British Sign Language Bill

Before I call the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) to move the Third Reading of her Bill, I would like to point out that a British Sign Language interpretation of proceedings is available to watch on parliamentlive.tv.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

This is a momentous day for the deaf community. Exactly 19 years ago to the day, British Sign Language was first recognised in a ministerial statement. Sadly for the deaf community, not a lot has changed, so today we have the chance to finally commit that recognition to statute.

Members of the deaf community have been fighting their whole lives for this moment, and many of them are currently in Trafalgar Square watching the debate on a huge display. I realise that the fact that we have got this far is quite astonishing. I have many people to thank for guiding the way and providing useful insights, case studies and reports that have been invaluable in developing the Bill. This has by no means been a solo effort—far from it. I have had help from very many people. Locally, it has been all hands on deck. My specific thanks go to the politics lab group at Edge Hill University in my West Lancashire constituency, who have been helping out by conducting interviews, gathering data and creating a briefing to aid the campaign.

I also want to thank Janice Connolly and everyone at the Merseyside Society for Deaf People. They could not travel here—they could not get coaches to be here—but they are watching this debate at the Deaf Centre in Liverpool. I grew up in that community, running around there, and I owe so much to them all. They have been a huge part of my life. As a child, it was the Friday evening ritual that deaf adults would meet at the Deaf Centre. In those days, it was at Park Way in Princes Park. While the adults socialised, their children, both deaf and hearing, would play together, able to communicate easily and without effort. Being a CODA, a child of deaf adults, gives me a unique position, straddling two worlds with equal access to both. I hope the Bill will bring the hearing and deaf communities together as never before.

I remain incredibly thankful to the Members who have been so supportive of the Bill, both here in the House and in promoting it elsewhere. I echo the words I used on Second Reading in January when I said how fantastic it is that this Chamber is speaking with one voice and that we are doing the right thing.

To come back to this momentous day—one I hope deaf people will celebrate for many years—the recognition of BSL is a landmark acceptance of a language that for far too long as been overlooked and misunderstood. The Bill is a testament to the perseverance of all deaf people and a celebration of deaf culture. We, all of us today, stand on the shoulders of every deaf campaigner who has fought so hard to get us here. Better historians than me can tell that story, but it really is a remarkable one. Every single campaigner who came before or who is still fighting now deserves to be recognised by us today.

In honouring them, I will focus on one campaigner who meant the most to me. That was, of course, my dad. He fought to be treated as an equal human being: to be appreciated and heard based on merit not on deafness. On Second Reading, I spoke of his life experiences and how hard it was for him to show his value and, once he did, how prized and needed his skills were. From that, he was able to provide for his family and enjoy a fulfilled and happy life, which nonetheless, every day, had its communication challenges. He fought for better education for deaf children, and for deaf teachers to teach deaf children. One of my great friends, Mabel Davis, was a very successful deaf headteacher at a school for deaf children. My dad believed that education enabled you to live your best life. He campaigned to make television accessible by using subtitles—what a hard journey that continues to be. On Second Reading, I made reference to Ofcom. It obviously does not read Hansard, because programme subtitles are still dreadful and it is not doing anything about it. Inaccurate rubbish is how I would describe them. I have two hearing aids, so more often than not I prefer to watch TV with subtitles.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this Bill to Parliament. Last week I went to a school in Putney where I found out the sign for Putney. [In British Sign Language: “Putney”.] There is a deaf teacher teaching the hearing pupils British Sign Language. The pupils love those classes, and now they are opening up the ability to communicate throughout our community. It is fantastic to see. I have seen the revolution for myself in Putney, and it is great to see it going on across the country as well.

I thank my hon. Friend for those comments. BSL is such a rich, vibrant, brilliant language, which relies not only on signing but on body language and facial expression. It is great fun. When I was Lord Mayor of Liverpool I got the children to finger-spell 26 letters of the alphabet for sponsorship. The money they raised in sponsorship was used to buy minicoms for deaf people—although mobile phones would soon replace those; none the less in those days that too was a revolution.

Where are we today? Deaf representation in the media is at an all-time high. Just in the last year we have seen a deaf superhero using American Sign Language; Troy Kotsur, a deaf actor, is nominated for an Oscar and last week won a BAFTA, and Rose Ayling-Ellis won “Strictly Come Dancing”. In 1987, all those years ago, Marlee Matlin won the Best Actress Oscar for “Children of a Lesser God”, but it took another 35 years for Troy to become the second person nominated for his role in “CODA”, which stands for “child of deaf adults”—I know, I am one, but sadly I will not be getting an Oscar.

Since 1987, other movies have been roundly criticised for using hearing actors to play deaf roles. A sign of the times is that “CODA” actually cast deaf actors in deaf roles—what recognition! That is magnificent. The times they are a-changing. The country is supporting deaf people, and we cannot let Parliament fall behind. I believe we must capitalise on this revolution by passing the Bill and taking every step we can to push it as far as possible.

My hon. Friend started her speech on Third Reading by paying tribute to all those campaigners who went before her and the magnificent landmark changes that they fought for over the years. It would be remiss of us not to get on the record our thanks to her for bringing this Bill to Parliament and getting it through to Third Reading today, and to wish it Godspeed in the other place.

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments. My dad would be really pleased with himself today—not necessarily with me, but with himself.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing such an important Bill before this House, and pay personal tribute to her. I am very moved by what she is saying, especially her comments about her parents.

During the debate on taxis, my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) talked about Bills passing the “mum test”, and the hon. Lady has been making very powerful comments about her dad. In the last years of his life, my dad was profoundly disabled with a debilitating neurodegenerative disease, so he really relied on the support of people, taxis and so on. I humbly suggest to my colleagues that when we talk about the Bills we are considering today, we need to talk about them passing both the mum and the dad test.

Absolutely; I will come on to my mum very soon. As with all those things that happened in the ’60s and ’70s, my dad took pole position; my mum took care of home affairs. As Members will see, she played just as much of a role in me being here today as my dad did, but he was more vocal. People would say that I am my dad’s daughter. He did not care; he would just bowl on and try to get what he needed. My mum would be more diplomatic—go it slowly and get there eventually. Sadly, I got too much of the former and a lot less of the latter, but we are who we are.

Before I discuss the incredibly positive things that I believe this Bill will do, I want to address what could not be included in it. Some campaigners have made the fair point that this Bill does not give specific legal rights to deaf people, or feel it does not go quite far enough. To be absolutely clear, this Bill is not a silver bullet for the deaf community that will cure overnight all the injustices they face. As Members of this House will appreciate, this is a private Member’s Bill, one that has been brought forward by an Opposition MP and was drawn 20th out of 20 in the ballot. There are limitations on private Members’ Bills that have to be accepted, but I am pleased to say that working together with the Minister for Disabled People, we have pushed for this Bill to be as strong as it can be. I am proud of the Bill and proud of the work we did. It is going to make such a difference to the lives of deaf people, and they will be proud of it too. They might want it all today, but they can have nearly all of it soon.

Deaf people have long felt that the one-size-fits-all disability legislation that should have given their language the protection it needs is inadequate and disregards deaf culture and heritage. In bringing forward this Bill, I knew that we could not rewrite or replace legislation; instead, we are opening the door for deaf people to have their voices heard and their language protected. With this Bill, we are planting our feet firmly in an open doorway. There are those in the deaf community who used another analogy—they said, “It’s like being in a lift. We’ve gone in the lift on the ground floor; the only way is up.” I really quite like that analogy, too.

My hon. Friend is making a powerful contribution. The nub of what she is saying is that this is a battle for equality: equality of opportunity for children and young people going through education; equality of treatment for deaf people, ensuring that they are treated with respect; equality of access to public services, with deaf people treated like everyone else; and equality of language through communication. Alongside English—the spoken word—British Sign Language is how deaf people communicate. Is it not all about equality?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That runs right through the Bill and through my comments. Given an equal opportunity, deaf people can achieve so much. This will make my hon. Friend’s case: I was told about a deaf student whose class was visited by a specialist interpreter. At the end of the day, the teacher told the interpreter that he was amazed, because he had never seen the student talk so much. When the specialist interpreter asked the student why that was, he found that the so-called communicator whom the school employed had only the most basic BSL qualification, so he could not do the job. He could not transmit to the deaf student what the teacher was saying; ergo, the student had the ability but no chance to prove it.

We take simple things like that for granted, but deaf people have to battle that day in, day out. It would be outrageous to think of a hearing person being taught history by someone who had taken only the most basic English lessons, so why do we accept that for deaf people? Why are we allowing deaf students to receive information from their teachers through people who know the bare minimum of BSL and who are not qualified interpreters? We are wasting both taxpayers’ money and the untapped potential of that student.

In the past year alone, we have seen a seismic shift in understanding and acceptance of deaf people and BSL. Continuing to fail them over and over is just not right, and it cannot be ignored any more. It never was right, but at least now people are starting to understand the situation.

With social understanding of the need for BSL inclusion, we must address some shameful and frustratingly obvious oversights.

Throughout the covid pandemic, deaf people have been met with a constant reminder that we are not treating them as equals. Every statement made to the nation, every change in lockdown policy, and every announcement of a support scheme was done without a BSL interpreter on many channels. In fact, interpretation was available on one channel only. We had a simple way to include a sizeable proportion of the population and to prevent people from being left behind, but we failed to do so and must ask ourselves why.

It is a privilege to be here on a Friday to listen to a fantastic speech from my friend the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper). This place, as you know Madam Deputy Speaker, can be quite confrontational at times, but at other times we come together to right a wrong, and that is what this House has been doing over the past few weeks and today. As a former Disabilities Minister, I congratulate the Minister, because we tried to make this change several times. Promises were made in 2003, and we got things partly in writing, but did it go anywhere? Not really. The Equality Act 2010 did not even mention BSL. When I was Minister, people were worried about costs and this and that, but at the end of the day we are finally here today.

I say to the campaigners in Trafalgar Square, around the country and, indeed, around the world—what we are doing here today will set a precedent for other countries—that disabled people who are deaf or hard of hearing have dreams and aspirations just like anyone else, but those have been held back because we did not understand their language, but expected them to understand ours. No one who is deaf or hard of hearing wants to be deaf or hard of hearing, although I fully understand the community spirit among those people: it has made them what they are today. It has certainly made my friend the hon. Member for West Lancashire who she is today, thanks to mum and dad, I suggest.

We are lucky: we are the ones who can do something about this. As we talk about the different ways in which the Bill will help and will bring BSL more into the open, I have to say not just how amazing it is that in 18 years I have entered every private Member’s Bill ballot and never got anywhere—some would say “Thank goodness for that”, perhaps not least the Front Benchers—but how astonishing it is for a Member to come 20th in the ballot and to bring a Bill that has been tried before, indeed tried by Ministers before, to this point. That has happened because Members on both sides of the House and on the Treasury Bench have worked to make it happen. I have been on the receiving end of some of the lobbying that has suggested that we could have gone further, but we have gone further than I ever dreamt we could go in a private Member’s Bill. We are right on the line between what we can get and what we could not get, and this has been achieved because our efforts have been co-operative.

Perhaps at this stage there is a message for the other House, because the Bill will clearly proceed to the other House. That message should be “Do not delay it, do not try to amend it, do not play party politics with it—just get the damn thing through so it can be given Royal Assent”—a subtle hint from, probably, every Member in this House.

I just want to endorse the comments of my friend, the right hon. Gentleman, by making a very quick point. My father, who is profoundly deaf—born deaf and with no hearing whatsoever—was in hospital and was seen by a senior registrar, who said, “Mr Cooper.” The lady who was visiting my dad said, “He’s deaf”. The registrar raised their voice and said, “Mr Cooper!” The lady said, “He’s deaf”. The doctor walked right up to his ear, leaned in and said loudly, “Mr Cooper!” Now, if medical professionals themselves are not joining the dots, we have an awful lot of work to do.

My hon. Friend has touched on a very good point. This Bill is not the silver bullet; it is a method of getting somewhere. The hard work will start once the other place gets its finger out. I will, if I may, come back to that story in a second.

We are concentrating on Government Departments, but there is a whole private sector out there, on which the hon. Lady touched, that is missing out on some profits and on people enjoying their services. Clearly, that consultant was not dim, which is what I was described as when I was at school, because I am dyslexic—apparently if you were dyslexic back in the early ‘60s and ’70, you were dim. He was not dim, but he is ignorant—ignorant of what the condition is all about. Clearly, by the sound of it, he was not an ear, nose and throat specialist. I think the House will understand where I am coming from when I say that it is not a lack of intelligence, but a lack of understanding and compassion. “Compassion” sounds like an old-fashioned word, but I thought that was what the health service was supposed to be about. Interestingly, my mother, who was a nurse for some 40 years, would tell me that, in many cases, compassion was the best healer, compared with some of the other methodologies.

As we look at the Bill, we should say to ourselves, “We must draw a line in the sand.” That is quite important and it should have happened years ago. We can talk about the 2003 Act, and about leaving BSL out of the 2010 Act, which I have already done, but, as I have said, we need to draw a line in the sand now. Some of the stars of stage and screen have needed to help us increase public awareness, because, sadly, that is the sort of society in which we live. As everyone here can see, I am an expert in ballroom dancing—I think not! But even I watched “Strictly Come Dancing” towards the end because it sent out such a fantastic message to society that we all have the same dreams and aspirations, which I alluded to earlier.

The hard work starts now—I am sorry, Minister, that I am no longer on the Front Bench; I truly wish that I was sitting there now to support the Bill as it goes through. The Minister and I have had many a conversation about the Bill and, as I have said, this is where the hard work starts. The expectation from the deaf community, which will cheer you to the rafters when you go to the rally later today—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, not you, although I am sure they will be cheering you to the rafters. I have only been here for five minutes so you will have to let me off. The deaf community will cheer the Minister to the rafters later, but they will not cheer us if we do not deliver. It does not matter who is in Government; this is a long process. It has taken us this long to get here, but they expect us and the panel to deliver.

I call the shadow Minister.