All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness
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All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness Look At Me Reception, Deaf Awareness Week 2007 Date and Time: Wednesday 18 April 2007, 7.30pm Location: Portcullis House, Westminster. Guest Speaker: Malcolm Bruce MP Contact: Jonathan Isaac, Director UK Council on Deafness and Clerk to the APPG on Deafness - j.isaac@deafcouncil.org.uk Verbatim Record MALCOLM BRUCE MP : Thank you very much Susan it will be brief, I want to say thank you to all of you. When we met at a fantastic location along the strand last year, I was the only member of Parliament who attended. This time I hope and indeed with some justification I am glad to say that holding it here in the House would produce a slightly better response from the MPs and indeed it has. For that I am grateful to my colleagues. What I can say to you actually there were an enormous number of MPs that support the all-party group; come to our meetings and in other ways contribute and respond by signing motions and so on. We had a good meeting during the course of the year. 2 things I want to highlight, it does not mean that there are not other issues but the 2 things we have continued to campaign for with some success I think, I am going to say "we" I mean the deaf community and the partnership that exists between MPs and that community. One in getting the Government to accept that it was unacceptable not to have the access to audiology digital hearing aids treated on exactly the same as any other condition and namely subject to the meeting the target. What the Government have now been forced to do is acknowledge that will be the case, they have not yet told us how they will do it, I accept its a challenge for them but at least they now accept they are going to take on and we will obviously do our best to make sure they do it. . We are beginning to set ourselves ambitious targets, but I think we are also beginning to get some understanding that government will respond and if we argue our case persuasively and forcefully they will. I hope you enjoy the evening and this venue. This building was not quite as expensive as the Scottish Parliament. {Laughter}. It’s more accessible to more people, although I have to say 3 million people have visited the Scottish Parliament I suppose if they all paid an entry fee it would have paid for the building, they did not think about that, far too generous. Not Scottish enough in my view {laughter}. I dressed for this occasion to, in a very Aberdeenian way I have to tell you because I have been invited to banquet at the Mansion House, as chairman of the International Committee I am invited to go. The invitation I have here says national dress, evening dress and decorations. Now, evening dress usually means a big thing with a tail and white - that costs money, I have a kilt! This is my national dress. Actually it’s better than evening dress really. Thank you for coming enjoy your evening thank every body who works together with us, the all-party group is determined to keep our campaign going we are here for you, we want to work together, we will achieve things. I believe that we can improve the quality of life for people to a high degree if we raise our ambitions and work together to achieve it. I will give my commitment and I know my colleagues will agree to do that so thank you very much indeed. {Applause). |
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