Deafness and Hearing Loss

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on securing the debate. I was chair of the all-party parliamentary group on deafness, but was rudely interrupted in 2015 when something else happened. It is a pleasure to be back and to serve as vice-chair of the APPG under the hon. Gentleman’s excellent chairmanship.

I commend the previous speakers’ comments about cochlear implants. I remember 20 or 30 years ago, when they really began to take off. The difference between now and then is absolutely huge. That overlaps with what the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) described of her mother’s experience. I thank her for that moving speech. Her mum will be proud of her, I am absolutely sure of that. I can relate to a lot of the things that her mum went through. I have been deaf for about 50 years of my life.

Cochlear implants have made a huge difference and the improvement is absolutely massive. The Minister is from the Department of Health—he is an old colleague from coalition days; it is good to see him—and I ask him to explore how cochlear implants can be ever more available, because they do much more now and they do it much earlier. They are a game-changer. For many years after they first came out, a long, long time ago, they really did not make that much of a difference. There was vigorous opposition from a lot of the British Sign Language community, and I understand why. That has changed a great deal over the years and cochlear implants are now, in many ways, the future for transforming deafness. I never really believed it in the old days, but now I do, because of the advances.

I would like to cover a few areas, a couple from the UK Council on Deafness angle and a couple specifically because we have a Health Minister here. British Sign Language is a different language. I am hard of hearing and have been since having measles when I was six. Sometimes, people might say to me, “Stephen, are you a member of the deaf community?” and I would say, “No, I am a member of the hearing community. I just don’t hear very well.” That is an important point, because they are completely different. The deaf community is a community. The BSL community is a completely different community, with cultural norms and a different language. BSL is not even a direct translation of my speech; it is different. Sometimes people do not understand that. They would say to me, “Why don’t you learn BSL?” and I would say, “Because I am a member of the hearing community, I just don’t hear very well, and it is a different language.” I am very supportive of profoundly deaf people trying to get BSL as a recognised language, as has happened, I believe, in Holyrood in Scotland.

I remember just before 2015 having meetings with a number of people down from Scotland and we were watching that development with great interest. Once it happens in one legislative House, it is very hard for other legislative Houses not to follow, so I say good luck with that up in Scotland, because it is a game-changer. It will happen eventually in Westminster. When it does, it is not just a label. When a nation says that a language is a statutory language, it means it is accessible and that public bodies have to provide information in that language, and that will make a huge difference for a lot of profoundly deaf people. I will tell hon. Members why and give one very good example.

I have been involved for many years in politics around deafness as a trustee of this or a patron of that, or what have you. I knew a lot of people who are profoundly deaf working in that area, including from the British Deaf Association. I just came from a statement this morning in which the Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions mentioned that about 50% of disabled people are out of work. I tell you what, Mr McCabe, it is a hell of a lot higher than that for the profoundly deaf. I do not have the figures because no one really finds them. The DWP—it used to drive me crazy when I was here before—will not slice the different disabilities up. It just says “problems with deafness and problems with visual impairment”, which completely denies the separateness of deafness. Off the bat, though, I would say that profoundly deaf people have an unemployment rate of around 70%, which is just ridiculous. How can we possibly have 100,000 people—if not more—of adult working age and have such barriers that 70% are unemployed? It is a blooming outrage! Now that I am back in the House, which is wonderful for the people of Eastbourne—I thank them—I am determined to lobby hard to make BSL an accepted language.

I am also keen to join the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse in lobbying on Access to Work. The Government have done a great thing with Access to Work—I think it was John Major’s Government that started it. Access to Work is a good thing which has made a huge difference to a lot of people, and I am a big supporter or it, but there is a challenge. It has made a great difference for people who are in work and acquire a disability through illness, a catastrophic incident or what have you—it has been fantastic in helping them to stay in work. I want it to be improved, particularly in the small and medium-sized enterprises sector, so that SMEs understand that they can employ people with disabilities. Access to Work provides a lot of the money that will buy an induction loop, put in a ramp, or do whatever is necessary to help an employer take on a disabled person. That is really important. Corporates kind of get it—they are huge, and they have massive human resources departments and pots of money, so they try to do their best. It is much harder for an SME employing three people. If I were the director of a plumber working seven days a week, and someone with disability came to see me, it would be so much easier to say, “No, no,” and find an excuse not to employ them. Access to Work often provides the money that allows the SME to take on that disabled person.

I will let the House into a vast secret. I say this with authority, because I used to be a consultant in this area for years. If a business employs disabled people, they get lower churn.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

rose—

[Stephen Lloyd]

I have seen that in call centres, in businesses and in numerous other areas. I used to be very involved with the Federation of Small Businesses, and I am sure I will be again now I am back. Lower churn is really important for businesses if a lot of their spend goes on employing people. At a later date, I will explain why it leads to lower churn, but it does.

[Matt Western]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Lloyd]

Yes, certainly—sorry.

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the challenges that SMEs have in employing people with such impairments. Does he agree that it is difficult for many people who suffer from deafness or failing hearing to progress within organisations because of the cap? It is therefore almost self-enforcing that those people are pressed into part-time working.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Lloyd]

That is a very good example. I have no hearing on my left, so I could not hear the hon. Gentleman trying to intervene. Jim knows to punch me.

The hon. Gentleman is right. There are issues to do with Access to Work. As it has expanded and cost a lot more money over the years, the Government—I am not chucking stones, as I know how challenging it is to work within the Budget envelope—have introduced more and more caps. Rather than focusing on different ways of capping Access to Work, I would like the DWP—the Minister can go back and tell his colleagues—to focus on better and more creative ways to use the money. I know from years of experience—colleagues will have to take my word for it—that the majority of disabled people who get into a job, are properly managed and have the right support, stay there for years. That costs much less money than constantly having to re-employ. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention.

I want to talk about two key areas that are specific to the Minister’s brief. One of the things I fought for last time I was here—I am going to do so now as the Minister is in Health—was an automatic invitation for a hearing aid screening whenever someone hits pension age. That would be at 65 or 66, although that was under the coalition—I think retirement age is 150 now. That is significant because something like 50% of people over the age of 65, heading up to 60% as they get older, begin to get age-onset hearing loss. My hearing loss is not age-onset, although I am old enough now—it was measles, as I said—and the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse is far too young, so his cannot possibly be age-onset. The thing with hearing loss is that the vast majority of people ignore it for 15 years because it is not a sexy disability. The hon. Member for Rochester and Strood flagged that up, and it is true. People start losing their hearing, they do not admit to it, their husband or wife goes potty, the volume is turned up massively on the television, and eventually their kids drag them to the audiology department, if it is still open—we will come to that—in their mid-70s.

The problem with that—there is significant data to prove this, which I will happily share with the Minister another time—is that the longer someone takes to get a hearing aid, the lower the chance of it working. The difference between a 75-year-old and a 65-year-old in acuity terms is enormous. Hearing aids are not like glasses. If I cannot see properly, I put glasses on and I have 20:20 vision. Hearing aids do not replace lost sound; all they do is amplify the residual hearing. Let me try to explain that to colleagues very quickly. Imagine a radio with a battery that is running down. If the volume is turned up, it makes a lot more sound, but it is very discordant. That is what hearing aids do.

I was pressing very hard for the Department of Health to run a pilot so that all people who get to pensionable age receive an invite to audiology or wherever—it could be a pharmacy, for that matter—to have a hearing test. My rationale for that, which was supported by pretty much every group that could possibly be imagined, including NICE, was that if people get in early, they are forced to accept they are losing their hearing. They get a hearing aid, and ipso facto it is much easier to get used to. My view, which is shared by many others, is that that would be a huge advantage, not least in reducing the levels of dementia. We have discovered that dementia is linked to social isolation, and old people who are deaf or hard of hearing tend to isolate.

The Department of Health agreed in principle to run a pilot. It took me a long time to get that agreement, because the Department did not want to do it. It knew that I was right and all those extra hearing aids were going to cost a lot more money. Then there was a tragedy, colleagues: I lost the election. I was not there to nag like hell, and it sort of disappeared and was put on the back burner. I am delighted to see that my old colleague is now the Minister. I am sure that, now I have put that on the table, he will move heaven and earth to develop it into a pilot. It will make a huge difference to hundreds of thousands of people—I am deadly serious—so I encourage that.

It is easy to cut hearing aids, because it is mostly old people who use them. They are not organised and are not going to complain like hell; they are isolated, anyway. As I said, they are in their mid-70s by the time they go to audiology departments. I am really pretty angry that a lot of CCGs are getting away with beginning to trim audiology services because there are not enough people fighting their corner. I know that CCGs are independent, but the Minister and I also know that there are protocols. In his response, I ask that he make a commitment that CCGs will be told how important audiology and hearing aids are. They must not use the austerity challenges they face to cut audiology. On that note, I again thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse for securing this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for kicking off about the induction loop years ago, because I could not function as an MP in the Chamber without it.

[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]