Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to promote the use of British Sign Language.

The Government is committed to supporting all people with a disability, including deaf people, to lead fulfilled, independent lives. For D/deaf people, we recognise that this must include the ability to communicate with others through British Sign Language (BSL) or other forms of deaf communication.

I have been working closely with Rosie Cooper MP to support the aims and development of her Private Members Bill to promote BSL. We have also held a number of stakeholder forums, including with deaf people’s organisations such as the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and British Deaf Association, to ensure that we understand the views and perspectives of D/deaf BSL users.

The British Sign Language Bill is a major step forward in recognising BSL as a language for D/deaf people in its own right. It will place a duty on the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to issue guidance on the promotion and facilitation of BSL. It will also require them to report on information supplied by ministerial Departments regarding their use of BSL. This reporting will give us a much better understanding of how BSL is being used across the government, and how we can continue to improve communication for D/deaf BSL users.

I will also be creating a non-statutory board of BSL users which can advise the Government on matters pertaining to BSL. To complement the approach set out in the Bill, we are also developing a suite of non-statutory measures which will help promote and facilitate the use of BSL. These include:

o examining how we might increase the number of BSL interpreters;

o reviewing how we might work in DWP to ensure the Access to Work fund helps BSL users; and

o aiming to update the National Disability Strategy to facilitate and promote BSL usage.