Meeting of the Parliament 17 September 2015
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.]