Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps he has taken to implement the British Sign Language Act 2022.
The British Sign Language Act 2022 gained Royal Assent in April 2022 and does three things:
On Friday 17 March, 17 successful candidates (in 16 posts, one is held by a tactile signer as a job share) were appointed to the new British Sign Language (BSL) Advisory Board, which will advise the Government on key issues impacting the Deaf community.
The Board’s remit will be:
Establishing the Board is a key step in implementation of the Act. Work continues across Government to ensure that the departments named in the schedule to the Act are aware of their reporting duty. They will report on their use of BSL in public communications at the end of the first reporting period on 28 June. The first meeting of the departments driving the Act took place in February.