MP launches campaign to promote sign-language protection

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 30th Jan 2007

Malcolm Bruce has launched a campagin to promote and protect British Sign Langauge

Liberal Democrat MP, Malcolm Bruce has today tabled a parliamentary motion calling for the legal protection and promotion of sign languages. The Early Day Motion already has cross-party support and Mr Bruce intends this to be the first in a series of events which will highlight the need to fully protect and promote British and Irish Sign Language alongside other minority languages such as Welsh and Gaelic.

Speaking from the House of Commons, the Gordon MP said:

"With an estimated 200,000 people communicating in British Sign language (BSL), many of whom who use it as their first language, it is important that the Government ensures it is doing all it can to protect this language and to raise public awareness of the need for more interpreters and signers in all walks of life."

"Tens of millions of pounds go every year to supporting Welsh and Gaelic. No comparable support exists for sign languages which are just as important and part of British culture."

Mr Bruce, who is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness added:

"This is the start of a push to increase awareness in Parliament and beyond of the everyday difficulties British Sign Language users face without the full legal recognition and protection of their language. Trying to build a better picture of the situation in which many deaf people find themselves is made all the more complicated because the responsibility of those legal, health, education, and cultural issues that arise do not fall exclusively to one Government department.

"Over the next few months I will be seeking to obtain more answers from the Government about services and provisions for BSL users and would encourage anyone who uses BSL as their first or preferred language and is having difficulties in accessing public services to contact their local MP."

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

The text of the motion being submitted today follows:

LEGAL PROTECTION AND PROMOTION OF SIGN LANGUAGES

That this house calls for legal protection of, support for and promotion of British and Irish Sign Languages in accordance with Council of Europe resolutions, recognising that it is estimated that over 200,000 British residents regularly use sign language, many of them as a first language; calls for the parents of deaf children to be given free tuition in sign language and information and choice over the role sign language can play in their child's development; that sign language be offered as a school curriculum option to increase awareness of the languages and to increase the potential pool of interpreters; that deaf adults be given the opportunity to study their own language at degree level and be given the right to free interpreter and other communication support services in a wide range of circumstances; further calls on the Government to adopt the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in particular Article 21(b) which calls on governments to 'accept and facilitate the use of sign languages' and that sign language users are provided with the resources they require in comparable terms to the users of other UK minority languages such as Welsh and Gaelic which receive more than one hundred times the funding provided to promote and protect sign language.