pathway for students to gain fluency in British Sign Language. It is deeply concerning that, despite the Government’s commitment to rolling out the qualification by the start of the 2025 academic year, the implementation of BSL in the national curriculum continues to be delayed.

There is a real risk that further delays in implementing BSL qualifications will deprive the next generation of BSL users of the access and opportunities they rightly deserve. Without this opportunity, deaf children may grow up without the proper foundation to navigate the world fully and confidently. That would be simply unacceptable. Will the Minister commit today that the BSL GCSE will not go the way of the Welsh equivalent by eventually being scrapped? Will he also give more specific details as to when Ofqual’s proposed consultation on assessment arrangements and its technical consultation will be launched?

--- Later in debate ---

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

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. We have had a wide-ranging and thoughtful debate. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on securing it during British Sign Language Week and on the initiative of establishing the all-party parliamentary group.

It is not very well known that the Deputy Prime Minister is BSL qualified to level 2. She has this morning posted on social media a signing message in support of British Sign Language Week. She sets out in the message the Government’s commitment and her own commitment to championing BSL and to tackling the barriers that face people in Britain with hearing impairments.

[Rachel Taylor]

Does the Minister agree that there is still a long way to go to make BSL accessible for everyone who needs it and that it is important that deaf people not only are included in the conversations, but lead them? Does he share my delight in seeing BSL interpreters here today in Westminster Hall, which sends a message to deaf people that they are welcome here?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am very glad to do so; I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

This week gives us a chance to celebrate British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language. As we have heard, 151,000 people use BSL; 87,000 have it as their first language, and it is the UK’s fourth most widely used indigenous language. That is a very large group of people, with a great deal to contribute to our economy and our society.

It is right to take this week as an opportunity to highlight, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock said, the rich culture around BSL, of which many people are unaware. I was intrigued that American Sign Language is completely different from BSL; I think that arises from its origins not long after American independence when—I suppose understandably—Americans wanted more to do with the French than the British. That has shaped American Sign Language today.

We have heard about the 2022 Act, and I echo the tributes to our former colleague Rosie Cooper and to Chloe Smith, the then Minister. The Act is driving improved accessibility of Government communications and in this Government we are going to implement it in full. My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock very reasonably asked why the BSL version of Tuesday’s Green Paper has not yet appeared. I can only apologise for that. The 12-week consultation clock will not start until all the accessible versions are published in early April, with a BSL version among them, so that BSL users will have a full 12 weeks to respond.

The BSL Act requires the Government to publish a British Sign Language report setting out each Department’s steps to promote and facilitate the use of BSL in public communications. The first, as the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) reminded us, was published in July 2023. The second was a bit delayed by the general election and appeared in December. I echo the commitment that she set out to annual publication in those first five years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock said, BSL activity has more than doubled across Government since that first report, but there is still a long way to go, and I have noticed impatience in some quarters about the speed of progress.

The new Lead Ministers for Disability will have an important role here. We discussed the BSL Act and its reporting framework at our first meeting in December, and we did so again in our second meeting last week. We will keep progress under review, and of course I will have the opportunity to discuss there a number of the issues raised in this debate. We will also publish a BSL plan for each Government Department with the third BSL report, which we will be publishing in the summer.

In line with the commitment in our election manifesto, I work closely with disabled people and representative organisations to put their views and voices at the heart of all we do. Since July, I have met a wide range of deaf people’s organisations, along with other disability organisations. We have heard about the independent BSL Advisory Board, set up in the wake of the Act; it is co-chaired by Craig Crowley, chief executive of Action Deafness, who has done a fantastic job. The board has 15 members, mainly BSL users and all with lived and/or professional experience of the barriers facing deaf people.

I have been very impressed with the board’s work, drawing on the experience of its members and their knowledge of those barriers to develop priorities and a focus for its work, including setting up sub-groups on specific issues. For example, the health and social care sub-group is compiling recommendations based on deaf people’s experiences in the health service—we have heard about a number of those in this debate. I have also spoke to SignHealth, which has made the point to me that BSL users often struggle even to make a GP appointment and to communicate basic health information with the NHS. The report of that sub-group, with its recommendations, will appear later on this year.

Over the last year, the board has also discussed deaf access to sport with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It presented at the British Deaf Association conference in Manchester, the theme of which was BSL in the early years, and I am grateful to the board co-chairs and other members for their commitment to improving the lives of deaf people and collaborating in order to do so.

I attended the education summit that the BSL Advisory Board organised at the Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children at King’s Cross last year. There were powerful contributions from senior leaders on the barriers that deaf children and their families face in education. That school is really interesting; it has a bilingual model of education and shares a playground with a hearing school, encouraging interaction between deaf and hearing children, contributing to the inclusion of everybody.

We want to enhance the status of BSL, and I agree with the points made in this debate that the GCSE will benefit BSL users generally, as well as those individual students who take it.