As the British Deaf Association has told us in their lobbying letter, Labour, Plaid and the Lib Dems have all committed to supporting a British Sign Language Act in their general election manifestos, so I hope that these proposals will get full support today. Like Janet, I learnt some basic British Sign Language when I first became an Assembly Member. I'm very sorry, I've already forgotten so much, but watching the signing at the Welsh Government's COVID press conferences makes me realise how important it is and it also makes me notice its absence at the UK briefings and I think that's worth me, as a Conservative, calling that out.

As I suggested in my short debate on modern foreign languages a couple of weeks ago, using another person's preferred or necessary language goes far further than a simple exchange of information; it makes you ask questions about others and questions about yourself. As Mike says, that's no different for British Sign Language either. And it's something that the new curriculum embraces, and I hope it's something that teachers will find exciting enough to want to teach, because it's something much bigger than perhaps we all expect. As the BDA says, BSL is not just a language, it's a gateway to learning, a path towards a sense of deaf identity and the means whereby deaf people survive and flourish in a hearing world, and that should surely interest us all. If twenty-first century schools are really about the twenty-first century, then deaf awareness should absolutely be built into every new design.

If the Welsh Government's been keen enough to look at Scotland for inspiration for minimum alcohol pricing and the new curriculum, I hope it'll do the same here. The Act that Mark has already mentioned has led to some positive improvements in service provision for BSL users in Scotland, with the Act upgrading BSL, as we heard, from a minority language to a language in its own right. But I think the key thing is that public services have started to pay attention. Glasgow City Council is creating a secondment opportunity for a deaf BSL user from another organisation to assist with their BSL work. Dundee City Council has a deaf person as an apprentice—the beginning of something really quite exciting. The Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament have created roles specifically tailored for deaf people. And 20 colleges and universities have already progressed well in terms of accessibility to their websites, application processes and student activities, as well as providing BSL training for staff and students, and there have been improvements in the other universities and colleges for interpreting provision as well. NHS Scotland, the health boards of Scotland, have done a lot of work to help implement the Act, although they still complain of a lack of deaf BSL representation and they're trying to deal with that.

So, it's quite right that there continue to be some challenges; a piece of legislation doesn't solve everything. The rural councils in Scotland are finding it difficult to access BSL interpreters, for example. But that need for BSL awareness and empowerment training, as well as collaboration across the public sector, is something that a piece of legislation can fix, and that then leads more widely, as a magnet, if you like, to more being done to empower deaf people through employment. So, it's not perfect, but at least they've started in Scotland, so we need to do that as well. Thank you.