Why we should start teaching British Sign Language to children

The irony of being re-introduced to British Sign Language (BSL) in a parliament about to make life immeasurably harder for its users did not pass me by. I was delighted MPs were offered the chance to improve the accessibility of what we do. Then I realised how little it was, and how late.

It is nearly three years since Rosie Cooper’s Private Members’ Bill to recognise BSL as a language and ensure its promotion became law.

And six years since the then International Development Minister Penny Mordaunt won plaudits for using BSL to announce details of a forthcoming global disability conference organised by UK and Kenyan governments, alongside the Global Disability Alliance. Progress since then has been negligible.

Like many, Christine Jardine celebrated the victory of Rose Ayling-Ellis in Strictly Come Dancing as a breakthrough in public awareness of deafness | PA

Like many others, I celebrated the victory of Rose Ayling-Ellis in Strictly Come Dancing as a breakthrough in public awareness, and believed Rosie Cooper’s Bill would create a statutory responsibility to act.

I was wrong and, frankly, embarrassed by how little I understood about a language which the British Deaf Association estimates is used by 151,000 people in this country of which 87,000 are deaf.

I did not appreciate that like other languages, it has its own grammar, structure and dialects. You cannot simply repeat what is being said in English, word for word, as you go along.

For the first time I realised that, while subtitles are invaluable to those of us who are beginning to struggle with a moderate TV volume – and don’t want the neighbours to share our programmes – it doesn’t quite work for all deaf people. For the profoundly deaf who have BSL as their main, perhaps only language, particularly.

Several years ago, a cousin brought up in Canada explained that her toddler son was learning BSL, alongside learning to speak. She was learning it too.

It struck me then that we are, as a society, simply ignoring the fact that, for a sizeable proportion of our population, communication is difficult, and we’re doing nothing to help.

I’ve had constituents bring their BSL interpreter when they visit me, and I’ve felt embarrassed that I couldn’t communicate with them on any terms but my own. That is what took me to the BSL session in parliament. There was little I could justifiably say to push the government to do I more if I had done so little myself.

When I was a child, the elderly mother of a friend of my parents used to teach me bits and pieces of BSL when we visited so that eventually we could hold brief conversations about what I had done in school.

My parliamentary introduction was my first attempt since. It was much more difficult. Learning as a child was fun. Surely if any of our governments is serious about creating a level playing field for those with disabilities, that’s an easy place to start.

It probably sounds idealistic, but surely that is better than simply leaving so many young children to be excluded.

I am currently trying to sneak the odd practice with a colleague who also attended the session. It’s not a lot and we have to do more, but at least I feel we have made a start. If only our government would too.

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West