Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to support any proposed legislation to give recognition to British and Irish Sign Language on the same basis as Welsh, Gaelic and Cornish.

The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005, recognise the Welsh and Gaelic languages respectively and provide for the status of the languages in each of those devolved territories. The Cornish language was recognised by the Government in 2002 under the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority languages.

The Government already recognises British Sign Language as a language in its own right. The Equality Act 2010 also places a duty on public bodies, employers, and service providers to provide services in BSL and other formats when it is reasonable to do so. In addition the Public Sector Equality Duty also requires public bodies to have due regard to the needs of all those with protected characteristics. We do not believe that any additional legislation would add to that