British Sign Language is an important language that isn't adequately recognised. At present,  there is no adequate provision or no adequate rights in place to support deaf people at any stage of their journey through life, starting in the earliest years.

Ninety per cent of deaf children are born into hearing families. Therefore, new parents often have no experience of deafness, and have to learn how to communicate with and support the specific needs of their child afresh. Astonishingly, there is no free lesson provision, and, therefore, it's often a challenge for families to ensure opportunities to help their children. And it's true to say that this is a form of language deprivation. No child should be deprived of their right to their language. It's inevitable that a child's earliest development would be affected by this communication vacuum, because a lack of communication capability leads to feelings of isolation that have a negative impact on the emotional and mental health of an individual, and possibly on their life chances more widely.

Things don't improve when a deaf child goes to school. Deffo! says that, on average, deaf children who receive mainstream education in Wales leave school at 16 with a reading age of nine. Often, their speech and lip-reading skills are poor. Also, there has been a consistent gap in the attainment levels of deaf children compared to their hearing peers, which is at its widest in the foundation stage and at key stage 2. This gap exists because of the barriers that deaf learners face, more often than not. And this is also a concern for the children's commissioner, who has stated that the lack of commitment to closing the attainment gap between deaf learners and their hearing peers is an issue that needs attention from the Government and from local authorities, in order to ensure appropriate support for the communication needs of children and young people who are deaf, including BSL learning opportunities that are accessible and affordable, at a range of levels.

And this lack of focus is also highlighted when looking at local authorities, with only one Welsh local authority committed to the British BSL charter from the British Deaf Association. So, it's time to achieve that focus on developing our own national charter for the provision of consistent services and resources for deaf children and their families.

The Welsh Government needs to track the development of deaf children and their families throughout their education journey, and ensure that the appropriate provision is available, because the statistics speak for themselves. At present, there are far too many deaf children who use BSL as a first language being supported by school staff with too simple levels of signing. And we need to think seriously about encouraging teachers to gain a BSL qualification, at appropriate levels.

And turning, therefore, to the new curriculum, there is an opportunity here to encourage far more use of BSL in schools. And, as we know, BSL isn't only for deaf children, and teaching BSL at school could give an additional opportunity for children, across the spectrum, to learn another language.

Having considered all of this evidence, and the statistics, it's clear that work needs to be done by us, as politicians, to promote the importance of BSL resources and services, so that the appropriate support is available at all levels, from infancy to adult life. And the Welsh Government also has a responsibility to meet the requirements of the petition. Thank you.