Jen Craft

[In British Sign Language: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.] As people will see, we have tried to learn some parliamentary signs ahead of this debate. My hon. Friend is absolutely right—it is a question of accessibility. If someone is a British Sign Language first-language speaker, there are barriers to taking part in this House. There absolutely should not be. This is the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. There are 87,000 BSL first-language speakers and they absolutely deserve their place here as much as hearing people do. Too frequently, Government consultations, including on the national health service 10-year plan and the welfare reform Green Paper, have BSL interpretation as an afterthought, if it exists at all. In wider society, we need to see a renewed focus on the needs and interests of the deaf community. Some 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents, but support to learn BSL is based on a postcode lottery. Across the country, there is a patchwork of sign language services, with a mix of local authority and third-sector provision. According to research by the National Deaf Children’s Society, almost half of local authorities neither provide, fund nor commission any courses in sign language for families.