Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, September 17, 2015

Official Report 860KB pdf

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British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill

The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-14111, in the name of Mark Griffin, on the British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill. I call Mark Griffin to speak to and move the motion. You have 10 minutes, Mr Griffin.

15:42  

It is with great pleasure that I open today’s debate. The bill was introduced to Parliament on 29 October 2014 and concluded stage 1 with a parliamentary debate on 5 May 2015. The Education and Culture Committee considered the bill at stage 2 on 2 June and today the Parliament debates whether to pass it. I very much hope that members will come together in welcoming this legislation and supporting it at decision time.

Before I discuss the main amendments to the bill that were agreed to at stage 2, I would like to put on the record my thanks to a number of people who have helped shape and develop the bill. In particular, I thank the Education and Culture Committee for its considered scrutiny of the bill and for its continued engagement with members of the deaf community by giving them the means to participate in the bill process. The committee’s processes, which enabled as many people as possible to participate, are an exemplar for the Parliament.

My thanks also go to members of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee for their continued scrutiny of the subordinate legislation powers and to the people who have worked so hard to support me and the bill prior to its introduction and through its parliamentary stages.

I also express my gratitude for the positive and constructive way in which the Minister for Learning, Science and Scotland’s Languages, Dr Allan, and his officials approached the bill.

I also thank you, Presiding Officer, and your office for the support of the staff in the non-Government bills unit, who have done a lot of the heavy lifting to develop the bill and its accompanying documents. They have been a tremendous support. Although you are impartial today, I thank you, personally, and the other Presiding Officers for the support that you have given in terms of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body translating a large volume of documents into BSL videos. Without that support, it just would not have been possible to make the bill process as inclusive as it rightly was.

Finally, I thank members of the cross-party group on deafness, many of whom are in the chamber today. The bill marks almost a decade of their hard work. The process is a fantastic advert for the openness and accessibility of our Parliament. What has happened is a fantastic example of members of a minority group in our society coming together, forming a cross-party group, setting out their priorities and lobbying members to the point that we have a bill in front of us. That is a result of their dedication, so it is only right and proper that we show our appreciation and thank them. [Applause.]

A number of changes have been made to the bill since I stood in the chamber to talk about it at stage 1. The changes are the result of a lot of joint working with the Scottish Government and valuable contributions from stakeholders such as Deafblind Scotland. However, one thing that has not changed is the aim of the bill. As I explained at stage 1, British Sign Language is the first language—and only language—of many deaf people in Scotland. BSL is a visual-gestural language that uses space and movement; the hands, face and head are used to communicate. It has a different grammatical structure from English. Across Scotland, BSL is the indigenous manual language, in the same way that English is the indigenous spoken language.

Deaf people who use BSL are part of a recognised cultural and linguistic minority but, unlike people who speak other minority languages, many deaf sign language users cannot learn to speak English, as they cannot hear the language. The aim of my bill is to encourage the use of BSL in Scottish public life and to raise awareness of the language among the hearing population. I am confident that it is in good shape to achieve those aims.

During the stage 1 process, the Education and Culture Committee heard evidence from witnesses who gave examples of how a lack of BSL awareness and skills among members of the hearing population affected their everyday lives. I will tell members about another case that was included in an annual report of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. A woman who communicates through BSL was admitted to hospital for surgery. During her 12-day stay there, although hospital staff tried to communicate with her, they did not provide a BSL interpreter. That was despite the woman repeatedly pointing to a poster for interpreter services and twice handing staff a BSL interpreter’s card. It was clear from the hospital records that she felt isolated because of the lack of communication. That is just one example that the ombudsman has published.

Statistics provided by the Scottish Council on Deafness show that 77 per cent of BSL users who have visited hospital could not easily communicate with national health service staff. I hope that, in passing the bill, we will address that sense of abandonment, whether in healthcare situations or in the education system.

I turn to some of the key changes that have been made since the beginning of stage 2. The first has been on the scope of the national plan for Scotland. The amendments that have been made in that area, which were lodged by the minister, reduced the total number of plans by bringing a number of public bodies within the scope of the national plan. That gives greater clarity about the purpose of the national plan and will reduce the administrative burden on the public sector. At the same time, a number of bodies were added to the schedule, which means that the Scottish Government will be able to take a more strategic and co-ordinated approach to BSL at the national level.

The amendments that have been made on planning and reporting create a fixed cycle for the production of plans and progress reports. When I first considered the timing of plans, my intention was that national plans should be linked to each cycle of the Parliament, so that every Government would produce its own plan and review progress on it. However, I accepted the minister’s argument that a fixed-term cycle is more predictable and simpler and that a parliamentary cycle could be unhelpful for local authorities, which operate on a different cycle.

The bill that I instructed also referred to performance reviews that would highlight good and poor practice and would name and shame authorities that were falling short, but I was persuaded that the minister’s approach of replacing that with a progress report, which would identify progress with authority plans through a self-assessment process involving feedback from BSL users, made sense.

I also thank Dennis Robertson for his continued keen interest in the bill. He and I lodged a number of amendments to guarantee the inclusion of people who are deafblind in the bill’s implementation. First of all, a new section of the bill now means that, in the main, any references to BSL are to both the visual and tactile forms of the language. When we originally drafted the bill, we took the view that the term BSL already covered all forms of BSL, but I was happy to amend the bill to deliver that clarity.

I want to put on record my thanks to Mr Griffin and Mr Robertson for their efforts in making those changes, which will benefit the deafblind community. Having spoken to some of my constituents who are deafblind, I think that the changes will be immensely advantageous to them.

I thank Mr Stewart for those kind words. It shows just how mobilised, ambitious and enthusiastic the deaf and deafblind community is about the bill that most MSPs received communications on the amendment in question, and it was great that we were able to do something and ensure that tactile forms of BSL are included in the bill.

Changes were also made on the issue of ministerial responsibility. The original bill included a section that required the Scottish Government to identify a specific minister to take on responsibility for implementing the legislation, but I am happy to recognise that the Government operates on the basis of collective responsibility and that Dr Allan will be identified as the lead minister and point of contact for anyone who wishes to engage with BSL.

The stage 2 process, along with today’s final amendments, means that the bill is in good shape to start delivering real and tangible change for BSL users in Scotland. I am delighted to move,

That the Parliament agrees that the British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill be passed.

15:52  

To the many people in the gallery, I want to say—in BSL—thank you and welcome to the Scottish Parliament. I had the privilege of meeting a few of our deaf and deafblind visitors just before the debate. I know that many of them have been campaigning for a BSL bill for many years, and I recognise that this is a significant day for that community.

I congratulate Mark Griffin on proposing the bill, and I thank him for working closely with the Scottish Government over the past few months so that we could improve its provisions together. The bill has enjoyed cross-party support throughout its parliamentary progress; indeed, all the stage 2 amendments were supported by Mr Griffin as well as all members of the Education and Culture Committee.

As Mr Griffin said, the bill aims to promote the use and understanding of BSL across the Scottish public sector, and its clear intention is to improve, over time, our understanding of and response to the needs of our deaf and deafblind citizens, who use BSL as a first language, as has been mentioned. However, the bill is more than that. Too often, we talk about BSL users only as recipients of our public services. I pay tribute to the resilience and creativity of the deaf community in Scotland and suggest that all of us in Scotland will benefit from their contribution to our country and our economy.

The bill requires Scottish ministers to publish a BSL national plan within two years of the act receiving royal assent. Listed authorities, including local authorities and regional national health service boards, will have to publish their own BSL plans a year later. We will be required to publish a national progress report that will highlight progress, best practice and areas for improvement across the public sector, which subsequent BSL plans will need to address. BSL plans and reports will be published every six years, which will mean that we can see progress over time.

As a result of our amendments, the BSL national plan will cover all public bodies with a national remit that are directly accountable to Scottish ministers. That will enable a more co-ordinated and strategic approach at a national level. It will also significantly reduce the number of plans that are produced, which will reduce the administrative burden and cost on the Scottish public sector.

I am determined to ensure that the bill, if passed, will help us to take the practical steps that will make a tangible difference to the day-to-day lives of our citizens who use BSL and to their families and communities. It is therefore crucial that national and local BSL plans properly reflect their priorities. That is why we intend to establish a BSL national advisory group, which will advise Scottish ministers on the content of the national plan. A significant proportion of the group will be deaf BSL users. The BSL national advisory group will draw on the views of the wider deaf and deafblind community and will develop a set of priorities that are to be included in the national plan.

We want to share expertise and resources to help public bodies to improve their understanding of and response to the deaf communities that they serve. This year, we have provided funding of £415,000 to five deaf organisations to help make that happen. Working with the British Deaf Association, the Scottish Council on Deafness, Deaf Action, Deaf Connections and Deafblind Scotland, we have created the deaf sector partnership.

The partnership’s most important function will be to support proper engagement between public bodies and the BSL communities that they serve. It is that engagement that will help to ensure that plans focus on the right things and, in doing so, make a practical difference to people’s lives. I look forward to sharing more detail on the programme of work in due course.

I make it clear that the Scottish Government recognises deafness as a culture and British Sign Language as a language. We formalised that in a statement of recognition in 2011, which said:

“The Scottish Government recognises the importance of British Sign Language to the Deaf community in Scotland, and the contribution which this vibrant language makes to the rich and varied use of language in Scotland today. BSL is a vital means of communication for Deaf people, as well as part of their linguistic and cultural identity.”

My view is that, if we promote, protect, support and value British Sign Language and deaf culture, we will all benefit from the greater contribution that our deaf and deafblind citizens can and want to make to our communities, our country and our economy. From that there will be a contribution to our wider efforts to create a fairer Scotland. I commend the bill to Parliament.

15:58  

I congratulate Mark Griffin on bringing the bill to Parliament. Taking a bill through Parliament requires hard work and determination, which he has just shown. I hope that the whole Parliament will support the bill and pass it into legislation tonight. That will send a strong message to people in the deaf and deafblind community that we value them and their language.

BSL is the main language that is used by people who are born deaf or deafblind, and it can also be used by people who have become deaf later in life. The bill highlights that BSL is a language in its own right. Like any language, it is used to pass down culture and history through the generations. The rich and famous have their history and culture written down in history books for them, while the masses depend on their stories being handed down through generations.

Language is hugely important in that process, which is why we value the languages that all our communities use. We must take steps to preserve and promote them, along with the culture and history of our people.

The bill will create a focus on BSL. The requirement for plans will make public bodies and the Government give regard to promoting and protecting the language in their policies.

The bill will help to address a number of issues. Making BSL more accessible will impact on school attainment. We have heard that deaf children have lower attainment than hearing children. We must tackle that built-in inequality to ensure that all young people reach their full potential. As people progress through school, language becomes more technical, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, where we need to encourage young people to participate. To increase attainment we must ensure that BSL is available to young people in school and that signers have adequate knowledge of the subject, so that they can translate it to pupils in a way that allows them to achieve the same level of attainment as hearing pupils.

It would be useful if, like other languages, BSL was available as part of the school curriculum. Young people who do not require BSL to communicate should be able to learn it, which would enable them to communicate with deaf and deafblind people. Such learning would enrich those young people’s lives.

We need to look at rolling out more BSL training. I pay tribute to Scottish union learning, which has done a huge amount of work on that. I undertook a BSL short course through Scottish union learning. Sadly, I have not been using what I learned, so the knowledge that I gained has become pretty sketchy. It is important that we continue to learn, but we also need the opportunity to use skills that are gained through language courses. Scottish union learning was keen for people in the public sector and the service industry to have BSL skills, to enable them to communicate better with their clients.

In Scotland, 90 per cent of deaf children are born to hearing parents, which indicates a need for BSL for families and adult learners. If parents are to communicate effectively with their children, they need to learn the language before their children do, to help their children to develop skills. Therefore, learning needs to take place as soon as deafness is identified in a child.

Promotion of BSL will ensure that more professionals learn to use the language. One of the big issues for BSL users is access to services. At times, difficulties with that can be an inconvenience, and at other times, they are detrimental, such as when trying to access healthcare—Mark Griffin told some awful stories about that. We are all nervous about going to hospital. How much more so would we be if we were so isolated?

Use of BSL can interfere with confidentiality, which can be compromised when using a translator. That can be especially difficult for people with mental health issues, who need to be able to explain their thoughts and feelings to medical professionals. The use of an interpreter can be a barrier to that. It is vital that interpreters understand the issues that are involved and can put them across to health professionals.

The bill highlights BSL as a language in its own right. It is a language with which to pass on history and culture, communicate and build relationships, and have fun.

Isolation can be devastating. If BSL were more widely used and understood, that would tackle isolation. It would also give hearing people access to another language, with its rich culture and heritage.

I congratulate Mark Griffin again on introducing the bill. The Parliament has passed many pieces of legislation that make us all proud. The bill is another great example of that and I hope that we will all support it at decision time.

Many thanks. I call Murdo Fraser. [Interruption.] I am sorry; I seem to have the wrong script. I call Mary Scanlon.

16:04  

I have never been taken for Murdo Fraser before, but there is a first time for everything.

I, too, thank Mark Griffin for successfully steering the bill to its final stages. I commend his commitment, which I understand is based on family experiences. At this final stage, it is also worth commending former Labour MSP Cathie Craigie and, more recently, Jenny Marra MSP, for their excellent work on behalf of deaf people.

The Scottish Conservatives fully support the measures in the bill and we will be voting 100 per cent for it at decision time. We support any measures to assist deaf people and their families to communicate effectively. The bill will make a difference by promoting and raising awareness of BSL as well as keeping the issue on the political agenda. It is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.

The words “postcode provision” are often used in relation to BSL. I fully agree with Inclusion Scotland when it asks for

“an honest appraisal of where the gaps in provision exist and how these will be addressed during the period of the plan.”

Accurate baseline data is essential for the bill to achieve the success that we all hope it will achieve.

The fact that Inclusion Scotland states that there are 30 qualified BSL interpreters in Scotland, while the National Deaf Children’s Society says that there are 80, shows that two organisations that are well versed in the issue disagree about the number of interpreters. Unless accurate figures are assured from the start, any progress measurements will be meaningless.

On the subject of postcode lotteries, one place that qualifies as a centre of excellence is Dingwall academy in the Highlands. I am pleased to welcome to the gallery Margaret Kinsman and pupils, along with many other people in Scotland who have joined us to see the passage of the bill. I met teaching staff at Dingwall academy earlier this year and was inspired by their enthusiasm and commitment to extending BSL to pupils. I make no apology for describing what the school wants to be done after today. Every pupil in first year at Dingwall academy gets 16 hours of BSL training. I am not sure whether Dingwall is the only secondary school in Scotland to offer BSL to all S1 pupils. If any MSP can give a local example to match or do better than Dingwall, I would be pleased to hear about it.

We fully support and welcome the progress that the bill represents, but there is still more to do. It is disappointing that there is no formal qualification to national 4 or 5 level. The Scottish Government always likes comparisons with England. In England, a GCSE in BSL has been developed and is being piloted in five schools and one college from this month. Given the equivalence between GCSEs and the national exams, I hope that the Scottish Government will work with English authorities with a view to bringing BSL into parity with qualifications for other languages. Dingwall academy has told me that it would quite like to be one of the first schools to be used for any pilot. I do not mind waiting until the minister sums up for him to give that guarantee.

A reason that is often given for the lack of BSL teaching and support is a lack of teachers. The Scottish Government could look at how to incentivise teachers to take up training and qualifications. I did not realise that a teaching qualification is needed, followed by three years of teaching experience, then another two years of distance learning through Moray House in Edinburgh. I understand that most local authorities will fund around 85 per cent of fees and allow time off. However, it is still a huge commitment for any individual to do that course of training, given that, at the end of study, there is no pay enhancement for BSL teaching.

My five minutes are up. Given that I am summing up, I will finish my points later.

I have a little bit of time in hand as we move to the open debate, so I can allow members five minutes for speeches.

16:10  

I welcome all our guests to our gallery this afternoon. I also welcome those who are in the overspill room. I am not sure when we last had to use the overspill room for a debate in the Parliament.

It gives me great pleasure to thank Mark Griffin for introducing the bill. Rhoda Grant described this as a proud moment, and I sincerely hope that Mr Griffin will have that sense of pride come 5 o’clock, when his bill is passed.

I also thank Mark Griffin, and my friend and colleague Kevin Stewart, for acknowledging the very small part that I played at stage 2 of the bill—it was small but very important. It is important to the deafblind community, which wants to have the same equality as everyone else. To have tactile BSL recognised in the bill is a journey that the community has been on for so long.

I offer my sincere thanks to Drena O’Malley—having worked with Drena O’Malley for the last 30 years or so in different sensory services, I can assure you that it is not often that I would say that. [Laughter.] Drena O’Malley’s hard work, determination, enthusiasm and energy have helped in steering the issue and securing this acknowledgement of tactile BSL. I thank her and everyone else in Deafblind Scotland.

I want to look at the awareness-raising aspect and what that means. Prior to being elected, I had the great privilege to be the service manager for North East Sensory Services, which, among other things, provided services for people who are blind and those who are deaf, hard of hearing and deafblind. When we were awarded the contract to provide services for those who are deaf and deafblind, the majority of our staff group—apart from those who had been transferred under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations from a different organisation—had no awareness of BSL. When we asked staff to come forward to learn BSL, we were astounded: every single member of staff came forward. Everyone wanted to embrace that level 1 awareness of BSL, so that any person who required BSL and who came into the services, whether it was in Aberdeen or Moray, would at least face someone on the front line who could acknowledge their language, wants, needs and requirements.

That is all that people ask for; people in the deaf community just want to be the same as everyone else—they want to be able to communicate and to be understood.

The Scottish Government has not just sat back and done nothing over the years. Indeed, in some respects much work has gone on in the cross-party group. I thank Mark Griffin for his kind comments on the cross-party group, of which Jenny Marra is the convener and I am one of the co-deputy conveners. The cross-party group on deafness is under a great deal of—I was going to say pressure, but that is not right. There is a great deal of understanding in taking forward the needs and the wants of the people who know that they have a different need, but one that needs to be recognised.

The point that I want to make is that we have moved forward and embraced technology. I know that my time is running out, but I will give one example of the technology. The video relay system was initially with NHS 24, but it has now been rolled out to all public services with additional funding from the Government. It enables people who use BSL to be able to communicate the same as anyone else. If they are going to make an appointment with their general practitioner or are going to any other public service, they have an app on their phone and smart technology. Those things are available. When that system was rolled out, the chief officer at the Scottish Council on Deafness said that it was “terrific”. She said that it gives people who use BSL the confidence and the confidentiality to speak and be heard the same as everyone else.

When I considered the national advisory group, I saw three initials: NAG. I sincerely hope that the advisory group continues to nag the Government.

16:16  

I pay tribute to my colleague Mark Griffin for his tireless work in promoting the bill and progressing the welfare, culture and values of the deaf community right across Scotland, and I welcome all the guests to the gallery.

The bill presents us with an opportunity to drive an important culture change in society’s attitude to BSL. I have followed it with interest from its early stages, and I noted comments from stakeholders that it was unnecessary.

The member will acknowledge that we have signers in the gallery. One aspect of being able to sign to ensure that all the words are passed over to those in the gallery, and those who are watching on video, is perhaps the speed of presentation.

I apologise. I speak very fast. I think that it is a Grangemouth thing.

As we are all too aware, there has been very limited progress in securing equal rights, which is why we are debating the bill. Its importance is that it does not treat British Sign Language as an aid for those perceived as being disabled; it gives BSL its correct status as a fully independent and indigenous language of Scotland with its own culture, grammar and history. At the bill’s heart is the aspiration to drive real change for deaf children, their families and all BSL users in Scotland.

I turn to the bill’s provisions. I hope that the requirement for both the Scottish Government and public bodies to draft British Sign Language action plans will ensure increased support for deaf people, particularly young people and children who are still in the education system. That is important, as the National Deaf Children’s Society has estimated that there are as many as 3,850 deaf children in Scotland and every year 120 children are born with severe or profound hearing loss.

Figures show a very worrying attainment gap between deaf children and their peers. Scottish Government figures reveal that only just over a third of deaf pupils attain highers or advanced highers, compared with 60 per cent of hearing pupils. In 2012, almost 10 per cent of deaf school leavers left with no qualifications at Scottish credit and qualifications framework level 2 or above compared with just 2 per cent of all pupils. That discrepancy is unacceptable and leaves many deaf young people struggling to find a decent college or university place or to access job opportunities.

It is not just about qualifications. In its evidence to the Education and Culture Committee, the British Deaf Association highlighted how reliance on interpreters in the classroom means that deaf children are often unable to be fully engaged with classroom activities, including the natural jokes and banter in the classroom environment. That leaves many feeling bored and socially isolated at school, and that will obviously have a lasting effect on children’s mental health.

As Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, Tam Baillie, pointed out in his briefing for the debate, the failure of our education system to fully meet the needs of children who use BSL as their main language is not only a lost opportunity for those children; it is a denial of their basic human rights. The provision of national and local BSL action plans provides an opportunity for us to set goals and priorities to deal with those issues, address the attainment gap, and prevent deaf children from being left behind by our education system.

The BDA also highlighted in its submission to the Education and Culture Committee the poor level of knowledge among some teachers and interpreters using BSL in schools. Many of those professionals hold BSL qualifications at only higher level. I therefore welcome the opportunity that the bill offers to set more rigorous targets for the training and monitoring of BSL use by teachers and school interpreters. I hope too that BSL will become part of the school curriculum.

As Rhoda Grant has highlighted, 90 per cent of deaf children have hearing parents. Many of those parents report difficulties in adjusting to their child’s diagnosis and struggle to find the resources to help their children to communicate. Again, I welcome the steps that some local authorities are taking to provide home visits from BSL interpreters. The interpreters work with parents to encourage the child’s linguistic development, starting when the child is very young rather than waiting until they start school.

Yet again, however, such support can be patchy. A recent survey of parents throughout Scotland found that a worrying 35 per cent had received no information about using BSL with their child before they started school. More must be done to ensure that local authorities share best practice as they develop their local action plans. I hope that there will be more investment from the Scottish Government to address the current gaps in delivery and to deliver real change. That will be especially important in closing the attainment gap.

Today is an historic moment for the deaf community in Scotland. The bill sends out a very important message to those who use British Sign Language that their language and culture are valued and that their rights are recognised. It will help to raise and increase awareness of BSL across the hearing population, and transform the lives of every British Sign Language user in Scotland. I thank Mark Griffin once more for his tremendous work in bringing the bill through Parliament. I hope and trust that it will have unanimous support from members today.

16:21  

I start, as I did in the stage 1 debate, by thanking all those who helped the Education and Culture Committee in our scrutiny of the bill, particularly the BSL users and the people from the deaf community who took the time to give evidence. I also thank those who helped us to break all previous attendance records at the committee. Many of them are in the gallery this afternoon, including representatives from Dingwall academy. I wish Mary Scanlon well in what is presumably a campaign to become rector of Dingwall academy once she retires from this place.

I offer sincere congratulations to Mark Griffin on his work, alongside that of the minister, in delivering for the BSL community. Although the bill will not in itself deliver early improvements in access to services, better educational outcomes or the removal of barriers to employment, it holds out the possibility of accelerating a cultural and attitudinal change that will make those changes more likely—and quicker—in future. By increasing recognition of BSL as an indigenous language that has its own culture and identity—as the minister remarked—we can pave the way to ensuring that deaf people are able to access information and services in their first language.

Despite the overwhelming support for Mark Griffin’s bill, some concerns were raised with us. They related in part to the potential risk of expectations being raised unfairly, and the committee had some sympathy with that view. To a large extent members of the BSL community showed themselves to be well aware of what the bill would and would not achieve, but there is the potential for misunderstanding. Another argument was that the bill’s aims are already covered elsewhere, notably by equality legislation. I think that we were right to reject that assertion as it fundamentally misses the point that equality legislation will do nothing to promote BSL as a stand-alone language.

That said, I think that we succeeded in making a number of important improvements to the bill, reflecting some genuine concerns and sensible suggestions that were put forward by those from whom we took evidence. The way in which national and local authority plans will be developed is, I believe, more pragmatic and meaningful as a result of changes that have been made to the bill as it was introduced.

There was always a balance to strike between ensuring transparency and accountability on the one hand while on the other hand not drowning councils, public bodies and others in costly reporting requirements that would do little for the BSL community. Again, I think that the bill now better reflects that proper balance.

The content of the plans will be developed over time, but we know from the evidence that we received that they will need to prioritise the promotion of BSL in education settings, including early years support, as well as opening up access to healthcare and employment opportunities.

It is right that ministers will be required to keep the Parliament updated on progress, not as a means of naming and shaming but to ensure that the bill is doing what we intend and, along with the work of the advisory group, identifying potential areas where changes and improvements might need to be made. As I said at stage 1, the advisory group should be drawn in the main from the BSL community.

Two other changes that I would like briefly to highlight fall into the category of the painfully obvious, yet for various reasons they were not originally explicit in the bill. The first relates to the need for specific recognition of the distinct needs of the deafblind community. I know that Mark Griffin was keen to see that, but the need for it also came through strongly during our evidence sessions and the Law Society drew attention to it. I am delighted that that initial weakness in the bill has now been addressed thanks to the efforts of Mark Griffin and, indeed, Dennis Robertson.

The other area concerns the availability of the plans in BSL. Frankly, it was utterly inconceivable that the plans would not be available in BSL, but nevertheless, again, the bill needed to be strengthened at stage 2, and I welcome the further improvements that were made earlier this afternoon at stage 3.

My final comment is about the impact that the bill has had on the Parliament. I mentioned earlier the committee meetings where we struggled to accommodate all those who wished to attend, which is not a challenge that we are forced to confront regularly. That reflects the inclusive way in which we have gone about engaging with those who are most directly affected by the legislation. That is how it should be, even if it is not always that way. I therefore pay tribute to the committee clerks and other parliamentary staff for the creativity and dedication to the task that they have shown. They can rightly be proud of what they have achieved during the bill’s passage, and I hope that it will influence the manner in which we operate in future, which will, I hope, be more accessible.

As I said at stage 1, the bill can and will help to raise the profile of BSL as a distinct language and, over time, increase its use in the delivery of services. For that, committee colleagues and the minister, but most of all Mark Griffin, deserve great credit.

16:27  

Like many others, I begin by offering Mark Griffin my sincerest congratulations. Those of us who have experience of trying to take a bill through the Parliament understand how difficult it is and we sympathise with any member who does that. To have not only got a bill part of the way through the process and got it supported by the Government but got it all the way through to stage 3 is a tremendous achievement, and Mark Griffin should be proud of what he has done.

I thank all those who gave evidence to the Education and Culture Committee. They really helped the committee in its examination of the bill. I also thank my fellow committee members. One of the problems with speaking after them—members such as Mary Scanlon and Liam McArthur—is that they covered the detail of the bill and many of the things that I wanted to say. I genuinely appreciate their work and their efforts throughout the process, and I echo what they said in their comments about the bill.

I hope that the actions that the committee and indeed the Parliament took to ensure that as many people as possible from both the deaf and the deafblind communities could fully engage with the committee and the Parliament have made a genuine difference. Like others, I am sure, I was lobbied by deaf and deafblind constituents. Not only was that a tremendously important part of the process of helping my understanding of the need for and importance of the bill, but it made clear to me in a stark way the difficulties that individual members of the deaf and deafblind communities face daily.

I will give an example. A deaf constituent approached me and attempted to make an appointment to come and see me to talk about both the bill and issues that he wanted to talk about personally. I could have seen him quickly—that week, in fact; the problem was getting a BSL interpreter who was available on the day when he and I were available.

Instead of being able to meet that constituent within a few days or a week, it took many weeks to arrange an appointment for three people to sit down together, so that my constituent and I could speak to and understand each other and could make sure that he got his points across and that his view was recognised in the work that I was doing in Parliament.

Does the member feel that the new video relay system that has been rolled out to more public services could avoid appointments with constituents being delayed?

Dennis Robertson makes an important point. The committee has been talking about the use of technology and how technology will be important in ensuring that deaf and deafblind community members and constituents can get in touch with their MSPs and MPs quickly and get their voices heard. I would be interested to hear some details about the roll-out of that programme.

I am going to do something now that does not often get done in this Parliament; I am going to blow our own trumpet. I am sure that what the Education and Culture Committee did was not perfect by any means, but it was a substantial step forward in the way in which the Parliament operates. We created a BSL Facebook group and invited the BSL community to join it and share their views on the bill by posting BSL video clips. The group was well received, attracting around 2,400 members who posted hundreds of BSL videos and comments relating to the bill. That was a tremendous step forward.

We also translated key documents into BSL, including our call for views and guidance on how we handle submissions, summaries of the evidence that the committee received and our stage 1 report. We adopted a bilingual approach to the committee’s public meetings: we invited witnesses to give evidence in BSL and provided English-BSL interpretation for the public gallery and via Parliament TV. To accompany the launch of our stage 1 report, we filmed a question-and-answer session involving some BSL users who had given evidence to the committee. The video, which was posted on our website and on various social media, offered deaf people an alternative means of finding out what the committee had included in its report. That was a tremendous step forward. I echo Liam McArthur’s comments and thank those in the Parliament who did all the hard work in making sure that we could achieve all that.

A number of benefits came from that work. The committee initiatives, particularly the Facebook group, were widely held up as good examples of how public bodies could be inclusive, and the feedback that we got from those in the BSL community who engaged with the process was very good.

Many people have high expectations of what the bill can deliver. We all hope that they will be met and that much can be achieved through the recognition and long-overdue promotion of BSL.

I quote from the bill’s long title:

“An Act of the Scottish Parliament to promote the use of British Sign Language including by making provision for the preparation and publication”

of a national plan for British Sign Language. Many people have waited a long time to see those words in an act of the Scottish Parliament. Scotland has many languages and many cultures and I am delighted that we are taking this vital step today and putting BSL on an equal footing with the other languages of Scotland.

16:33  

Stewart Maxwell mentioned expectations, and that is what the bill is all about: the expectations of deaf children and adults.

The Education and Culture Committee also has expectations around the work that we are doing on attainment. That takes me to Dingwall. Dingwall academy is rightly proud of its recent pupils and I saw no limits to their expectations. One profoundly deaf pupil became a maths teacher, another became an audiologist, two are now at university, a third graduated with first-class honours last year, and various other ex-pupils are at college in the Highlands. That is what the bill is all about: putting deaf children on an equal footing with all other children and giving them the same opportunities, including career opportunities. A hearing pupil who studied BSL and deaf studies at Dingwall has gone on to become an interpreter, graduating with first-class honours. I see no limits if deaf children are given the proper support when they need it.

The focus on progress reports against a published performance plan is commendable. I hope that those who make progress from a very low base will realise just how much progress is still required. I also hope that, where provision of BSL is good, improvements and progress will continue to be made.

Conservatives welcome the setting up of a national advisory board to support the bill’s implementation. I hope that the board will adhere to the principles and hopes that are contained in the bill.

I raise an issue that I have raised at every opportunity since the introduction of the bill and which Dingwall academy raised again today: the proposal to improve the availability of family sign language in order to enhance the ability of hearing parents to communicate with their deaf children and to promote the children’s development. Helping the child and helping families must be such a positive way forward, given that 90 per cent of deaf children are born to hearing parents. I did not know that, prior to considering the bill.

Postcode provision certainly applies to family sign language. I understand that there is an early years project by the National Deaf Children’s Society, but there is still much that the Scottish Government could do to ensure that all families are given the support that they need just to communicate with their own children. That is not much to ask for and, as Rhoda Grant pointed out, it should be done at the point of diagnosis, not when the children start school or go to secondary school.

According to the NDCS:

“There is currently no nationally funded provision for these parents to access appropriate training or classes in order to communicate with their child through sign language.”

That suggests that:

“family provision needs to include signs and phrases to facilitate play and child-centred activities.”

That is the appropriate support for families, particularly from birth to pre-school.

Family sign language improves deaf children’s vocabulary and contributes so positively to family relationships. As a parent, I cannot imagine what it would be like not to be able to communicate with my child. We should all think about that.

I would like family sign language to be included in the progress reports and performance reviews, and I ask the minister whether that is a consideration that he will take on board for the future.

I very much welcome the bill. The Scottish Conservatives support every word in the bill, but we are also looking for more. Once again, I commend Mark Griffin and I give the bill my party’s full support.

16:39  

It gives me great pleasure to close the debate for Scottish Labour. I start by congratulating my colleague Mark Griffin on bringing the bill to the chamber and on giving the deaf community a voice in Parliament. I know that the bill means a lot to him, as is evident from the effort that he has given it throughout its entire process. I also pay tribute to Cathie Craigie for her work in this area.

Mark and I share a regional office, and I know the hard work that he and his staff, Cathie and—in particular—Frank, have dedicated to the bill. I am pleased that that will be recognised at 5 pm tonight, when the Parliament, I hope, unites to pass this historic bill.

It is a great privilege for me to take part in the debate. As a member of the Education and Culture Committee when it scrutinised the bill, I heard first-hand evidence as to why we require it and what impact it is likely to have on people’s lives if it fulfils its potential. As Heather Gray, director of the National Deaf Children’s Society, said:

“The British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill marks an historic moment for the deaf community in Scotland, many of whom have British Sign Language as their first or preferred language. The National Deaf Children’s Society strongly believes that, if implemented, this landmark legislation will become a key driver in Scotland towards more effective service provision, better opportunities, and improved life chances for deaf children and young people.”

However, we must not rest on our laurels. When I spoke in the stage 1 debate, I highlighted a number of issues facing deaf people in Scotland. I will not go through each of them again, but it is important to draw the chamber’s attention to the attainment gap that deaf learners currently face, which is extremely concerning.

Scottish Government figures for 2011-12 show that 36.4 per cent of deaf school leavers attained highers or advanced highers, compared to 60.2 per cent of hearing pupils. Scottish Government data also shows that, at only 26 per cent, deaf school leavers are less likely to go on to higher education than hearing school leavers, at 39 per cent. We also know from the Grimes report that only 8 per cent of teachers of the deaf can sign. We must address that. I hope that the Scottish Government closely considers the forthcoming report from the Education and Culture Committee on the attainment gap for people with a sensory impairment and that all issues highlighted in it will be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Statistics from the Scottish Council on Deafness show that up to 70 per cent of deaf people believe that they have failed to get a job because of their deafness. That is a sobering statistic but one that has become all too familiar.

In June this year, I had the honour of sponsoring the Action on Hearing Loss reception, which a vast number of MSPs attended. The reception was held to highlight deaf awareness week and the importance of everyone receiving deaf awareness training and learning about the communication needs of the 850,000 people in Scotland who are deaf or have hearing loss. At that event, we heard from Abigail Matheson about her experience of trying to gain employment. She said that employers’ lack of understanding of communication support, poor deaf awareness and lack of knowledge about the access to work scheme create barriers that prevent deaf people from having the chance to get into their preferred careers. She also raised the problems that deaf people often face at Jobcentre Plus, where staff will not always book British Sign Language interpreters or use the correct terminology when talking about deaf people and their individual communication needs.

We must do more to help people such as Abigail get the support that they require to enter the workplace. The bill will address some of the problems that she outlined, but it will not address them all. Mark Griffin and the organisations that support the bill have made it clear that the bill is the first step on the journey to improving the lives of deaf people in Scotland. It will not solve all the problems that deaf people face, but it is an important first step that the Parliament must take today. As we heard in evidence, the bill will give deaf people the opportunity to access life through their own language. There can be no stronger point to end on.

I look forward to supporting the bill at decision time.

16:43  

I thank my fellow members for their contributions to this very productive and—in the view of many people in the public gallery, I think—historic debate.

As I said in my opening speech, the bill has enjoyed strong cross-party support from the start. It is clear that there is a great deal of interest from across the chamber in British Sign Language and the experience of deaf BSL users in our communities.

I add my congratulations and thanks to the committee convener, Stewart Maxwell, the former deputy convener, Siobhan McMahon, and all the members of the Education and Culture Committee for their detailed and careful consideration of the bill, which allowed it to be improved and strengthened.

The Scottish Parliament has been applauded for the approach that it has taken to ensure that its work on the BSL bill is accessible to deaf BSL users. Thanks are due partly to the committee and to the Parliament itself but, more generally, I hope that as a society we have a new understanding of the importance of being inclusive in that way.

Will Dr Allan also thank the parliamentary staff who have worked tirelessly to ensure that all the deaf and deafblind people in the gallery and the overspill area have been adequately looked after, with their requirements accommodated?

I happily echo those remarks. As I said, it is not often—other than at First Minister’s question time, when an organised fight is put on every week—that we see the gallery as full as it is today. That tells its own, important story about the subject at hand.

Mr Griffin talked about a lack of interpretation in hospital, and I know about the incident that he mentioned. The Scottish Government is addressing the issue with the support of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I do not for a moment claim that the existence of the bill will transform the situation overnight, but I very much believe that the bill will strengthen the hand of everyone who campaigns to put such matters right.

Mary Scanlon generously said that she would wait until I stood up to speak before expecting me to answer her question—I feel slightly as if I have been intervened on while silent. However, she made an important and pertinent point when she asked about, among other things, the role that schools can play in providing BSL more generally, beyond the deaf community. BSL can be offered as part of the one-plus-two programme, and Scotland’s national centre for languages can advise schools about how BSL can fit into their language learning plans alongside other languages.

I recognise that there is work to be done to ensure that BSL learners can progress in their language learning in the same way as learners of spoken languages do. I am happy to explore the issue and to keep in touch with Mary Scanlon about the issues that she was right to raise.

Dennis Robertson pointed to the great willingness to learn BSL that exists beyond the deaf community. I hope that we can all work together to try to meet demand.

Liam McArthur and other members pointed to the importance of deaf people being able to access services in their own language. The contactScotland-BSL service enables deaf BSL users to contact public services by phone, but I recognise that that does not obviate the need for face-to-face interpretation.

I will do my best to ensure that the levels of participation during the bill’s passage through the Parliament are sustained during implementation, if the bill is passed in a few minutes’ time. I thank the deaf and deafblind community, and the many organisations that work with it, for their contribution to the bill. As I said, many members of the community are here in the gallery, and I know that there are many more people watching the debate online. By sharing their experiences and insights with us, they helped us to gain a better understanding of the needs of BSL users, including what BSL users need from us.

People’s experiences around the country are not all the same, of course. In that context, I particularly mention the needs of deaf people in remote and rural areas. I represent 13 islands and I know BSL users who find it difficult to access a conversation, let alone services, in their own language within a radius of many miles.

I particularly want to put on record my thanks to the five organisations that make up the deaf sector partnership, all of which are represented in the public gallery today. They are the British Deaf Association, the Scottish Council on Deafness, Deaf Action, Deaf Connections and Deafblind Scotland. I am grateful for their work with us over the past few months, which has helped us to prepare for implementation of the bill. I look forward to continuing to work with them, over the coming months, as we establish the BSL national advisory group and start to work on the BSL national plan.

Again, I thank Mark Griffin for proposing the bill in the first place. He has made a significant contribution to improving the lives of deaf and deafblind BSL users in Scotland, and he should feel proud of that.

We have made a good start, but it is clear that much more can be done across Scotland to remove the barriers that, in many cases, still prevent deaf and deafblind BSL users from maximising their potential and making their fullest contribution to daily and public life in Scotland. The bill sets us firmly on the right path to address that. I therefore urge my fellow members from across all political parties to vote in favour of the bill.

16:50  

I thank the minister and members for their valuable contributions to the debate, and I thank those organisations from outside the chamber that have provided fantastic supporting briefings. I also thank the interpreters who have been in the galleries, interpreting everything that has been going on—particularly the hands-on tactile BSL interpreters who have been providing one-to-one interpretation for any deafblind members of the public. They will be very tired by this point.

I will briefly remind members of some key facts about BSL in Scotland. According to the latest census figures, there are approximately 12,000 BSL users in Scotland, although there is thought to be a great deal of underreporting because some BSL users have issues using census forms that are in written English. It is also estimated that 120 children a year are born with a hearing loss, the majority of whom are born to hearing parents. As members can imagine, a child being born with a hearing loss can have a huge impact on parents, guardians, brothers, sisters and other family members, as Mary Scanlon pointed out. I therefore support her call for BSL lessons for family members of children who are born deaf to be provided at a very early stage in the children’s development.

Scotland has a serious shortage of BSL-trained teachers, which has an obvious effect on the number of deaf children who are able to access education. The matter was raised repeatedly by Rhoda Grant, Cara Hilton and Siobhan McMahon. Siobhan McMahon quoted Scottish Government figures showing that only 36.4 per cent of deaf pupils attain highers or advanced highers, compared with 60.2 per cent of hearing pupils, and that only 26 per cent of deaf school leavers go on to higher education, compared with 39 per cent of hearing school leavers. That comes down to the language skills of the teachers. It is not difficult to see why there is an attainment gap when a BSL user can be taught complex subjects such as maths, physics or chemistry by a teacher whose language skills are lower than those of the learner. We will need to look at that in the future in order to reduce the attainment gap.

That skills gap can lead to a higher rate of unemployment among young deaf people. Data from a deaf achievement Scotland project shows that the rate of unemployment among young deaf people aged 16 to 24 is 49 per cent, compared with a rate of 19 per cent for all young people. As I said at stage 1, one of the reasons why we need this legislation is to encourage education providers to think about how deaf children can be educated in the language and culture in which they belong, rather than forcing their own methods of education on those children. I hope that my bill can go some way towards that.

Dr Allan said in his opening speech—and I fully agree with him—that we are missing out on what deaf and deafblind people have to offer society and the world of work and we can no longer afford to do so.

One of my reasons for attempting to introduce a British Sign Language bill was personal—Mary Scanlon referred to that earlier. Two of my great-grandparents were deafblind. I never met them, because they died before I was born, but I was brought up with stories from my mum and her mum about how they raised their children, the difficulties that they faced, how they interacted with their children and grandchildren and how they attempted to access services and carry out everyday activities that we take for granted with a dual sensory impairment.

When I became an MSP, I joined the cross-party group on deafness, where I heard some of the experiences of the people in that group. I was sad to learn that, almost three generations after my great-grandparents, people are still experiencing the same difficulties in accessing services, including medical and police services, and in educational attainment. It struck me that the language is still marginalised and misunderstood.

I am under no illusion that the bill is anything other than a starting point. It is the starting point for a continuous cycle of improvement in access to services for BSL users. It aims to raise awareness of the language, highlight gaps in provision and identify and enable the sharing of good practice.

The Education and Culture Committee heard evidence from witnesses who gave examples of how a lack of awareness of BSL affected their everyday lives. One witness told the committee about going into hospital and having to wait hours, days, weeks and months after appointments without knowing what was going on, without being able to communicate what their symptoms were and without being able to get information about their medication and how to take it, because no BSL interpreter was available to help. I hope that the video relay service is available for every member of the BSL community who accesses any medical services.

Mary Scanlon spoke about the number of BSL interpreters that we have, and the debate about that number. The number that I have is that we have 80 registered BSL interpreters in Scotland, whereas Finland—a country with a similar population to Scotland—has 750 sign language interpreters. I hope that, if the bill is passed, the promotion of BSL in public life will lead to a resurgence of the language and an interest among all people in learning it, which will, I hope, lead in turn to an increase in the number of interpreters who come into the system.

Many organisations have already made great progress. I do not think that anyone would deny that, given the example of what the NHS has done with video relay services to consider the needs of BSL users. It is time that that experience was shared across the public sector so that others can start to catch up. I recognise that it is not possible to wave a magic wand and instantly enable BSL users to use the language every time they engage with the health service, education establishments and others. I wish that I could do that, but I believe that the bill is an important first step in putting BSL on a firmer footing and that it will make a positive difference to the lives of BSL users.

As the bill has gone through Parliament, it has often been said that the Equality Act 2010 is in place and that that should be enough to cover the needs of BSL users. It is important to state, as others have done, that deaf BSL users do not define themselves as disabled; they are intellectually and physically as capable as any member in here and they resent the fact that they have to define themselves as disabled to access services that we take for granted. We do not go to a foreign country and define ourselves as disabled.

The issue is about people communicating in their own language. We have to recognise that there is a minority in Scotland who use a different language and who have no opportunity to learn the indigenous spoken language. It is up to us to address that and adapt our services accordingly. I hope that the bill will be passed and will achieve that aim. I commend the British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill to Parliament. [Applause.]