Debate contribution: Sign Language Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Ms Kellie Armstrong on 24 March 2026.

MLA

Ms Kellie Armstrong

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

24 March 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Sign Language Bill: Consideration Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5463452

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you very much. As I said earlier, group 2 amendments, all in the name of the Minister, will be accepted by the Alliance Party today, and we are delighted to do so. The Minister and his officials engaged with the Committee for Communities with open ears. They were willing to listen and to take forward amendments that have significantly improved the Bill. Sometimes, when officials come to Committees, they do so with some hesitation and concern that we are just there to get in the way and be awkward. However, to be honest, we all believe in the same thing, which is that we have to make better provision for people who are deaf and use BSL, ISL and deafblind language. It is an absolute delight today to see that, in group 2, the Minister and the Department have increased the number of organisations and people who will be consulted, given that the Bill covers a number of languages; not just one language but BSL, ISL and, eventually, deafblind. It means that consideration has been given. The Committee was concerned that, if just one person was listed, in the future, it could have been a representative of BSL or a representative of ISL. That has been changed now by amendment No 18, which is the new clause that is being added before clause 9.

The Minister and his Department had also committed to add to the explanatory and financial memorandum the intention that, when consultation takes place, representatives of BSL and ISL would be considered. The Bill mentions two groups or individuals, which may be one from each language, if that is appropriate. As the Minister rightly said, there will be parts of regulations that may relate only to deafblind people, for instance, or could relate to ISL or BSL, so that makes perfect sense. Changing the requirement to lay regulations from negative resolution to require the approval of the Assembly also helps to improve transparency. That is something that we are all keen to do. One of the recommendations that came out of the RHI report was that transparency should be improved in this place. I welcome amendment No 20 to clause 9: five years for the first report and three years thereafter. When you count up the timelines, five years is plenty of time for the Department and people in the deaf community to work together to bring forward some of the regulations that are outstanding. Every three years means that reports will be laid in different mandates rather than, perhaps, some falling within one mandate. Amendment No 21, to leave out "subject to negative resolution" and insert "approved by a resolution of, the Assembly", draws attention to clause 10, which is important because it concerns accreditation of teachers and interpreters. It is vital that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. People who have used sign language from birth or later in life and are fantastic at doing that and have a shared life experience that they can express through sign language are vital when we are talking about the culture and promotion of sign language. We are joined today by Brian Symington and John Carberry, and I am thinking about John's wife Agnes, all of whom, through their use of sign language, have been able to support and help children, particularly those who attend Jordanstown School, to use sign language in a way that I cannot at the moment, because my sign language is static and stilted. Theirs is a free-flowing, beautiful language that can be shared with children so that they, too, can use their signs in expressive ways. It is beautiful to see the smiles on those children's faces when others communicate back with them. As others have said, this is an important Bill. On behalf of the Alliance Party, I thank the Minister and his Department for bringing it forward. I hope we can get this all done and dusted before the summer recess or even before that if we could. It is vital that we show the deaf community that, when we commit to doing something and legislating, we do that. I thank the Minister and the Department for doing that. I also thank my colleagues in the Communities Committee. This was one of our first big pieces of work in the mandate, and we took a bit of extra time in order to get the consultation right. That was done well, and it was very inclusive. We have heard from others that it was better than in other parts of these islands where sign language Bills have been enacted. I ask the Minister and the Department to consider using the learning from the way in which the Assembly has allowed consultation to happen, where people can provide their consultation responses by video in sign language. That is so valuable and means that people are able to communicate in their language.

823 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:16 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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