All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness
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All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness
Meeting with Anne McGuire, Minister for Disabled People
The meeting started at 5.00pm
MALCOLM BRUCE MP: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here. This is to be the last gasp of Parliament before Christmas, the house rises today. It’s very good of the Minister to make the time available to come to talk to our group and she is going to make some introductory remarks. Beforehand I would say that there are obviously real issues around communication for deaf people, both in terms of Sign Language and all other forms of support in the workplace, socially and in general. We like to think that in the department for Work and Pensions we have a friend, the Department did give legal recognition to sign language and did provide additional support, and I hope the Minister will take on board that this support is appreciated and the work of her predecessor is also appreciated but she will not take it amiss that we are looking for an awful lot more in relation to the needs of deaf people. I just will make a couple of points, for example, on the issue of Sign Languages, if you compare the amount of public money that goes to support other minority British languages such as Welsh or Gaelic it is probably in excess of £100 million a year. The amount that goes in support of sign languages is almost not measurable but probably a tiny fraction of that. Yet there are very few people whom Welsh and Gaelic is the only language they use but there is a lot of people for whom sign language is their only or main language. The comparison with Finland is spectacular, and Anne as a Scottish MP she will appreciate this, Finland and Scotland have a similar population of about 5 million people. Finland has in excess of 600 Sign Language Interpreters, Scotland has under 30. There is clearly a huge gap to fill. Other issues which the Minister will address are the recent report from UK Council on Deafness on deaf people’s access to communication in English and the Access to Work scheme. The transition from Access to Work to DDA is causing concern not least amongst smaller businesses and people trying to work in smaller businesses as the withdrawal of Access to Work is in some cases meaning that the job will not happen. Minister you are here, this is a short meeting that needs to finish at 6 o'clock, I wonder if you can give your remarks and take questions.
ANNE MCGUIRE MP: I admire your resilience at being here at this hour, I am surprised actually there are some MPs in the congregation because I know that many MPs have already departed for home. I was asked to speak for about 20 minutes but I will try to cut that back, so that we can get as much time for questions as possible. I will kick off though with Access to Work. Obviously Malcolm has already highlighted the importance of Access to Work for many deaf people. As most of you will know it provides individually tailored locally sourced support to overcome some of the barriers which disabled people encounter moving into work or remaining in work. People who are deaf and find that their disability affects them at work can be helped with 100% cost with a communication support worker so they can take part in paid work. Notwithstanding Malcolm's comments, Access to Work has a budget from the DWP which has increased year on year from around about £15 million in 1997 to somewhere around £63 million this year. Despite the rumours that were going around that we intended to cut back on the Access to Work budget, we didn't and we haven't. And I hope that is recognised. Many people will agree that Access to Work makes a significant difference to the lives of disabled people who are in work. We have looked, recently through JobcentrePlus, working in partnership with a number of organisations representing deaf and hearing impaired people, to improve the policy guidance by including some more specific questions to help advise us and identify the most suitable level of support to put in place. I know Malcolm and other MPs have written to me about some issues raised in Scotland to do with the guidance. I am not sure if you have received my letter in response Malcolm, but in actual fact I have been working very closely with my officials and with organisations in Scotland to look at how we put in place something which is not only helpful both in terms of Access to Work support, but also to the organisations that provide the interpreters. We know that Access to Work can be very effective for people with a hearing impairment. In fact, about 18% of the 40,000 people currently receiving Access to Work support are hearing impaired. So that is quite a significant group. But I certainly recognise there is always room for improvement and we are currently looking at how we can do that. I would also like to comment on some of the issues about promoting access to communication support for the many deaf people who do not use Sign Language. These services range from Speech to Text Reporters and Transliterators to Lipspeakers, Notetakers and Deafblind communicators. I would like to give you just briefly, Malcolm and colleagues, an overview of initiatives that are already in place, focusing on the support available to deaf and hearing impaired people in their search for employment and importantly once they have a job and also briefly the support within the health services and to school age children. You will know that the drive by organisations of and for deaf people to increase the supply of human aids to communication focuses on promoting both Access to Communication in English and communication in BSL. The focus of the Access to Communication in English campaign is to increase the supply of language and communication access services for deaf people whose preferred language is English. Unfortunately, and we have to be honest about this, we are all too aware of the shortage of professionals in this particular area. The DWP funded the project to bring interested bodies together to identify what needs to be done and how to develop the solutions to address the shortage of Language Service Professionals and identify alternative sources of funding rather than looking completely to government. The matters identified by the Access to Communication in English campaign focus on publicity of service providers’ existing obligations and evidence that specific types of LSP benefit from having their own professional body to support recruitment. Its a great testament to the efforts of the organisations involved in that campaign that has brought about some of the changes like the establishment of the Association of Verbatim Speech-to-Text Reporters. I am very encouraged that many of the activities in the campaign strategy will become a reality in the near future. Such as developing remote access for training for all LSPs and addressing the geographical challenges where provision does not exist. And we have to recognise across the country that there are even more serious shortages in some areas than others. I know that Scotland is not the only part of the United Kingdom that has remote areas but in many rural areas I suspect there is a greater shortage. It will be crucial to promote recruitment and career development for LSPs. Lessons can be drawn I think from the relative success of the BSL Interpreter profession, with greater flexibility between courses needed and more accredited courses. Each year 3,500 Level 2 BSL students do not progress to Level 3 and many are potential Language Service Professionals. On a more general level it is also important to raise awareness of what LSPs can offer especially amongst those who have a recently developed hearing impairment or deafness. I want to spend a couple of minutes on how the Disability Discrimination Act covers deaf people. I should also briefly mention of course, that we are driving real change in society through the DDA. Businesses either as employers or organisations providing a service need now to consider reasonable adjustments to premises, practices or procedures and deaf or hearing impaired people may benefit from adjustments such as the supply of a piece of specialist equipment, the provision of a specialist interpreter or training for employees in BSL to allow them to communicate more effectively with a deaf colleague. One of the issues that some of the less visible impairments and disabilities have is that there is such a concentration in terms of profile on physical impairments and access for those who have a mobility condition that sometimes I think many of us feel that some of the other impairments and disabilities are perhaps forgotten or certainly not seen as quite the priority for employers and for those who provide services. Of course, this month the new Disability Equality Duty came in on 4th December. That requires public authorities to give due regard to eliminating discrimination and harassment, promoting equality of opportunity and encouraging disabled people to participate in public life and promoting positive attitudes towards disabled people. There are about 44,000 public authorities covered by the new Disability Equality Duty that have a key role in the way in which they relate to people, almost from the cradle to the grave and we will see a significant difference in the way that disabled people are projected and supported within our communities.
I want to say a few words about BSL, and obviously I have to recognise the chair's comments on the DWP funding and support for BSL. The majority of the DWP funded projects were completed in June 2005 with websites and products like the on line curriculum material and learning facilities now available by use by both deaf and hearing people. We have also developed a pilot family sign language curriculum for the families of deaf children. Other projects include solutions for workplace interaction between deaf BSL users and hearing people with resources covering the deaf person’s first day in a new job including BSL awareness for employers and colleagues and work specific BSL dictionaries. I hope we can all agree that while people undoubtedly want more these themselves are actually practical developments.
Responsibility for specific support and provision of communication aids for deaf and hearing impaired people rests with the local health and social care providers based on assessments to provide what service people need, this ranges from hearing aids to support services. Following the NHS modernisation program in England individual trusts now have funds for digital hearing aids and can provide a wider variety of aids to suit individual needs and that provision has been replicated certainly to my knowledge in Scotland and probably in Wales as well. Finally just a very quick word about the Office of Disability Issues. We launched the ODI some 12 months ago and its creation was as a result of one of the recommendations in the Prime Minister’s strategy report on improving the life chances of disabled people. I think its fair to say that the ODI is providing leadership and a focal point in government for key partners for both internal and external working to promote equal opportunities for disabled people. The ODI will also work closely with disabled people through the National Forum for Organisations of disabled people, which thankfully has decided to call itself Equality 2025 rather than the long title, so that the views of disabled people themselves will be at the heart of policy making, cutting down some of the barriers to participation. I want to say finally I recognise that even doing what we are doing, it will never be enough. Individuals and organisations will want, quite rightly, to push us to do more and in a timescale that perhaps is sometimes difficult for government to respond to. But I hope that you will accept that we have developed some important issues and that we are looking at what we can do to increase access which will support the integration of deaf and hearing impaired people into the communities in which they live and into the communities in which they work. I will be delighted to take some questions. MALCOLM BRUCE MP: Can I thank you very much for that. You have catalogued a significant number of initiatives that your department is engaged in, which are welcome. I know there are a number of people here who will have specific questions about the changes, and the impact of some of those. I hope you will accept those. A simple point is that quite a lot of these initiatives are good and helpful, but, as you said yourself, we need more and we need more resources. I think that the deaf community are entitled to substantially more resources. This is not a total criticism of government, because its often the deaf community themselves getting their act together and articulating clearly what is wanted and setting it out. We will try during the next 12 months to make clear to all the relevant government departments what kind of ambitions we have so that at least government will know that it is a series of constructive requests that will make a difference to the lives of deaf people.
PETER BOTTOMLEY MP: First I welcome being able to read the report from UK Council on Deafness, that is a great help. Secondly thank you very much for the Minister’s speech as well. Two things are on my mind. I read that Access to Work support is no longer being given to people in government departments and the number of disabled people going into work in government departments seems to be declining. Is there a comment on that? The second issue, and I speak as the MP of Worthing where there's a high proportion of elderly people who find that deafness excludes them from ordinary participation in life too often, the waiting time for a half hour hearing test is 2 years, despite some recent initiatives. I do hope that one way or another all government departments will come together to make sure that nobody has to wait more than a certain number of weeks for a hearing test and yet the Health Service has excluded audiology from the 18 week targets. BERT SMALE: Good afternoon Minister. As a fellow Scot, it’s a privilege to be here today. I am representing the Association of Teachers of Lipreading, of which I am the chair person. Referring to the policy recommendations to support co-ordinated initiatives to implement the recommendations in the Access to Communication in English report, I would like to turn the Minister's attention to the fact that in addition to the many aids to communication mentioned there is also Lipreading, which is a learnt skill and which is retention of access to English. For the six and a half million hard of hearing people in Britain, if we do not sustain initiatives to teach lipreading I don't see much point in having Lipspeakers. The teaching of lipreading is facing a critical time at the moment with cuts in funding from the LSC. Changes in policy were made without consultation with the people involved and yet the Disability Discrimination Act places a duty on all authorities to take steps to take account of a disabled person's needs. On the 4th December, as you said, the Disability Equality Duty came into force, and my question to you is: How do you consider this Disability Equality Duty will impact on funding for things like lipreading classes? Now before you respond, can I urge you and the MPs present today, to sign up for the Early Day Motion which calls on the Government to review the classification of lipreading and sign language courses. With a view to redefining it as basic skills. Thank you. ANNE MCGUIRE MP: The last question that Bert asked is the easiest: No, I will not sign the EDM. I can't sign EDMs because I am a government Minister and EDMs are vehicles for back-benchers to highlight an issue, but I should say that I obviously take a keen interest in the progress of these issues. I accept Bert's fundamental premise that lipreading is actually very important, particularly, I would suggest, to older people that become deaf, who do not see BSL as their language. That lipreading and obviously Lipspeaking, the 2 sides of the coin, are vitally important is a fact. And I have been at many a conference where particularly older deaf people have come up to me and said please talk about the wider communication issues and not just BSL, important though BSL is. So I take the point and certainly I think that we need to broaden out the communication access. We recognise, for deaf people, BSL is vitally important and I welcome Malcolm's comments, that the Government did recognise BSL as a language in its own right. But there are other ways of communicating for many deaf people. I would only say on the Disability Equality Duty, Bert, it does impose a legal obligation on all public authorities to look at how they develop their authorities and what the impact is. I don't want to go into detail on the funding issues, but I will draw it to the attention of the Department of Education and Skills if you will allow me to do it that way.
About hearing tests, Peter, I will pick that up with the Department of Health and get back to you on that one. I do know that access to digital hearing aids have made a significant difference to the lives of older people but I also have to admit to you that my 90 year old mother in law has been fitted with a digital hearing aid but refuses to wear it because its too loud. We have major issues there about overcoming the psychology of hearing again after being hard of hearing for some number of years. I am glad you raised the issue of Access to Work support for central government departments. Since 2003 the Department of Work and Pensions has met its own Access to Work support costs out of its own employment budget. One of the recommendations in the Prime Minister’s strategy report was that we ask central government departments to meet their own Access to Work costs. I will tell you exactly why, there are two reasons. One is, if we are serious about mainstreaming disabled people in employment, then we have to start and think about mainstreaming those costs within employment. What we are saying to central government departments is out of your large budget you should be able to support what was previously paid by Access to Work, through your mainstream employment budget. I think that is a reasonable request to central government. What it has also done is unlocked £2.5 million which we are reallocating for support to small and medium enterprises for disabled people going into work there. To be frank with you there is no indication yet that there has been any reduction in the number of disabled people working in central government departments and I will tell you why. Because we are scrutinising the impact of the withdrawal of Access to Work on central government departments, but we have not yet pulled any of those figures together. I will look at the paper afterwards, but certainly, as you know, its DWP and the Office of Disability Issues that is doing the scrutinising and that might be anecdotal in the paper. PETER BOTTOMLEY MP: For those of you that have the paper on the desk its on page 4 the bottom paragraph that suggests, and it may be in accurate, it suggests that the disabled staff being recruited at DWP fell from 1% in 2002 to a quarter of 1% last year. ANNE MCGUIRE MP: These are historic figures. What I was going to say to you, I think there is a major issue about public authorities and employment of disabled people that has nothing to do with Access to Work. The Access to Work issue is important particularly in terms of small and medium enterprises and the private sector. I think the public authorities actually have to look at their record on employing disabled people, not just employing deaf people, but disabled people in general terms. One of the challenges that I throw out to public authorities is that they need to up their game. They are not providing the opportunities for employment for disabled people that they ought to be doing. I think that is separate to the issues about Access to Work. One last thing on Access to Work and central government departments. We are committed to monitoring the situation, to ensure that there is no detriment to either the employment of disabled people or the retention of disabled people within central government departments. All of our departments are well aware that we will be, through DWP supported by the ODI, scrutinising the performance in this area. The principal issue is that we should be starting to push the boundaries about mainstreaming the employment costs for disabled people because everybody else's employment cost are part of the pot as well. If we want to reach out for true equality and opportunity then we should start to recognise that we need to move in this direction. TIM BOSWELL MP: Thank you Malcolm. Two questions, one is about Access to Work and just starting with a comment, I think there was a slight implication earlier on that in a sense the Disability Discrimination Act and Access to Work were alternatives but of course, they are not. I just wanted to get the Minister to confirm that. Going on from that, I noticed in Touch Base, which I still read, there was uneven practice in Access to Work and a need to get a common approach, perhaps you can say a word about that. Can I ask you to say a word about pathways to work, which we have been discussing in detail recently, specific to hearing impairments. Can the Minister reassure us that in each of the regions which are now going to be contracted to private sector providers there will be emphasis on expertise, if not in house then bought in, to deal with the problems of hearing impaired people. DIANA SMITH: I am a Language Service professional for deaf people, a Sign Language professional and a Lipspeaker. I am often working for deaf people in their place of work under Access to Work contracts paid by the employer. It’s problematic, in my experience, for deaf people who use Sign Language Interpreters or Lipspeakers, both professions, to source those Language Service Professionals because there is no one single comprehensive register of all of the qualified people that work in Britain. Public bodies really require it now to find the necessary interpreters and lip speakers under the Disability Equality Duty, and it does not exist. Perhaps it’s too complicated to set up. Disability employment advice services who are there to give advice to deaf people, they could do with this tool too. Who they are and where they are geographically, and you mentioned the shortage earlier. Also, Minister, it’s vital as a service provider myself, I want all my colleagues to be qualified and insured and well trained. I find, Minister, that many deaf people in their place of employment have support from people with no qualifications or training or insurance. So there is a great disparity of access for a deaf person that is trying to get on with their job. There are many deaf people here who are better placed to explain that situation themselves. So a single register please for those of us that do exist and the many more that the government will fund and train in the future. MALCOLM BRUCE MP: The more there are, the bigger the need of a register too.
On pathways to work, what we have not gone for, as you are well aware from the Committee, Tim, is specific disability advisors. Nor have we gone in terms of the contractual specification for specific disability organisations, we have gone for a pan disability approach, but within that pan disability approach we would expect that the organisations who are awarded the contracts or JobcentrePlus itself through its own disability employment advice services will know how to access the appropriate assistance when that is needed. Diana mentioned the issue about the professionalism of Interpreters and Lipspeakers. This is an issue of some debate within the deaf community and I am certainly keen to hear the debate, because you could say that everybody ought to be registered, there needs to be that level of qualification and that is the level at which support is given. There is a counter view, I have to say, that maybe there is a shortage of supply that deaf people should have the right to choose people that perhaps might not reach a high professional standard but actually meets their communication needs. We need to have this debate. I understand where you are coming from when you say professional standards. Some of the messages I get back from deaf people and deaf people's organisations is that there ought to be an issue of choice in here and its not always about going to those who either could be registered or ought to be registered. There are more informal ways and I see some nodding heads around the table and I do think it’s a debate that we need to have. MALCOLM BRUCE MP: I think you hinted a bit that we don't have enough professionals and that sometimes people want people they know, but, for example, Rosie Cooper who would have been here, an active member of this group, she is not here because she is acting as an interpreter for her father in hospital. That is not a situation that she would necessarily always choose, in fact, and she has said there have been circumstances where it’s been quite difficult and a more detached professional person would have been better. ANNE MCGUIRE MP: Can I give you a piece of my experience. Long before there was a Disability Equality Duty and long before the Disability Discrimination Act I managed a large voluntary organisation and we recruited a person with a hearing impairment, quite profound, she had become deaf in her older years did not want to communicate by BSL or anything else. What we did, as I say there was no legal requirement for us to do it, just because we were a good organisation, we actually trained a member of staff to lipspeak for her and with her. I left the organisation about 12 years ago and that woman was working until she retired because an employer actually realised there are different meets of meeting the communication needs of a member of their staff. Maybe we need to encourage employers to think creatively as well. In this case we had volunteers from amongst our staff team who wanted to learn lipspeaking and it worked and it worked for her, we had no legal requirement to do it, we did it because we were a good employer and we wanted to hold on to her.
DIANA SMITH: Just to quickly reply, there are certain circumstances, Minister, which I am sure you appreciate because of the legal ramifications and the potential for miss-interpretations it’s essential to have a qualified insured person. ANNE MCGUIRE MP: I accept that.
ANNE MCGUIRE MP: I accept that and you have highlighted those situations where clarity is vitally important because of particular circumstances. I am only giving you my view that there is a debate but I do accept your inclination that we should aim for as high a qualification as possible. STEVE POWELL: Minister, I am from the charity SIGN. I want to talk about access to primary care. GPs will shortly receive payments in England totalling £108 million to improve access to primary care. I actually wrote to you about this and you kindly responded saying you like critical friends. We wrote also to Patricia Hewitt and Dr Brian Gibbons because our concern was that these payments to GPs result from a survey that is taking place in January on telephone access. The payments will be about £8,400 per surgery. Anyone that is profoundly deaf or hard of hearing can't use the telephone and yet the Government is still allowing the payment system to go forward. Now Patricia Hewitt has not responded to Bert Massie, from the DRC, nor to myself nor to my MP. The Minister in Wales actually wrote to me and said whilst he has the power to make a change it would not be good for relations with the BMA to enforce that. It seems that we could make a massive change for deaf people's access to healthcare but it’s inhibited by a lack of action to make that change. SARAH SCANLON: I am chair of the Association of Lipspeakers. I was interested in your saying that the reason for removing Access to Work from central government departments was partly to mainstream the issue, I can understand that point. What concerns me is that in our experience in dealing with Access to Work advisors often they have limited knowledge of deafness and of the types of support that deaf people need. Now it seems to me that if you are looking at HR departments in central government departments, which themselves have been devolved down within the departments, there may not be a central HR function or a very large one I would be very interested to know what the Government is doing to make sure the requisite knowledge is there because some deaf people, and often there are people with acquired hearing loss, they themselves do not have the knowledge of what support they need. They are unlikely to know the support available I wonder how that knowledge is being put out into the central government departments now that Access to Work is not available to them. ANNE MCGUIRE MP: I obviously will not comment on whether or not another Minister has or has not replied, but what I will do is I will find out exactly what the situation is and I think that would be the most appropriate cause of action for me to take. I am interested in the reply from the Welsh Minister. If I tell you that in some respects we have faced a similar issue in Jobcentreplus where a lot of our communication now is undertaken by telephone because for the majority of people that is the way in which they want to communicate with the job centres and with the benefit lines. We have made it clear that of course, alternative methods of communication are available for those who have a hearing impairment. I think the best thing I can do in the circumstances is communicate with my colleagues in the Department of Health to see what solutions there may be, because I do take the point that there is a difficulty. STEVE POWELL: I think its discriminatory that is allowed to go ahead. ANNE MCGUIRE MP: Point made and point taken, that is the best I can do in the circumstances. On the issue about how we are going to ensure that there is no detriment, of course, that is very much up to the individual government departments. They are well aware of the fact that DWP and the Office of Disability Issues will be scrutinising the way in which they are implemented the new arrangements. Across the whole of government its 2.5 million, a significant amount to the individuals that are supported through that program but in terms of the overall cost it is not a great amount in terms of Department employment budgets. Across DWP we will be working with government departments and I am prepared to listen to organisations and to individuals who may give me examples of where there are difficulties. This is what true engagement is about. And one of the driving forces looking at how we deliver Access to Work program, was because I was constantly going to events and told that people had really bad experiences from Access to Work. Now some of them actually did not stack up, when I enquired further of the individual. But some of them raised operational issues for us which we attended to. So I will be prepared to listen where there appears to be some difficulties. But from the top down, this is going down to the Disability Equality Duty From the Secretary of State in the Department, to the Permanent Secretary down to the person at the front line, we are very clear that we accept our Disability Equality Duty, seriously, that we want to promote equality in terms of service delivery and employment for disabled people. Now I am not saying that the government will change overnight. What I will say is that there is a serious commitment that disabled people deaf people have full access to their rights either as a person receiving a service or a person that wants to be employed with central government and that we are prepared to support them in that right. BARONESS HOWE OF IDLECOTE: The thing that hits me about all of this is that there is a clear need for more trained people, given the fact that there are a growing number of people who become deaf, we are all living longer and so forth. Coming back to the partnership idea. Quite clearly it’s the third sector that is involved in almost every thing now. They are doing a great deal more, due to partnership with government, they are doing a great deal more than in the past and they have a lot of pressures on them. Nevertheless they could do more if they were given the opportunities. The single register idea, at the moment in the House of Lords we are looking at the Further Education Bill. Am I right in assuming that would be part of that? Many from within the sector themselves who would qualified to train at a level to meet the different needs. That is one point. The second point is the waiting time. Perhaps I have more interest because I have had hearing aids for 40 plus years myself, in audiology I know very well there are a lot of very skilled people in the private sector who can be part of helping to reduce the waiting lists. Do we know what is the real number of people we need in this area, or are likely to need in the future. Who is doing the maths on that.
MARK MORRIS: I am from the RNID. On the issue of Access to Work, one area where funds can be saved is if there were reduced waiting times for getting a hearing aid, people would not claim for Access to Work. Those of working age claim through Access to Work because of the difficulties in getting a hearing aid. The police are providing officers with hearing aids and claiming back from Access to Work because it’s a shorter waiting time. It would be better if the NHS provides them cheaply rather than buying them individually privately. My wider question is if Access to Work is withdrawn from government departments, why only that scheme? You can argue a similar argument about statutory maternity pay, why just Access to Work, there a similarities with other schemes, government departments should cover these costs themselves, why is it just Access to Work? ANNE MCGUIRE MP: The answer simply is no it’s not a comparison. Our view is that disabled people are made disabled by society. If we want to create a society where disabled people are truly recognised as equal in opportunities to employment, et cetera then we need to think of the consequences of that. All I am saying is that in a massive government expenditure on employment that government departments should take a lead and actually say we are prepared to mainstream any support costs that disabled people need to enable them to carry out their functions as an employee. The Department of Work and Pensions has been doing it now for 3 to 4 years and we have not taken anything out of our own Access to Work budget and actually if I could put it rather simplistically, Treasury gives DWP £62 million for Access to Work. DWP then gives Treasury Access to Work support to support their disabled workers. Why? When actually what I want to do with that £62 million is to get it out into the wider employment community out there, because central government departments actually should mainstream their employment costs for disabled people. I think that is an ideology ambition and vision which the private and public sector will look at. I can go into big companies and I know and I can see that within their HR budget they are actually supporting disabled people without going to Access to Work. Because they actually believe in it themselves that is what I want to see. Access to Work is a tremendous programme and a tremendous tool but ultimately I hope it’s a stepping stone, when Access to Work is not needed because the employment of disabled people is taken as the norm not the exception. That is my vision, it’s not going to happen overnight but I think we are on the right track on it and I hope I have convinced you of that.
Taking Lady Howe’s point. I will not tell any member of the House of Lords whether or not they should use a piece of legislation as a vehicle for promoting in this case the registration of BSL interpreters. That would be a matter that you would want to discuss with colleagues whether it could be flagged up through that bill. Although I still go back to my earlier point, that we do need to be careful in all of this that there is a debate, there's a difference of view and I accept the points that you have made about professionalism et cetera, but we need to think through the consequences of that situation. In terms of involvement of the private sector, we have not been critically sectarian in this, if I can put it in that harsh way, in terms of involving the private sector to deal with waiting lists. I am not aware of the current situation in dealing with digital hearing tests. I do know that there's pressure, I think it’s all over the country in fact, not just in England. It’s the same in Scotland and Wales. And there maybe particular reasons for that, I know that there is additional investment going into the digital hearing aids but we need to get the test situation sorted out in many respects. But I know that the Department of Health are prepared, I am not necessarily talking about this issue, but are prepared to use private sector providers, in partnership with the NHS to deliver services free at the point of delivery but not as a privatisation of services. MALCOLM BRUCE MP: As I said we will return to the fact that the 18 week rule does not apply to hearing tests. I know there are a lot more questions wanting to be asked but it said the meeting would finish at 6 and I appreciate the fact that you have come and answered so many questions and are engaged as you put it. And I see notes are being taken, so you have got yourself a few days work before Christmas to answer these questions, we very much appreciate that. I think the questions demonstrate that there is appreciation that government is delivering support to deaf people in a variety of different ways. But nevertheless I think there's a recognition that the need is hugely greater than the resource currently made available. Now perhaps if I give notice that not just the All-Party Group but the organisations that are members of this, intend to raise their voices. I think we have leverage with the amount of money being spent communication, and I don't just mean BSL on which the deaf community depend. I think simply what deaf people will be campaigning for is equal treatment, that they are entitled to resources on the same scale as Welsh and Gaelic.
ANNE MCGUIRE MP: You have a thing about Welsh and Gaelic! MALCOLM BRUCE MP: Because they are minority languages that are getting money as a result. Sign Language and other forms of communication are not legally recognised and don't qualify as a right. That is part of the issue. We are also now paying an awful lot of money, quite rightly, for translating for the new wave of immigrants particularly from Eastern Europe, they need healthcare and interpreters. All I can say is, deaf people who have their own languages and their own communication needs and who are indigenous to this country should be getting comparable resources across government departments. It’s up to us to quantify what we want and how we want it so that the engagement that you very directly have given to us becomes mutually productive. So you know what can be done and we perhaps can address resources in an orderly fashion. What you have done this afternoon is engage with us we appreciate that. ANNE MCGUIRE MP: Can I say I meet obviously with the big voluntary sector organisations who represent various impairments, including the RNID. I would be delighted to keep engaged with the All-Party Group. I have no difficulty about that and to, either through yourself Malcolm, whichever way is appropriate, to respond to those issues. As somebody that came from a third sector organisation before I was an MP I know that is what third sector organisations and voluntary sector organisations do. They continue to push and push and push. All I can say we have come a long way but we have not yet reached the promised land maybe together we can take a few steps towards it. MALCOLM BRUCE MP: As I said at the beginning I think we have a friend in the DWP and we are very grateful to you. |
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