Debate contribution: Sign Language Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on .
- MLA
- Mr Colin McGrath
- Party at the time
- Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Date
- 18 February 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Executive Committee Business
- Heading
- Sign Language Bill: Second Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4806666
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Minister, while many people might say that you are not a class act to follow, I disagree. Your opening of the debate can send a real message of hope to people about how this place counts. You said that you thought that your understanding of sign language was basic, but I think that we could have a conversation later about who has the most basic understanding of it, for I have no understanding of it at all. I am delighted, on behalf of the Opposition, to support the Bill. It is what we in the Building should be doing and what we are employed to do. Regrettably, however, it is something that we do not often do, so, when we get an opportunity to legislate, it is critical that we do so. The Bill is a really exciting thing to support. We just know how much good it will bring to people and how much it will help them. Essentially, it is the right thing to do. That makes it easy to support. In recognition of many of the points that have been made, I will say that the legislation recognises and promotes British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language. It places duties on organisations to ensure that their services and information about them are accessible to those who use either. That is very important. To put it in context, over 3,500 people here use British Sign Language as their first language and 1,500 use Irish Sign Language as their first language. That underscores the critical need for the Bill. Language is essential to all of us. It is part of how we communicate with others. It is how we express ourselves, and it is an integral part of our identity. Those who are deaf or hearing-impaired who may be following the debate today can take heart from knowing that, at long last, Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Assembly recognise their language. I will focus on two areas. The first is support for families. If and when the Bill passes, it will be essential that families who use sign language as their first language have equitable access through publicly funded services to the early support that they need to develop language and communication skills for their children. That is crucial to reducing the lifetime of disadvantages that deaf children face, and it will transform outcomes for the better. I recently met Auditory Verbal UK, which detailed to me that, if children who are deaf or have hearing impairments avail themselves of the available early interventions, 80% will have educational outcomes that are similar to those of their peers. That is remarkable, because, if they do not get that support, they end up lagging behind and do not get the same opportunities as others in their peer group. With a small investment — I think that it is around £80,000 — staff could be trained in delivering auditory-verbal intervention, which would address that imbalance. I have written to the Education Minister and the Health Minister on that point. If we balance the cost of those interventions against what it costs afterwards, if we do not provide that early support, it just becomes one of the issues that we regularly mention in this place. If we put the support in at the beginning, it makes all the difference for the young person or, in this case, the young deaf person. It is important that they get the best opportunity that they can for their life journey. It also makes absolute sense considering the interventions that will be required. I ask the Minister to consider working alongside the Education Minister and the Health Minister to see whether, given the fact that it would cost just £80,000 for the whole of Northern Ireland, that support might be forthcoming across a couple of Departments and whether that might help to add to it. My second point is about a small issue, but it signifies a slightly bigger one. It is about the availability of access to the news for those who are deaf or hearing-impaired. Recently, BBC NI ended its long-standing practice of having a signed news round-up at the end of its lunchtime broadcast. The service was resigned to somewhere deep down in its website for digital access. The impact has been that those who are deaf or hearing-impaired continue to pay their licence fee, but they no longer have the same equality of opportunity to access the news as those who do not rely on sign language. It was a small thing, but it was quite figurative. Lots of us were able to see it in our daily lives — you switched on the news and saw the signing taking place. The removal of it felt somewhat as though a state institution was trying to hide the fact that some people rely on it for the news. It was a mere 90 seconds of sign language, and keeping it would have been so beneficial for those who depend on it. I hope that the Bill progresses and will be perfected as it goes through its legislative journey. In the nine years that I have been here, there have not been many occasions when you sense something palpably different about something that passes through the House because there is support for it everywhere. We know that it is the right thing to do. Not many good news stories come out of this Building, so let us hope that the Bill will be one of those.
922 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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