5. Will the Minister make a statement on ensuring that people who are deaf or hard of hearing are not discriminated against? OAQ(5)0054(CC)

People who are deaf or hard of hearing are protected against discrimination by the Equality Act 2010. The Act also requires that public bodies must have due regard to advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relationships between people who are deaf or disabled and those who are not.

Thank you. Action on Hearing Loss have found that 84 per cent of the 575,000 people in Wales who are deaf or having hearing loss difficulties feel that this obviously makes it harder for them to access vital services. Conwy County Borough Council, of course, has the highest proportion in Wales, at 23 per cent, with 27,000 people who require such appropriate support. You may be aware that in terms of the North Wales Deaf Association, the provision funding has been cut. I have written to the authority very recently, and very politely, to request the reinstatement of this much needed funding to support this lifeline. Will you, in your role, please write also to support our quest to have that funding reinstated?

I thank the Member for her question. We are funding Action on Hearing Loss Cymru, working with Royal National Institute of Blind People Cymru, to train and support people with sensory loss to share their personal experiences with service providers in health, social services and the housing sector. An accessible and bilingual virtual sensory toolkit will be created to help organisations be more responsive to the needs of people with sensory losses—over £144,000 over three years from 2014 to 2017. I hope the Member will welcome that, and also, in her letter to the local authority, that she may mention the investment we are currently making as Welsh Government.

Can I declare an interest firstly as president of Swansea hard of hearing group, and I also have a sister who is profoundly deaf? It’s very easy to discriminate in employment: you just need to make answering the phone identified as part of the job and immediately somebody who’s deaf is unable to apply. The one thing that would make a huge difference would be parity of esteem for first-language sign language with English and first-language Welsh, so that people who are deaf have the same opportunities. Will the Cabinet Secretary investigate this?

Thank you for raising that issue with me, Mike. This Government formally recognised British Sign Language as a language in its own right in January 2004. Since then, we have supported training to increase the number of qualified interpreters in Wales and ensured that legislation, policies and programmes across this Welsh Government recognise the importance of accessible communication to everyone. He is right to raise that issue in the Chamber today.

Contacting public bodies through traditional methods, such as call centres, can be a very difficult and frustrating experience for us all at times, but of course it can be even more difficult for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Therefore, what is the Government doing to ensure that there are alternative ways of making contact available for people who are deaf or hard of hearing in order to ensure that they are not stopped from contacting public services?

I agree. The Member is right to raise that particular issue and it can be very difficult and that’s why we are investing in the toolkit—an accessible and bilingual virtual sensory toolkit—to help organisations be more responsive to the needs of people with sensory loss.