All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness
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All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness Look At Me Reception, Deaf Awareness Week 2006 Date and Time: Wednesday 3 May 2006, 7.30pm Location: Savoy Place Guest Speaker: Malcolm Bruce MP Contact: Jonathan Isaac, Director UK Council on Deafness and Clerk to the APPG on Deafness - j.isaac@deafcouncil.org.ukj.isaac@deafcouncil.org.uk Verbatim Record MALCOLM BRUCE MP : Thank you very much Susan, I feel slightly intimidated because you are all really long standing committed campaigners and the All-Party Group on Deafness has been going for a little under 2 years. And indeed we are not claiming that we are going to transform the lives of deaf people but I hope we are an important part of the process of trying to raise issues that affect deaf people and contribute to improving the quality of life of deaf people. It’s perhaps particularly unfair that tomorrow is election day in the local elections. There are many members of Parliament who are very active in both supporting our group and in supporting deaf issues. I think I am right in saying that the motion that we tabled for Members of Parliament to sign for deaf awareness week has probably attracted over 50 signatures in the first few days and I am sure we will get many more. If you have not written to your MP to make sure he or she has signed it, do so, it’s the most effective way to get an MP to sign, writing as a constituent. We have tried to do two things, one is to promote what we regard as distinctive issues that matter particularly to deaf people, to government and to Parliament. And to give those of you as individuals or as representatives of organisations access to Ministers and to Parliament, in order to make your views known and your concerns known. I may regret this, but we are open for business, frankly, if there is anything that you feel strongly about, wish us to take up, then we want to hear from you. I cannot promise we will deal with every thing that comes to us. I can promise that we will give every thing consideration and we will do our best to take it forward. Perhaps just picking up what Susan has said, we are very appreciative that UKCoD has facilitated the workings of the group and Jonathan Isaac provides the secretariat. We could not do it without Jonathan. I suppose there is no point him doing it without us. But nevertheless we need each other and it works extremely well. What we have had, for example, just in the last few months. We have had a presentation from John Low about the activities and the campaigns of RNID, particularly on audiology. But on a number of other issues, because the RNID is a very active organisation that covers the whole spectrum. We have had a meeting with Rosie Winterton the Minister of State for health services to make her understand issues that matter. We are still in the process, it was not her fault, by the way, of having a meeting with Anne McGuire the disability minister the reason that the meeting was cancelled last time I am sorry to say that my party had a debate in the House of Commons that she had to reply to. But we will get back on board. A number of MPs have visited the audiology department of Charing Cross Hospital. You might get the flavour of what we are trying to do. Lobby on issues that affect deaf people and give ministerial insight of issues that affect deaf people. Some things happen inside the house and some outside the house. I am going to make just one reference to Sign Language, because when I was on the Council of Europe I got the parliamentary assembly to agree that they wanted sign languages to be recognised as official languages. Let me tell you why we think that would be a good idea. In the United Kingdom the official language and language that nearly every body uses is English. But we do have other languages namely Welsh, and Gaelic. We also have a lot of languages which immigrant and ethnic minority communities use but I am talking indigenous languages of the United Kingdom. It’s interesting to note that there are probably more people who use British Sign Language than speak Welsh and Gaelic combined. But the government resource that goes to Welsh and Gaelic is nearly 100 million pounds a year. There is no consistent commitment to British Sign Language at all. And therefore when I campaign, I am simply trying to say let's have parity of languages. Let's treat all of the indigenous languages the same and give the same resource. Fund lip speaking and fund those that communicate with English and fund the technology that gives people access to whatever form of communication we need. Sign Language is one means of communication. What we need is to use all of the leavers we can to get funding to ensure that the deaf community gets the support it deserves. Do you know, one of the problems is that there are of course, millions of deaf people, there are hundreds of thousands of people that were born or acquired their deafness very young. For whom Sign Language or related kind of communication are important. Equally there are others where technology and other techniques are necessary. But what we need to recognise above all is that all of them have the right to be included. It’s a stark statistic this but one I learnt when I went and looked at the provision of the deaf community in Scandinavia. I represent a constituency in Scotland. Population of Scotland is a little over 5 million. Population of Finland is 5 and a half million. Finland have 650 Sign Language interpreters. Scotland has between 20 and 30. I think we have a lot to fight for. We have a lot to fight for in every aspect of technology. Any body who is in the room saying I am more concerned about subtitling, or I am more concerned about audiology technology, or I am more concerned about lip speaking, fine, we need to fight for all of them and we need to fight together and its because these are very specific issues that relate to people who are either deaf or have a hearing disadvantage that we need an All-Party Group on Deafness. There was some opposition to setting up such a group for a while, because people said it will divide the disability campaign. I disagree. We will fight along side every other group that wants rights of any kind. Without distinction. But we will also fight for those specific issues that matter to deaf people. Explicitly and exclusively. And my closing remark is this: Our meetings, when we have them in the House of Commons, are open to individuals and to representatives of the deaf community that want to come and I am glad you do come. And you have the right to ask questions of the ministers and the speakers. Please tell us what are the issues that you want us to take forward. What are the questions you want asked. I am not promising that we will deal with all of your issues or answer all of your questions. I am promising that we will consider every application and we will give every issue that comes before us the maximum platform opportunity that we can. It’s still true that the majority of people in this country do not understand the specific issues of deafness and Parliament particularly understand almost less than anywhere! That is why we need a group to fight and that is what we are trying to do and I am very pleased that we have a group. I am very pleased with the support that we have got from those members that have a real knowledge and understanding and let me say, I am a complete lay person here. And let me also say I am not here because of some great conversion. I am an ordinary father whose daughter was born deaf, she is now 29 years old, I had to confront these problems and because of that I know how hard deaf people have to fight. Because of that I am happy to be here. I am happy to support the deaf awareness week and I am happy to say that our All-Party Group will do every thing it can to fight for the issues in deafness. Please tell us what your priorities are and we will fight one at a time and one at a time we will get the government eventually to deliver. There is an awful lot you are entitled to and an awful lot you are not getting. |
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