 The next item of business is a debate on motion 4.789, in the name of Mark McDonald, on the consultation on the draft British Sign Language BSL national plan. Can I invite members who wish to speak in this debate to press the request to speak buttons now? I call on Mark McDonald to speak to and move the motion. Minister, 13 minutes and a little bit more if you wish. Oh my! Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm pleased to open this debate on Scotland's first draft British Sign Language national plan, which we published for consultation on 1 March. I'm sure many members will remember the historic day back in September 2015, when the BSL Scotland Bill was passed unanimously by this Parliament. The public gallery was full of BSL users as it is today. In particular, I would like to welcome students from Herriot Watt University and also other members of the BSL community. You are all welcome today. When the bill was passed, there was a spontaneous eruption of joy from the gallery. It was a day that many deaf people had campaigned for and will never forget. Indeed, it was a day that I will never forget. I would like to pay tribute to Mark Griffin for introducing the BSL Scotland Bill back in 2014 and to Cathy Craigie, who was instrumental in developing the initial proposals for the legislation. I would also like to recognise the significant contribution of my colleague Alistair Allen, who worked with Mr Griffin through the parliamentary process to make the legislation as strong, focused and action-oriented as possible. In fact, it is worth recognising that this piece of legislation demonstrated this Parliament at its best. Not only was it developed through constructive and mostly consensual debate, it encouraged the full involvement of deaf and deafblind BSL users and it gained cross-party support. I'm proud to have been asked to take over responsibility for British Sign Language as part of my portfolio and to present Scotland's first draft BSL national plan to the chamber. Our long-term aim for the plan is ambitious. We want to make Scotland the best place in the world for people whose first or preferred language is BSL to live, work and visit. That means that deaf and deafblind BSL users will be fully involved in daily and public life in Scotland as active, healthy citizens and will be able to make informed choices about every aspect of their lives. It covers the whole of the Scottish Government, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies, as well as a number of other national public bodies who are directly answerable to Scottish ministers. That means that we have been able to take a strategic, co-ordinated approach that we feel will have a positive impact across a wide range of national public bodies. Other public bodies, including local authorities and regional NHS boards, will have to publish their own plans next year. The draft national plan, which we are debating today, has been described by Dr Terry Riley OBE, chair of the British Deaf Association as, testimony to the Scottish Government's commitment to ensure that the BSL Scotland Act is deliverable for deaf sign language users in Scotland. It responds to the priorities of BSL users the length and breadth of Scotland, whose views were used to inform the work of the BSL national advisory group, which we call the NAG. I can assure members that it is an affectionate acronym. Before I give a flavour of the content of the plan, I would like to take a moment to recognise the contribution of the NAG. The NAG is a collaboration of deaf and deaf-blind BSL users working alongside Scottish public bodies. It is a remarkable group, not least because two of the deaf members are also visually impaired and three are young people under 18, and it is co-chaired by a senior civil servant and a deaf BSL user. I mention that because I think that it demonstrates our genuine commitment to inclusive and open government. I want to offer my sincere thanks to the NAG, whose hard work over the last year has made it possible for us to publish a plan that I believe will make a real practical difference to the lives of our citizens who use BSL. I would also like to thank the deaf sector partnership, which has supported the NAG and the many discussions around the country that have contributed to the draft plan. The plan is framed around 10 long-term goals, which represent our collective dream for BSL in Scotland. Those include early years, education, employment, health, mental health and social care, transport, culture, leisure, sport and the arts, justice and democracy. We know that it will take longer than six years to reach those goals, so the first draft plan will set out the steps that we think that we can realistically achieve in the next six years. Future plans will take us even closer to our goals. I want to highlight some of the most significant actions that we have included in the draft plan. We recognise the absolutely critical importance of language in the early years. We will ensure that families and carers with a deaf or deafblind child are given information about BSL and deaf culture and will be offered support to learn to sign with their child. We will also increase the provision of information, advice and support services in BSL for deaf parents and carers. In education, our goal is that children and young people who use BSL reach their full potential at school. We are already looking at the qualification level of BSL that teachers have, and we are looking at how to remove barriers to teacher registration for deaf people whose first language is BSL. We will also take specific steps to increase the availability of BSL as part of the language offer in schools under our 1 plus 2 language policy. One of the first steps will be to gather information on where BSL is being offered in schools, to gather and share examples of best practice and to develop guidance to support BSL being offered as an option alongside other languages. We will work together with schools, colleges and universities to ensure that BSL users have a much more positive experience when they make the transition to post-school education and that they receive the support that they need to do well in their chosen subjects when they move to college or university. When young people who use BSL move into the world of work, we want to ensure that they are supported to develop the necessary skills to become valued members of the Scottish workforce. During the lifetime of the first national plan, we will take steps to ensure that BSL users have fair and equal access to employment opportunities, including apprenticeships, internships and employability programmes, and receive appropriate support to find and sustain work as part of the new Scottish employability programme. We recognise that access to health and social care services is particularly problematic for people who use BSL, and we are determined to address that in a number of ways. For example, over the next six years, we will ensure that information on national health screening and immunisation programmes is routinely translated into BSL and is readily available and easy to access. Similarly, we will ensure that information about people's rights to directing their own social care and support is provided in BSL. We will also improve availability of and access to professionally approved health information in BSL. According to the charity Sign Health, deaf people are twice as likely to experience mental health issues such as depression and anxiety compared to hearing people. What makes this situation worse is that deaf people find it harder to access support. Over the lifetime of this plan, we will develop a national source of mental health information, advice and support for BSL users to address the significant health inequality. Finally, the draft plan includes a number of important actions that apply across all public services. We recognise that there is a shortage of BSL English interpreters, particularly those who have the advanced skills necessary to work in specific settings, including the justice and healthcare systems, and we will take steps to remedy that. Of course, more than happy to. Stuart Stevenson Is it not also very important, minister, that we recognise the variants of BSL and I, of course, in particular, highlight that variant that expresses Doric? At the risk of giving the interpreters at the back of the chamber some difficulty, I would say, I. We recognise that there are variations that exist within BSL, and that is something that we are more than happy to consider in terms of our approaches. We know that there are significant variations in access to information and services in BSL across the Scottish public sector. To address that, we will develop, test and promote a set of guidelines for all Scottish public services. We will also explore how we can develop and deliver BSL awareness and training that can be accessed quickly across all front-line public services. There are over 50 actions in the draft plan, but although you have been very gracious in terms of the time that is afforded to me, I am not entirely sure that time would be on my side enough to be able to go through them all in detail. In addition to the key areas that I have mentioned, there are a range of actions to improve access to information and services in transport, in culture, in leisure, in sport and in the arts and in justice. The publication of the draft plan for consultation marks a number of important firsts for the Scottish Government. This is the first time that the Scottish Government has produced a bilingual consultation in BSL and in English. We are the first Parliament to pass legislation to promote and support BSL, and this is our first national plan as required by that legislation. I remind members and all those who are observing this debate that BSL national plan is a draft. The consultation is now live and will remain open until 31 May. Responses can be made in BSL and in English via a number of avenues, including a dedicated Facebook group. Yesterday evening, I had the privilege of attending the first of our consultation events here in Edinburgh. There are to be around 30 in total. At the event, a number of interesting and constructive suggestions were raised, and I am sure more will emerge over the next couple of months. It would be fair to say that, although there was significant welcome for the plan and the actions that are contained in it, there are also a number of suggestions and challenges that we as a Government will need to give careful consideration to when we come to deliver the final plan in October of this year. Today is an opportunity for members in the chamber to take their part in the consultation. I look forward to what I am sure will be a constructive debate this afternoon as we continue to take forward our shared goal of delivering the best services and support for the BSL community. I move the motion in my name. I am pleased that we are debating the BSL national plan for Scotland. We on this side will be supporting the motion in the name of the minister. I congratulate him on having a motion down that does not mention Brexit on a Thursday afternoon. I also pay credit to Mark Griffin for all the work that he did in the previous Parliament. I was not a member of that, but I have gone back and looked at some of the work that he and others did. It is a remarkable achievement and something that he and this whole chamber can be proud of. It is right and proper that the BSL national advisory group, made up of deaf and deaf-blind BSL users and parents with deaf children, has been working together to help to develop the draft plan. I hope that others will engage with the plan over the next couple of months and put their responses in, because the plan will benefit deaf children and young people and their families and the wider community and close the existing gaps that exist in provision for this group, particularly in the early years and education. Ultimately, it will be the help of deaf people to maximise the possible control over their living so that they can have the independence that we all want for them and they want for themselves. The most reliable data that we have is the 2011 Scottish Census, which found that 12,500 people used BSL at home. That includes people who have no hearing problems but who also use BSL to communicate with family members who do and does not include professional BSL users such as interpreters. People who have BSL at their first language consider themselves part of the deaf community. This is a minority group with a shared language, culture and identity as any other minority group in Scotland. The members of the deaf community English is the second language. I think that too often we forget that. The demand for sign language services is set to become much higher. This is the result of the raised awareness in the bill that has already been mentioned. With the implementation of the act under way and the first plan for Scotland now open for consultation, it is expected that there will be a much higher demand for sign language interpreters. The Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters maintains a register of the number of interpreters. Currently there are only 66 operational interpreters here in Scotland. That means that for each interpreter there are around 200 BSL users. For each interpreter there are around 100 estimated BSL users who have BSL at their first or preferred language. One of the challenges that we face going forward is how we meet that demand. At present I serve on the equality and human rights committee and we are taking evidence at the moment in regard to disability and access to higher education. One of the things that struck me is that there is good provision for those who go to university for the lecture hall, but what provision do they have in the union or in the coffee bar or in the discussions outwith that? I am not suggesting that there are easy answers to those questions, but they are questions that we have to look at here in Scotland. There is currently no qualification or regulatory framework around the use of communication support workers or interpreters in education settings. That means that there is inconsistent provision and disparity in the quality of support provided to deaf learners. The role of CWS is critical in ensuring that children and young people who rely on signing to access teaching and learning receive accurate interpretation of what the teacher is saying and what is going on in the class. The same point that I made about the university provision often applies to school as well. A constituent of mine has approached me recently where their child gets good BSL use in class but that person needs to have a break at break time and often feels very isolated in the playground or in the lunch hall. We need to ensure that there is provision not just for academic activity at school or university but provision for social activity as well. Ensure that CWS in schools and colleges have a minimum level of BSL qualification so that it can effectively fulfil its role is fundamental. The national plan is an opportunity to strengthen the consistency of qualification for those working with deaf learners. I would be interested to know whether the minister has any plans and how he plans to bring that forward. Deafness is not a learning disability. I know that when I was growing up, too often it was seen as a learning disability but it is not. With the right support there is no reason why deaf young people should be achieving any less than they are hearing peers. However, the latest Scottish Government data shows that, last year, 11.8 per cent of deaf learners left school with no qualifications compared to the average of 2.6. The gap in the achievement of school goes on to affect deaf young people's life chances in regard to unemployment, poverty, leisure activities and much of the other things that we take for granted. I welcome what the minister has said in regard to promoting positive experiences around early years. Most deaf children are born to hearing families. Currently, the Scottish Government does not cover the cost for families to learn BSL. Often only one family member gets the lessons because of the family budget with other family members getting by. Relationships with siblings and parents are often distorted or not as full due to the language and communication barriers, and developing age-appropriate language is challenging for deaf children due to communication barriers that can impact entertainment and life outcomes. I welcome the funding by the National Deaf Children's Society from a big lottery Scotland to deliver the Everyone Together project, which will see around 350 families receive unique early-year support over three years. Its family sign language element will offer families and early-years professionals the chance to take part in family sign language courses in group and in one-to-one settings. I welcome the steps that are outlined in the national plan, which include the development of information about BSL and deaf culture for parents whose babies are diagnosed as deaf. Again, I remember a few years ago when someone came to me who his child had been born deaf. The doctor almost immediately simply painted a completely negative picture with no positivity there. I hope that culture has changed and I hope that we can see that a child who is born deaf can still live a completely fulfilling life. On that side, overall, we welcome all the aims set out in the national plan. However, we are concerned about how some of them will be put into practice, especially training of front-line staff such as teachers and health professionals. Teachers of the deaf are a lifeline for many deaf children, but those services are being squeezed, and often a lot of them are due to retire within the next 15 years. I had the privilege for a while of being a governor here at Donaldson's when it was based in Edinburgh, and I saw the expertise that was given by many of those staff. We believe that we need to extend to all people who have communication difficulties, those who, for example, have had a stroke, those who come to deaf and are later on in life, or those who simply need it to be able to communicate with family members. We call on the Scottish Government to carefully consider all the responses to the consultation in order to develop a robust, well-thought-out national plan to support deaf people across Scotland. I welcome to hear other views expressed in the debate. Truly delighted to speak in the debate today and thank the Scottish Government for bringing it forward and for the comprehensive consultation document, which I think will have met and exceeded many people's expectations when fully implemented. British Sign Language is the first language of many deaf and deafblind people in Scotland. BSL is a visual gestural language that uses space and movement. The hands, face and head are used to communicate. It has a different grammatical structure from English, and across Scotland BSL is the Indigenous manual language in the same way as English is the Indigenous spoken language. Deaf people who use BSL are part of a recognised cultural and linguistic minority. Unlike people who speak other minority languages, many deaf sign language users cannot learn to speak English as they cannot hear the language. The origins of forms of sign language can be traced back to the 7th century, in 1886. Dr Marigold's prescriptions, a short story penned by Charles Dickens, was published. That story is about a deaf girl called Sophie who is rescued from her violent father by a man who adopts her and then devises a form of sign language to enable him and Sophie to communicate with each other. Even though the history of sign language goes back so far, unfortunately, there still remains a lack of awareness and understanding of BSL among the hearing population, but that is something that is being addressed. What it means is that deaf people have less access to the same information and services as hearing people, which can often lead to feelings of being marginalised, shut-out, misunderstood and isolated. By the same token society, it is missing out on the contribution that deaf and deaf-blind people can make, because they do not have the same access to education or the workplace as hearing people do. The Scottish Government figures show that only 36.4 per cent of deaf pupils attain higher or advanced hires, and that is compared with 60.2 per cent of hearing pupils. Not only 26 per cent of deaf school leavers go on to higher education compared with 39 per cent of hearing school leavers. That comes down to the language skills of the teacher. We really need to look at that in order to reduce the attainment gap between hearing and deaf BSL pupils. I am delighted that the Government consultation gives a commitment to investigate the qualification level of BSL that teachers have and to review how the General Teaching Council for Scotland's professional updates and standards can inform guidance for teachers of pupils who use BSL. However, the Education and Culture Committee undertook an inquiry into the issue in the last session, and there is evidence there. It is not hard to see why there is an attainment gap when a BSL user can be taught complex subjects such as maths, physics or chemistry by a teacher whose language skills are lower than the pupils themselves. A level 1 BSL qualification for a teacher of the deaf, trying to teach an advanced higher physics class just is not going to cut it, and teachers of the deaf really should have a minimum level 3 qualification in BSL, which is the equivalent of a higher grade. Another key point on the subject of education is a commitment to discuss with the potential for developing SQA awards in BSL. That is key because there are a lot of students in Scotland who study and learn BSL in primary school or in the early years of secondary school, but they then drop it as a subject. Because of the pressures that there are in high school to get the qualifications, they need to go on to college, university or for their CV. If we can get to the stage where we have a recognised SQA qualification that gives a young person UCAS points, we will boost the number of non-deaf BSL users who reduce that feeling of isolation within the deaf BSL community at that key time at school and potentially increase the number of much-needed interpreters. On the point that was raised earlier about dialect, I was speaking at an event in Edinburgh where there was no sign language interpreter available in Scotland, so they drafted an interpreter from England. Because of the difference in variation in dialect, some of the audience did not understand some of the word differences that were used in English BSL, as they would have been used to from a Scottish interpreter. That is a much-needed area that needs to be addressed. Another area that could be improved on is access to leisure and sport. I know that there is a commitment in the consultation to support professional pathways and advocate for BSL users to consider culture, leisure, sport or the arts as a potential career choice, but I have been contacted by a deaf BSL user who hopes to participate in the deaf Olympics this year in South Korea, but he is having to fund raise to cover his own costs to attend those Olympics, along with a number of Scottish deaf athletes who are having real difficulty in doing that. We have funding available for our Paralympians and perhaps that is an area that we should look at. I have written to Scottish ministers about that situation. I have included it in my consultation submission, so I hope that the funding of deaf athletes is something that the minister will keep in mind. I said during the progress of the BSL bill that I was under no illusion that the bill was any more than a starting point, that it was the first positive step in putting BSL on a firmer footing and that it would make a positive difference to the lives of BSL users. I am delighted that the Government has taken the next step, and if we see the commitments in the consultation document realised, that will be warmly welcomed by the BSL community. I will move to the open debate. I will be a little bit generous with time. Isn't it nice to hear that? I call Fulton MacGregor to be followed by Graham Simpson. Mr MacGregor, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Firstly, I would like to echo what others have said over the last 24 hours and offer my sympathy to those who were affected by yesterday's events in London. Today's business is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. I want to start my contribution by telling the story of my local hero, Holly Consela, who I am delighted to say has joined us in the gallery today. I met Holly during my recent election campaign, and as anyone who has met her will know that she is a young adult, she is a confident and outgoing young person. She sits on the Youth Advisory Board of the National Deaf Children's Society and is an avid campaigner for the advancement of sign language. However, when we learn the Holly story, one that will not be unique to her, we learn that she was not always as confident and outgoing as she is today, and that was done to a system that failed to support young deaf people. Holly was born deaf but was not diagnosed until she was five. Due to the delay in diagnosis, her language skills were behind her peers. At the time of diagnosis, those involved in her healthcare pushed her to speak as opposed to encouraging a shift to signing. She went to a school where there were no other deaf children and certainly very little support for her, absolutely no access to signing. It was first year at high school before she had contact with other deaf children and it was then that she learned about, in her own words, the rich and amazing deaf culture. It was then that she started to become involved and is now an outspoken advocate for deaf children. Many colleagues will have met Holly. She is not at all shy in approaching MSPs and others to let them know exactly what we should be doing to make life better for young deaf people and their families. In that, I encode the Deputy First Minister at a recent event here in the Parliament, and I am sure that the Minister, Mark McDonald, is firmly on Holly's radar just now. It is stories like Holly's that reinforce just how important this consultation is, and I am pleased that all parties in the chamber have come together to support it. There are, of course, many other inspirational people helping to make progress with BSL. Katie Slavin, also from my constituency, who I first met during my campaign, also runs a shining stars group in Coatbridge helping children with additional needs, including those with hearing loss. She too uses BSL and believes that it should be rolled out into the curriculum. Both of these young people are doing an amazing job locally and they have told me that they were inspired by the recent political engagements. I mentioned, particularly, that they came to approach me during my campaign, and I think that that is quite significant that they both fell confident to approach all the MSP candidates in that election and develop relationships thereafter. I suppose that that is why, over the last couple of days, I have been genuinely surprised by talk of political debate and discourse as having a divisive nature when those two individuals to me are an example of where that community engagement and empowerment can come out of such discourse and discussion. Sign language absolutely must be considered as mainstream language in Scotland, and the sport must be there for deaf people, parents and extended families of deaf children. I think that that has been covered in the minister's statement and the other speakers. According to the 2011 census, as others have said, there are 12,533 people who use sign language in Scotland, including 828 in my local authority area of North Lanarkshire. I would like to take the opportunity to thank Action for Hearing loss for the briefing that they provided for this debate. I am delighted to see that this important consultation has been made fully accessible to those who sign, however I was concerned to hear that there are just 66 BSL interpreters in Scotland at the moment. In Finland, a comparably sized country to Scotland, there are 750, and that gives them a ratio of one interpreter per every six people who use sign language, compared to one in around 167 here, a point made also by Jeremy Balfour. I therefore welcome the commitment to bring more public bodies in to be covered by the BSL bill, increasing the number by almost half, to increase the number of people who use BSL and would encourage the Government to increase the number of registered interpreters. BSL is a language in its own right, which enables many of our deaf citizens to learn, work, parent, be creative, live life to the full and to make their contribution to our communities, our culture and our economy. Much has been said already about the Scottish Government data from 2014-15, and I think that we would all agree that the stats in that are not good, and that is why I would commend the Government in bringing forward this process in order to try and address that. The National Deaf Children's Society believes that, with the right support and early identification, deaf children can do anything that any other children can do, and I agree with that. Closing the timing gap is the aim of this Government, and that includes overcoming all sorts of barriers. However, to achieve that, it is absolutely critical that children are supported in their early years. The early years are a critical time in child's cognitive and language development. 90 per cent of deaf children are born to hearing parents, as has been said, and that creates a barrier in communication in the early years, and it is crucial that parents are supported in communicating with their children. I welcome the consultation and proposals to expand access to support for BSL, and I encourage all of my constituents to take part. I would also like to offer my apologies to the interpreters if my Glaswegian accent has been too fast in speaking today. I have tried to slow down. Thank you very much. Thank you. That is a timely reminder, Ms McGregor, for members to pace their delivery. Graham Simpson, to be followed by Tavish Scott. Mr Simpson, please. You are always piecing your delivery. I certainly do my best, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the session today. It is less a debate because I suspect we will all agree that helping those with hearing difficulties or no hearing at all should be a priority. Can I start by echoing the comments about Mark Griffin and the work that he put in? I do not know Mark very well, but his stirling efforts should be congratulated by all of us. I can also thank the BSL national advisory group for their work so far. This consultation is certainly necessary, and the Government has until October to produce a plan. It is needed because deaf people encounter a myriad of problems in their day-to-day lives. Problems that those of us who are lucky enough to be able to hear do not really think about that often. I want to focus on some of the challenges that they face. Earlier this month, I was delighted to meet action on hearing loss. Their moving on service offers support to help businesses to become more accessible and deaf-aware for job seekers or employees who are deaf or have hearing loss. Moving on, which is funded by the Big Lottery Fund Scotland, provides communication tips as well as information about the access to work programme and how to book communication support such as BSL English interpreters. The charities employment advisers who sign to a high level of BSL support young deaf or hard of hearing people aged 16-25 into employment, training, education and volunteering opportunities. They also provide key practical advice about preparing CVs, interview training and getting ready for college or work. The moving on service is excellent, but it highlights a real issue that deaf people have of finding employment. This was also highlighted to me when I recently visited Lanarkshire Deaf Club in Motherwell. It set up its own job club in January this year and has already seen members start work in Lanarkshire as a result. People who are deaf or hard of hearing can find it difficult to attend the job centre or job interviews without interpreters who can use sign language to communicate for them. There is a general issue across Scotland of there not being enough interpreters and this is something the national strategy and any local ones that follow on from that needs to address. The ratio of interpreters to BSL users in Scotland is about one to one hundred and sixty seven in Finland it's one to six. Fulton MacGregor has mentioned this as has Jeremy Balfour. Strangely, the British Sign Language Scotland Act does not compel the Scottish Government to conduct an audit of current provision of BSL interpretation, but it should and maybe that's something the minister could take up. The public sector can do more and I'm pleased to hear that it will be getting guidelines, but private employers could be encouraged to help too. What about having a deaf accredited employer scheme for example? Maybe that's something the minister could consider and he can take that as a consultation response from me. Another idea is that shops and reception decks could be encouraged in businesses to install hearing loops. Now I visited the Lanarkshire Deaf Club to congratulate them on receiving £5,000 from the big lottery fund to host a day of celebration this coming Saturday under the banner of Loving Lanarkshire Deaf. They'll have a child-friendly event during the day to provide information about local organisations and deaf organisations to the wider community and at night there'll be a party for over 18s with a buffet bar and disco for both the deaf and hearing communities. It's all about breaking down barriers in the community. Ian Galloway, the project manager at the club told me, I feel it's important that local business services and the wider community are more aware of the needs of the deaf community. I'd like to see Lanarkshire as a place of excellence where hearing and deaf people are able to access services and communicate freely with each other. British Sign Language is our first language and not English as many people mistakenly think. His words. That's the point, isn't it? BSL is a language all of its own. Just as we would find interpreters if someone walked into a police station who could only speak French, then we should do the same for deaf people. Most of us take it for granted to be able to go outside, shop, get on a bus, go to work and communicate with everyone. The reality is so different for people who are deaf. When I met Ian Galloway he told me something that we could and should tackle here. He visited the Scottish Parliament to give evidence to a committee and found there was no BSL interpreter. We can make a start close to home. I hope that this consultation and the forthcoming national plan will break down the barriers that I've mentioned and raise awareness. I'm going to be with Fulton MacGregor on this one and begin by apologising to the interpreters for possibly not the accent although I'll try to avoid any depth into the Shetland dialect but more to the piece of speech and it's possibly a the kind of occasion where we should consider that quite carefully. President Clinton will be speaking about now in Northern Ireland at the funeral of Martin McGinnis. If I have heard one person whose use of pause is utterly dramatic it is Clinton's and there's something in that in this kind of debate about recognising that how we speak is important as much as what we actually say. I appreciated the remarks that the minister made and the reasoned tone in which he expressed them at the beginning. Great conciliators on good form today. I also want to pay tribute to Mark Griffiths for the work that he did in the previous Parliament and again in a thoughtful speech today. I did not know the historical perspective he gave earlier on but we are better for having had that on the record here this afternoon and to Jeremy Balford and for others for providing intensely thoughtful contributions to this really important area of public policy. I want to also apologise to you, Presiding Officer, for having to leave before the end of this debate. The Loganair flight to Sumbra awaits for no man or woman and certainly not the Shetland MSP so I will be away I'm afraid. Improving services for British Sign Language users is a worthy public policy goal. The national plan that the minister has set out this afternoon is to be welcomed for its commitment to ensuring BSL users feel supported from their early years into employment and beyond. The plan is a positive step for non-BSL users too by integrating British Sign Language into schools, into workplaces and to public services. We all benefit from working towards a more inclusive society, one of the aspects to this place that we hold dear. I was particularly taken by the section in this plan on education, not least of which because of the work that Mark Griffin referenced in relation to the previous Parliament and the previous education committees. I should thank my colleague and friend Liam McArthur for his role in that. We rightly invest much attention and indeed debate on the funding of education to ensure pupils from all backgrounds thrive in school. Indeed, the cabinet secretary made a speech on that very subject this morning. That should be no different for pupils who use BSL. More teachers too, qualified in British Sign Language, will undoubtedly help those for whom the language is their primary means of communication. But it may also help the wider school. The plan notes that we should take advantage of children's appetite to learn. Bringing British Sign Language into the classroom would increase tolerance and understanding and would at least help to remove the sense of isolation that many people with hearing loss feel. The plan's emphasis too on health and mental health are also to be commended and to be pushed. No individual should be left feeling that they cannot access important services nor left confused about their care because there is no one qualified to tell them what they need to know in the right language. Proper funding is, of course, absolutely critical for ministers to meet these ambitious plans set out today. My constituency in Shetland does not currently have a British Sign Language interpreter, limiting therefore the opportunities available to those who are deaf and hard of hearing in the islands. Video remote conferencing could help address this, but without the necessary investment in broadband connections supporting BSL users who are older or less confident with technology may be a great challenge. The improvement of broadband services meets so many requirements that we make now of our public services. This is a particularly strong one for those in rural, aligned areas. Similarly, helping more BSL users to access university and achieve a degree or into sustainable employment requires both the resources as well as the commitment of those providing support services. Today, my party is very happy to support the Government's motion and very strongly welcome the consultation. After all, all too often, politicians are accused of telling people how things should be without actually seeing what works. Strikes me that the BSL community has rightly been part of the plan's formulation, I took the minister's point about, I think he said, 30 more meetings to discuss the on-going work. I hope and I'm sure that other BSL users will provide their own thoughts on that draft plan over the coming weeks and months. Creating a more equal place for British Sign Language in Scottish life requires us all to work together across all sectors. Let me finish with one of my constituents, who is a British Sign Language user, told me that his dream one day was to be Prime Minister, and I apologise, he did say Prime Minister, not First Minister, but that may have just been a constitutional slip of the tongue. However, because he is deaf, he thinks it sounds like an impossible dream. He has urged us all to take action to improve the position and provision of British Sign Language. That way, he has said, I might have a chance. That seems the right ambition, not just for my constituent, but for all of Scotland. Thank you, Mr Scott. With Ambrill restraint, you paced yourself there, if your delivery is usually much faster. I call Mary Todd. We followed by Rhoda Grant. Ms Todd, please. As you will see, I am determined to include a few signs in my speech today. Welcome to the students from Herriot Watt, who are here today, including my constituent, Caitlin Bogan, who is studying for an MA in BSL. Thursday, 17 September 2015, was the most important day in the history of BSL in Scotland. On this date, the BSL Scotland Bill was passed unanimously by all parties in this chamber, paving the way for the BSL Scotland Act. We should be proud of the leadership that is shown by this Parliament towards equal rights for deaf people, as well as the work of Mark Griffin, which has been mentioned already. Scotland was the first part of the UK to recognise signing for the deaf as an official language, and thanks to the legislation, the Scottish Government and public bodies now have a responsibility to promote the language and to make public services accessible for BSL users. However, this is just the start. The consultation that we are debating today is a key part of the policymaking process and an opportunity to ensure that we get it right for BSL users in Scotland. Another first that is worth us celebrating is that this is the first time ever that the Scottish Government has produced bilingual consultation in both BSL and English. We want to make Scotland the best place in the world for BSL users to live, work and visit, and we celebrate and recognise the value, richness and diversity of BSL. In Scotland, BSL is the first and preferred language of many deaf people. It is definitely a language in its own right. It has its own grammar, structure, syntax and regional variations, as we have heard. Each country has its own national sign language, and, like any language, the sign language has a cultural significance. Language is vitally important for all of us. The ability to discuss politics might not always be a welcome thing, but the ability to say, I love you or is part of who we are as human beings. As a society, we should recognise the cultural and linguistic identity of deaf people who use BSL to communicate and we should adapt our services. That involves removing barriers to accessing public services, employment and education services that deaf people face. There are many examples where deaf people are unable to access crucial information, for example going to the doctor or the dentist. When individuals feel excluded from public life and from the national conversation, that has an impact on their mental health, it is therefore critical that BSL users and young people feel supported, especially for young people, as the impact of deafness in childhood can be significant. 90 per cent of deaf children are born to hearing parents, and there is a general lack of understanding of deafness and its impact on a child's life. There are definitely challenges for BSL users in school, but I want to take the opportunity today to tell you about the great things that my local school is doing. We should all be proud of what is being done in the Highlands. Dingwall academy is one of the very few schools delivering a BSL unit. All of the students in first year, including my son Gregor this year, take BSL classes as a taster along with other modern languages, like Spanish, French, Gaelic and German. That is where Caitlin first had the opportunity to study BSL, which for her and for other children from the school has led on to further education and hopefully career opportunities. At the school, they are really keen that BSL becomes an accredited qualification and has the same status as other languages, and I would have to say that I support them in that. Dingwall academy sees the value of BSL. It recognises that deaf students need to study their own language as much as English speakers need to study English. Deaf children's literacy skills tend to be poorer and they struggle with deconstructing sentences, so that is definitely about raising attainment. Every young person in the school is valued and recognised as having needs, and as a school they want to be inclusive. At Dingwall academy, they do not just want BSL to be an add-on but for it to be embedded. This is about tackling social isolation and mental health problems that face deaf students, and when they can communicate, those challenges are lessened. The parents' feedback is that they really value this. Some parents talk about the value in having kids that can now communicate with their deaf siblings. Dingwall academy is a shining example of what deaf and hearing children can achieve with the right support in BSL, but it is beyond qualifications. It is about social life, family life, being inclusive, and reducing stigma. I am sure that we can all agree that deaf children must be given the same opportunities to flourish as others. Thank you very much. I call Rhoda Grant. We are followed by Alison Johnstone, Ms Grant, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Like others, I welcome the consultation and look forward to the changes that will ensue from it. First, I pay tribute to Cathy Crady and to Mark Griffin. Cathy campaigned on the issue, and that work was taken up by Mark when he came to this Parliament. He pursued the issue doggedly and achieved a real change in our perception to BSL. His member's bill raised awareness and its enactment as what brings us here today together to discuss this consultation. Getting a member's bill through this Parliament is not easy, but Mark's work and determination has made a lasting change for those who communicate through BSL. The consultation rightly focuses on access to education and services. It is simply shocking that attainment levels are so low for deaf people, not only harming their schooling but, because of that, their life chances and access to a career. Their ability to learn is being hampered by inadequate communication. Therefore, I would like to see greater awareness racing of BSL and welcome that the consultation is looking at being included as a language in the school curriculum. That alone will mean more people being able to communicate through BSL. I did a short course on BSL run by trade union learning, and the basics were surprisingly easy to learn. It was, to some extent, as Marie Todd has shown, intuitive, but because I haven't used it since, my knowledge and ability to sign has pretty much gone. Therefore, it is important that it is used more often to ensure that people can build up skills and be able to sign when the need arises. The other statistic that has been mentioned is that 90 per cent of deaf people have hearing parents. If those parents have no knowledge of BSL at their child's birth, they are playing catch-up throughout their life. We all know that babies and young children learn at a phenomenal rate, much faster than adults. A child's influence on learning comes from its parents. Therefore, if they have some prior knowledge, it will keep them ahead of their child and help them to deliver that support. The National Deaf Children's Society tells us in their briefing for this debate that they have obtained big lottery funding for their everyone-together project. The project gives 350 families and professionals working with deaf children early-year support. The family sign language project offers families BSL language courses in both group and one-to-one sessions. It also flag up to us the challenges and omissions in the consultation. It highlights the lack of interpreters. Given that the consultation is geared towards education and service delivery, it is difficult to see how 80 interpreters can adequately meet demand. According to the Society, there are around 3,850 deaf children in Scotland and 3 per cent of them use solely BSL. If those numbers carry across to the adult population, they are surely inadequate to be able to access even the most basic level of services. It also flag up the minimum levels of qualification in BSL that are required for professionals working with deaf learners. I feel that increasing the qualification is missing from the plan. While I understand that we need an awful lot more people who are fluent and qualified in BSL to be able to meet demand, we need more people trained to be able to raise the qualification levels. I believe that that needs to be an aspiration to ensure that young people have the same educational opportunities as their hearing peer group. The other statistic that is worrying is that 40 per cent of deaf children experience mental health difficulties compared with 25 per cent of hearing children. To an extent, that is not surprising. I led the members' debate on Tuesday in the Parliament on the issue of loneliness. It was clear that loneliness and isolation led to physical and mental health problems. Even if you are surrounded by people, if you are not able to interact with them, then you are lonely and isolated. You may have an interpreter in the classroom, but you will not have one in the playground. The only way that we can address that is by making sign language BSL much more widely used. There has also been recently a lot of concern about access to child and adolescent mental health services. That is challenging for all children, waiting long periods of time and having to travel to access services. That is even more difficult for deaf children, since access to services that they can communicate with are even more challenging. While we need language to communicate BSL like every other language is used to pass down culture and history through generations, the rich and famous have their history and culture written down in history books while the masses are dependent on their stories being handed down through the generations. Language is hugely important in this process, which is why we value languages used by all our communities and must take steps to preserve them and promote them. Much of the debate reminds me of the early years of the Gaelic Language Act 2020, and there are many similarities about the ability to communicate but also with regard to culture and history. I remember someone saying to me at that time that having more Gaelic taught in schools was a good thing. However, the real gauge of success was when it would be spoken in the playground. If we are to be inclusive, then that must be our goal for BSL, too. I very much welcome the publication of the consultation on the draft BSL national plan. The national plan comes from the act, whose passage in 2015 was an important step in ensuring that, just like hearing people, deaf and blind people can communicate and be communicated with in their first language. I, too, would like to pay tribute to Mark Griffin, who introduced the legislation as members' bill and worked tirelessly to promote it. I welcome the consultation on the draft plan. It is essential that we take this opportunity to challenge ourselves to be sufficiently ambitious, given the barriers that we know that deaf and blind people face in playing a full role in society. In some regards, the consultation may fall short of the intentions of the section of the act that requires the Government to bring such a plan forward. In examining some of these issues today, I would like to focus particularly on BSL in our education system. As the consultation says, 90 per cent of deaf babies are born to hearing parents. As we know, a secure attachment between child and parent is hugely important for the child's wellbeing. Yet parents in this situation face great challenges in getting the support that they need to be able to communicate with their child. A friend of mine with a deaf son, a lovely young man who is now working, told me how she felt when she found out about her son's condition. She told me, I was totally petrified and felt helpless. I had never met a deaf person in my life and here I was staring into the face of one. We need to make sure that all hearing parents of deaf and blind children get the support that they need from the earliest point. That is why I welcome the Government saying that by 2023 families and carers with a deaf or deaf-blind child will be given information about British sign language and deaf culture and will be offered support to learn to sign with their child. The consultation refers to a range of steps that we should take to achieve that, and some are certainly encouraging. I was pleased to see a focus on developing key materials about play in BSL, so that deaf children are able to enjoy the same play activities as hearing children. Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees all children in signatory states the right to play. That is a welcome step towards achieving that right for deaf children. However, while the commitments that the Scottish Government is making to help to improve access to resources to hearing parents of deaf children, I believe that we can make them even more specific. For example, while it is great to see a commitment to continuing the support for families and carers with deaf and deaf-blind children to learn BSL appropriate for communicating with not-to-five-year-olds, that could be stronger. I would like to see a pledge for all hearing parents of children to have a right to access BSL learning opportunities and to gain BSL qualifications. I would like to turn now to how we improve the experience of school for deaf and deaf-blind pupils. In 2012-13, Scottish Government figures showed that some 10 per cent of deaf and deaf-blind pupils left school with no qualifications, compared to not point nine per cent of pupils with no additional support needs. Hearing impaired pupils were about half as likely as pupils with no additional support needs to enter higher education. On both measures, there was a worsening rather than an improving trend, so we need to do better for deaf and deaf-blind students in our schools. Better training of teachers should be one of the most urgent areas for improvement. Members may be surprised when I was to learn that there is no single national standard for teachers of deaf children to be qualified in British sign language. The Scottish Qualifications Authority offers five levels of qualification in BSL, but many teachers of the deaf are qualified only to the most basic level. Mark Griffin highlighted that point, too. Deaf students can find themselves significantly more advanced in BSL than their teachers, so that will clearly have a detrimental impact on the education of deaf and deaf-blind children and young people. I realise that the minister recognises that that is an issue and is pledging to investigate the qualification level of BSL that teachers of the deaf have. I welcome that, but I would ask him to question that, by merely investigating it as late as 2023, is that sufficiently rapid action. That can be supported by clearer routes into deaf education, although several Scottish universities offer undergraduate degree courses in deaf studies, sign language and interpreting, such as those at Heriot-Watt University in my region of Lothian, there are currently no courses that offer courses in teaching deaf children and young people, and I would encourage the Government to look at ensuring that such a degree is available in Scotland in the near future. Increasing the number of appropriate qualified teachers is an important step, but more teachers who are deaf themselves could make a huge difference, too. The presence of a deaf role model can be hugely important for deaf children and young people. I was pleased to see that the consultation mentions working with the General Teaching Council for Scotland to remove barriers to register deaf people who want to become teachers, and I would like to see that in the final version of the plan. A specific pledge to increase the recruitment of deaf people is deaf teachers. On the issue of wider school inclusivity, Jeremy Balfour touched on this issue, too. Making the formal classroom environment a more accessible and inclusive place is a good start, but we also need to ensure that the wider school environment is wholly inclusive of deaf pupils. Deaf pupils often report, for example, that they are excluded from break-time activities, and that wraparound model of support is absolutely essential. Marie Todd spoke about the initiative that Dingwall academy has shown. It has been a pioneer in using BSL teaching to create a more inclusive school environment for deaf pupils. A language option sitting alongside the traditional languages of French, German and Gallic, 87 pupils out of 240 applied for 20 available places during the first year that the course was offered. Over the following three years, the numbers that were requested to study the course were three to four times the allocation. Margaret Kingsman of Dingwall academy said that, as well as opening doors for hearing children, the development of BSL at Dingwall has been a little short of a revelation for deaf pupils in mainstream classes. It has enabled barriers to be broken down and new friendships to be developed, so it is hugely transformative and has great potential. I wonder if the Scottish Government could go further and encourage other schools to follow the example of Dingwall. I welcome the pledge that, by 2023, education authorities and schools should know that BSL can be part of the language offer and that data should be gathered on how many schools are offering BSL as a language learning opportunity. I would ask the minister to consider what else could be done to enable more schools to offer BSL. The debate shows a lot about how far we have come in making Scotland a more inclusive place for deaf and deafblind people. I very much welcome the draft national plan. It is clear that we can do more. We have a real opportunity to do more together, and I look forward to working with the ministers and colleagues to achieve that. We have Gillian Martin, followed by Miles Briggs. I am pleased to make a contribution to today's debate on Scotland's first ever British Sign Language national plan. Although I have no BSL users on my family, I have family members who have severe hearing loss. I am pleased that we are tackling issues and formulating a plan on communication for all across our society. My thanks goes to Mark Griffin for his work in getting his member's bill passed. The issue is that we all have a right to communication no matter what our circumstances are. BSL is a language that is one that not enough people have access to, whether it is through learning it as an adopter who would like to be able to communicate with deaf friends, family or clients or as a BSL user who finds themselves in a situation where they are unable to communicate with those that they interact with throughout their lives. I want to talk about a constituent of mine who will be very pleased to see that we are having this debate today and who I know will be doubly pleased that we have BSL signers translating our spoken words today for BSL users. Her name is Rosemary Mitchell and she lives in Ellen. Rosemary is the daughter of a deaf father and her late deaf blind mother, Elaine. Rosemary found herself in a situation last year that was tremendously difficult for any daughter. Her mum was terminally ill with cancer and was receiving palliative care. This was a family who thought that they had experienced every possible difficulty in communicating throughout their lives as a family using BSL, but now they are experiencing something new. The lack of availability of BSL interpreters meant that Rosemary had to be her mum's 24-hour interpreter most of the time because there were simply not enough interpreters in the northeast of Scotland to meet the demand. There is not enough knowledge or training in BSL available in society for enough of us to know even the basics to be able to ask how someone is feeling or whether they need assistance. I am one of those. I cannot sign one single word. There is no such thing as the BSL training that so many of my colleagues have mentioned is happening in schools these days. I am a child of the 70s. I am trying not to act too surprised. Neither could any of the carers, volunteers or nurses, fantastic people who were working with Mary Curie and Rosemary's parents, communicate with Elaine without the help of Rosemary or her father. Rosemary is now campaigning and fundraising to get BSL training for Mary Curie nurses. I have met with action for hearing loss and Mary Curie together to look at joint working for solutions for communication issues that deaf patients find themselves with. I am very excited to see what they are working with Rosemary with a little bit of help from me. Thank you for including me in your work together. I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with. What a wonderful tribute to Elaine Mitchell Rosemary has made. I was particularly pleased to see the section of the plan that looked at how BSL interpreters can develop their skills to work in healthcare and justice settings and moves to get more BSL training into the school curriculum as a language offer. The commitment in the plan to roll out BSL awareness training for health and social care staff across Scotland is most welcome. I would like to see deaf awareness training, which includes making people aware of how they can assist lip-readers, too. With a little awareness, like the instructions that we were all given today, to speak clearly and at a moderate pace and always keep your face visible to the person reading our lips, we can make a substantial difference to a person who wants to be able to communicate with us in any situation. Deaf awareness is as important as all the BSL measures in the plan, and they are easily included in training for those going into work in any sector. Communication is our right. BSL awareness and training is a huge part of delivering on those rights. I have Miles Briggs followed by Stuart Stevenson, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am pleased to take part in today's debate, which I believe is a good opportunity for the views of members to feed into and inform the current consultation on the BSL national plan, which will cover the period to 2023. I would also like to pay tribute to Mark Griffin for the work that he has done in this area, especially with regard to his member's bill. The plan rightly enjoys broad party, cross-party support, which has already been demonstrated today. As, of course, did the British Sign Language Act 2015, which was such a significant landmark for BSL users here in Scotland. Like Marie Todd, who has left the chamber at the moment, I have been keen to learn some BSL myself, and members of the health committee have been given an opportunity to do that. In terms of that, it has shown me what a wonderful rich language BSL actually is. I recently met some young BSL signers here in Edinburgh, and it really struck me how the language is developing. One of the things that I took away from that was the new international sign language for our President Donald Trump. You can probably guess what it is, but that was part of what I thought was just a rich part of the language. I will never forget that anyway as part of the language. I want to begin today by urging constituents across the Lothian region, which I represent, especially members of the deaf community, BSL users themselves and those who support BSL users, particularly young people, to give their views during the consultation period, which runs until the end of May. It is vital that they give their opinions on the draft plan and suggest improvements and amendments ahead of the publication of the final plan this October. I also want to pay tribute to those organisations in Scotland who campaign on behalf of deaf people and those with hearing loss. Those views are very important to the consultation process and I hope that we will all be listened to and taken into account. Those include the Scottish Council of Deafness, British Deaf Association Scotland and Action on Hearing Loss. There are also a number of fantastic local organisations across the country working to support BSL users. In my own region of Lothian, for example, we have Lothian Deaf Deaf Counselling Service, which offers counselling and BSL to groups such as the West Lothian British Sign Language Group, which offers deaf and hearing BSL users the opportunity to socialise, make new friends and meet old ones in a relaxed, informal setting. I agree with the points raised by my colleagues Jeremy Balfour about BSL support in the early years and Graham Simpson in relation to employment issues. I want to focus most of my remarks today on section 8 of the draft plan, which covers health, mental health and social care. Equal access to information is a major theme of this section, as it is for other parts of the draft plan, but for me this is really important and something that we should be aiming to make a gold standard here in Scotland. I fully agree that all information on national health screening and immunisation programmes should be routinely translated into BSL and should be readily available and easily accessible. That is something that I welcome and what the minister has made a commitment to today. More generally, high-quality health information and advice on BSL should also be more readily available. I support the suggestion that it should be collated and located in a central online resource, which BSL users can go to access that. As the draft plan suggests, there also should be a national source for mental health information for BSL users. I hope that this scenario of the Scottish Government's new mental health strategy will also look to include. That resource should be comprehensive and user-friendly and direct BSL users to both mental health services and appropriate local support groups, as we see with the ALIS system, which is located within GP practices. It should also build on the good work of the Scottish mental health services for deaf people, which is hosted here in NHS Lothian. Clear and concise BSL information should also be made available for BSL users who wish to direct their own social care and support. I look to local authorities to take this forward and make sure that BSL users can choose to be self-directed to support if they want this. We should also consider carefully the specific needs and requirements of deaf-blind BSL users in terms of accessing health and social care. BSL awareness training for health and social care staff is another important consideration that has been touched upon today, and I would be grateful if the minister would give more details of how the Scottish Government can support local NHS boards and local authorities to ensure that their staff are being able to receive the training when we see time pressures and, in many cases, budget restraints. I think that technology is something that we have not really touched upon today. To have as Scott mentioned this in his contribution, I recently went through Heathrow airport and noticed that they had welcome screens in BSL. That would be interesting to see how we can develop that, especially within our public services in Scotland. Finally, I wanted to end with the issue of loneliness and isolation, and what can often be a very difficult and isolating period for anyone when they are losing their hearing. The Scottish Government committed to bringing forward a national social isolation strategy last September. I hope that that can present an opportunity to look at innovative and creative ways that we can help to support our deaf community here in Scotland and make sure that, in this day and age, people with hearing loss are given the support that they need to realise their potential and prevent isolation and loneliness. I again welcome today's debate, and I look forward to the many constituents and organisations that will make their views known on the draft plan during the coming consultation period. The draft plan is a positive one, but the key will be the delivery of the plan's proposals on the ground across all our public services. I urge ministers to provide the leadership and support that is required to ensure the effective implementation of the plan as we go forward. A lot of our fellow Scots will be watching and expecting this Government to deliver. I call the last of the open debate speeches. That is Stewart Stevenson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The fifth of May 2015 was a very important day in the life of this Parliament. It was the day that the Parliament was awarded an award from action on hearing loss of a charter mark and nationally recognised accreditation for organisations that offer excellent levels of service and accessibility for people who are deaf or have hearing loss. Perhaps more importantly, it was also the day when we started the parliamentary debate on the British Sign Language Bill. Mark Griffin came to the Parliament on that day to propose that we adopt the general principles of the British Sign Language Bill, which we gladly and unanimously did. I was very happy to speak in that debate and to support what he proposed. Sign language is not something that is simply limited to people speaking BSL. We all have our own individual sign language. I have just exchanged some signs with the Presiding Officer to establish how long she wants me to speak. I am quite convinced—I saw her say that it was 27 minutes—that, of course, my ability to read her signs is somewhat incomplete. When we wink, it is quite clear in a particular context what we are likely to be meaning. In my part, if it is an attractive young lady that I am winking at, you can work out the message. In other circumstances it will mean something different. If I slap my forehead, I am saying that I am being stupid. I have forgotten something. If I wave my hands, it is hello. We all are familiar with the concept of sign language, even if we have not a single gesture from the British Sign Language. I have one little phrase—let's see if you know what it means. That means that I am ZS. That, of course, merely leads you to another puzzle. Why am I saying that I am ZS? As a software engineer, we used to have to have two letters that were our particular letters representing us. Sammy Steen had stolen SS before I got there, so I became ZS. To this day, my intimates from that period of my life continue to know me as ZS. Looking at the consultation, there are one of two things that I have not seen before in consultations that are particular to this particular Government document. Firstly—I very much welcome that—you can respond to the consultation by submitting a YouTube video or a vimeo clip in a GIF file, which, given the nature of BSL as a visual language, is of course right and proper. However, I would not have thought of it myself, but now that I have read of that in what the Government has brought forward, it is something that I will try and remember. I mentioned, in my intervention to the minister, the subject of Doric BSL. At the back of the chamber, I was told that I had forgotten about the Weegees. I have no idea what Weegee means, of course, being as I come from apparently somewhere else. It is an impressive document that we have before us, and it being impressive is also to challenge. It has 55 commitments. I am using my hand almost unconsciously to reinforce my message. I particularly approve of commitments 2020-21-22, which has been referred to already by several members about offering BSL as a second language. The 1 plus 2 language initiatives in schools is a very welcome one, because people who learn two languages create neural paths in their brain that raise their overall academic achievement. In my own family, I can see that. I have a Danish great-nephew and a Danish great-nise. Their father is Scots, their mother is Danish, they are bilingual, and I can see that that helps their intellectual development. Other parts of the document at 23 and 24 talk about support during post-school education. I think that that too is very important. I have a close family member who is dyslexic. She had the right support throughout her career, including at university, so somebody was able to help her to understand the questions that she could not properly read on exam papers and she graduated with an honours degree. She is now in her career a very successful manager of a pharmacological laboratory, so she has put that particular disability or that condition behind her by simply getting at the right kind of support. It is worth saying that in this city we have some particular things that are relevant to supporting people who are deaf. Thomas Braidwood, who lived between 1715 and 1806, founded what he thought to be the first school for the deaf here in this city. Dr Samuel Johnson, when he visited Edinburgh in 1773, said that it is a subject of philosophical curiosity in Edinburgh that no other city has to show a college for the deaf and dumb. Dr Joshua Reynolds, the world-famous portrait painter, was deaf, but it did not stop him creating an international reputation that endures to this day. John Goodrich, who died in 1786 at the age of 21, was elected to the royal society right at the end of his life because he was the first person to spot the periodic nature and the changing of illuminations from particular stars and to identify the reasons for that. He was a par excellence scientist who was also deaf. It has been a matter of public policy to take an interest in that. I know too that it has been a matter that has touched democracy. There is only, as far as I am aware, been one deaf MP, Jack Ashleigh. Of course, he was a special case because he was elected hearing and became deaf. Let us hope that we can continue with his excellent doctrine to support people to engage with BSL but also the wider issue of supporting people who are deaf. We now move to the closing speeches. I have a couple of minutes in hand, so up to eight minutes, please, Mr Griffin. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It has been a good debate this afternoon, and one that I hope will assure members of the deaf and deafblind community who communicate using BSL of the strength of support in their Parliament from their Government and MSPs of the importance of their language, culture and the contribution that they make to society. I think that, like the minister in his opening remarks, it is worthwhile to remind the chamber how we got to this point. I thank members for many of their kind words. It was the cross-party group on deafness that started the work on a BSL bill. Today marks over a decade of their hard work. The process in itself was an excellent advocate for the openness and accessibility of our Parliament and democracy on a day that we should treasure it. What has happened is a fantastic example of members of a minority group in our society coming together, forming a cross-party group, setting out their priorities and lobbying MSPs to the point that we have a Government taking forward the provisions of an act, passed unanimously here almost two years ago. That is a direct result of their dedication and hard work, so it is only right and proper that we show our appreciation and thank them. Mary Todd mentioned the fact that Scotland was the first country in the UK to officially recognise BSL as a language in its own right. Even though that predates my time as an MSP, it was also down to the hard work and the lobbying of the cross-party group. I joined the cross-party group on deafness when I was elected in 2011 because of my own family history of deafness to great-grandparents who were deafblind. Although they died before I was born, I grew up hearing of some of the struggles that they faced growing up raising a family. I was then quite shocked to find when I joined the cross-party group that, generations and decades later, deaf BSL users were facing the same barriers, the same challenges and so pushed me to start that work and to support them in the work to bring forward a BSL bill. As I said in my opening contribution, British Sign Language is the first language of many deaf people in Scotland. BSL is a visual gestural language that uses space and movement. The heads are used to communicate. It has a different grammatical structure from English, and across Scotland BSL is the Indigenous manual language in the same way as English is the Indigenous spoken language. As Graham Simpson says, BSL is not simply a signed form of English. BSL is a real and distinct language with a vast difference in a language in its own right. Deaf people who use— Does the member take an intervention? Yes, certainly. Stewart Stevenson. Do you think that we should start with training the Presiding Officers to recognise rude words in BSL so that we are able to be hauled up if we were to use them? I say that we should have very limited sign language in the chamber, unless it is someone who requires it to properly communicate, Mr Griffin. I would hope that we would see more and more sign language in the chamber. Certainly none of the no signs of that nature would require an officer's intervention. However, deaf people who use BSL are part of a recognised culture and linguistic minority. Unlike people who speak other minority languages, many deaf sign language users cannot learn to speak English as they cannot hear the language. Mention is often made of the Equality Act 2010 and its effect on people who use BSL to access services. However, it is important to put on record now, as I did during the passage of the bill, that deaf BSL users do not define themselves as disabled. They are as intellectually and physically capable as any member here, and they resent the fact that they have to define themselves as disabled to access services that we take for granted. We do not go to a foreign country in which we do not speak the language and define ourselves as disabled. That is simply about people using a different language to communicate. We have to recognise that there is a minority in Scotland who use a different language and have no opportunity to learn the indigenous spoken language, and it is up to us to address that and to adapt our services accordingly, which is something that the Government clearly gets and is committed to doing from the consultation document that has been produced. There have been a number of speakers who have spoken and mentioned the lack of BSL interpreters. Fulton MacGregor, Jeremy Balfour and Gillian Martin mentioned the figure of 66 interpreters compared to 750 in Finland for a similar population. Gillian Martin pointed out what the result of that is that family members often translate in certain situations. You can imagine that people will feel an obligation and a duty to help out where they can, but it is just not appropriate in such situations. You can imagine a particularly sensitive medical appointment where it is just not appropriate to have a son or a daughter in that environment signing perhaps a difficult diagnosis to their parent. Tavish Scott and Rhoda Grant pointed out the benefits to non-BSL users of the work that the Government is doing here. That enables us to benefit us as a society, our economy, to benefit from enabling BSL users to make that vital contribution to our economy, to make that social contribution, to make that cultural contribution too. Rhoda Grant talked about measuring the success of BSL as seen by BSL spoken in playgrounds. I would like to see that extended to see a success of the legislation as BSL being spoken in the playground, being spoken on the train and the bus and the workplace BSL being spoken in the pub or in restaurants. Alison Johnson, among others, quoted a well-known statistic that 90 per cent of deaf children are born to hearing parents. It was in all political parties manifestos in 2011 to address the issue where parents and siblings do not automatically have access to BSL when a deaf child is born to that family. I look forward to the Government addressing that. Dingwall academy was also mentioned, and I would point that out to the minister as an exemplar of work in a school on BSL. I think that the SQA would do well to visit Dingwall academy if they are developing a qualification in BSL. I think that they have already made curriculum that would be good to see rolled out right across the country. The signing that Stuart Stevenson talks about is fair to say that my winks to beautiful women are strictly reserved to my wife, and I would advise Mr Stevenson to do the same for his own safety, not certainly not to me. I would like to thank the Government again for showing their commitment to British Sign Language and for bringing forward the motion for debate. I encourage all members to support the motion at decision time and also, crucially, to respond to that consultation and encourage their constituents to do so too. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. In closing the debate for the Conservatives, I want to start by thanking all those for the excellent briefings that we have received, not just for today's debate but for the period over several years now. Of course, I also want to put on record my own thanks to Mark Griffin and to the Scottish Government for the extraordinary work that they have done to get us to this stage. Collectively, as well as being outstanding ambassadors for the deaf community, they have done a huge amount to help those of us who were previously not very well informed about the issue. This afternoon, we have heard some very insightful, thought-provoking and constructive speeches about the way forward for the British Sign Language in Scotland, including some very compelling anecdotes from Fulton MacGregor, Marie Todd and Gillian Martin, which brings it home to all of us just exactly what it means to many of the people on the ground. As several members have said, the greatest focus must now be on how we can improve the educational experience and the academic attainment of deaf learners, no matter what their background is. As the National Deaf Children's Society has pointed out in its briefing for today's debate, it is currently being somewhat hampered by the absence of a complete dataset on deaf pupils. That needs to be addressed in order to guarantee that we have the appropriate BSL resource provision across Scotland for the purposes of assessing that academic achievement. I will come to that in just a minute. If there is a criticism of the plan, it is often about the relative weaknesses that some believe are in the sections to improve the educational experience of deaf people. In that respect, I thought that Alison Johnstone had some very good points to make. It goes without saying that every child should have the opportunity to excel in life, but too often, as my colleague Jeremy Balfour said, our schools, colleges and universities can be very challenging environments for deaf people. If we are to get it right for every child, then the users of BSL must not be excluded. Parental involvement has been very much highlighted in the plan, and, rightfully so, I welcome that very much. I believe that it is essential that parents who use BSL should have exactly the same opportunities to be involved in their child's education as other parents. We all know that parents can make a real difference if they are heavily involved in their child's school and in the decisions that it makes about their child's education. The key issue in all of this is about the attainment gap, and a point that was very powerfully enforced at the education committee in the last Parliament, when we took evidence from deaf learners and teachers and when visits were undertaken to Windsor Park School in Falkirk and Forth Valley Sensory Centre. The National Deaf Children's Society and its calls for the gaps to close quite properly focused on resources and on the fact that specialist education services for deaf young people have in some cases been squeezed and therefore there has been a diminishing workforce to ensure that their needs are met. We know from the work committee that between 2011 and 2015 the attainment gap between pupils for those who have hearing impairments and those without achieving at least one higher increased by a percentage of two points. Even more worrying, as a couple of members have said this afternoon, 11.8 per cent of deaf learners leave school without any qualifications. Mark Griffin has rightly pointed to the work that SQA can do, perhaps taking the examples that Marie Todd spoke about in her very elegant contribution. We are all of the opinion that a national BSL plan will go a very long way to improving the future of pupils with hearing impairments and providing that there is an effective mechanism to measure the performance and the outcomes on a regular basis. I think that the concerns of some local authorities about the lines of accountability that we heard back when the committee looked at it a couple of years ago tended to have an argument that perhaps some of the existing legislation, whether it was the Equality Act of 2010, the Parents' Rights Act of 2011 or the ASL, acts of 204 and 209, has been addressed by the Government's intention in that plan, but we must not lose sight of the fact that those acts also have a responsibility in the way that they can help youngsters who have hearing impairment. There is no doubt—and I think that there is a very important link between our own Gaelic Language Act of 205 and indeed the Finnish Sign Language Act in 2015, which the committee looked at a couple of years ago—that it is made plain that the legislation is not enough in itself, since the better outcomes are also about recognising the intrinsic culture with the deaf community. That is something that has been mentioned by several members this afternoon, including I may say the unique ZS language, which we hear on several occasions, I have to say in this Parliament, and perhaps Mr Stevenson could inform us a little bit better about some of the basic principles of that ZS language from time to time. Nonetheless, he makes a very important point by raising that. The call made by the NDCS that there should be a minimum qualification level in BSL for those professionals working with deaf learners in order to ensure that they all have the same standards of teaching is clearly a good one. It is something that would go a very long way, in my opinion, to help to narrow the attainment gap, but I also think that it would be helpful to have further debate in this area as there are other staff issues being discussed just now at the education committee about various aspects of minority learning, including, I may say, for some ASN groups, and I think that there are implications for costs in this and the recruitment of the right staff. That debate is on-going at the education committee just now, and I think that we should not lose sight that it must include BSL. Of course, the attainment gap does not stop at school because it impacts on the positive destinations that deaf young people will go on to seek in later life, as we have heard from several speakers this afternoon, including Graham Simpson. On average, 22 per cent of pupils with a hearing impairment go on to higher education compared to 44 per cent of those without. The traditional system of lectures, seminars and tutorials at university can at times be a major obstacle, although I think that there are considerable improvements being made. It is difficult, quite rightly, in group discussions to be able to communicate with other students, and therefore the benefit of sharing knowledge and ideas is not always being extended to those who have hearing impairment. Likewise, in the social setting, after the lectures and coursework is obviously over for the day, the student experience can be one of exclusion for students who use sign language, so it is vital that the student unions recognise the role that they can play in making sure that deaf students are represented and have exactly the same chance as others to fully participate in university and college life. To give credit, I think that some of the student unions have done a lot of work to make sure that that happens, although there is clearly more to do. Mark Griffin made some excellent points about the extracurricular dimension, and I think that that is something that we need to think about in a wider context, too, because if it is the ability to be included in those extracurricular activities that take place, which are very much an intrinsic part of the educational experience, then I would worry greatly if it was felt that too many of the BSL pupils are losing out because they feel that they cannot contribute to that. I think that that is a way that we need to work at very hard. I am conscious that I am coming to get a sign from the Deputy Presiding Officer in the minute. If I can just sum up, I think that for far too long the deaf community has had a very raw deal, something that has undermined their right to do the best that they can in their educational institution in whichever they find themselves and which has sometimes had very serious implications for their ability to gain suitable employment and participate fully in life in a way that we all take for granted when we are in the non-deaf community. The BSL plan is a huge step in the right direction, and that is why we very much warmly welcome the progress to date and why we will most certainly be voting for the Scottish Government's motion at a decision time. May I end by complimenting Mark Griffin for all the work that he has done on what is a very important issue? Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I begin by thanking our two interpreters at the back of the chamber, Andrew and Yvonne, who have been spending the afternoon trying valiantly to communicate the messages that we have been putting across in the chamber to BSL users who will be watching this debate. Thank you very much for the efforts that you have put in to ensure that this debate can be as accessible as possible. I mentioned at the beginning of the debate the membership of the national advisory group, and three of the members of the national advisory group are here in the gallery today—Natalie Greenall, Amy Dawson and Debra Hwerett. I want to particularly thank Debra, who is a deafblind BSL user who has co-chaired the national advisory group alongside a member of the civil service. I want to take a moment to go through some of the contributions that have been made, some of the points that have been raised as part of the debate this afternoon. A point that has been raised by a number of speakers across the chamber, Graham Simpson, Fulton MacGregor, Rhoda Grant, among others, was around the issue of the shortage of qualified registered BSL interpreters. We acknowledge that shortage and the draft plan acknowledges that we need to consider ways of boosting the profession and also to look at ways that we can increase the pool of qualified interpreters necessary to work in specific settings such as health and justice. We recognise that shortage and we will strive to increase and improve both the number and the quality of interpretation. That perhaps brings me on to one of the second themes that has run through the debate that was first raised by Jeremy Balfour about featuring in a number of other speeches. That is around the qualification levels that exist in terms both of teachers of the deaf but also of communication support workers supporting deaf pupils in schools. We recognise the concerns that exist and some of those were raised during the consultation event that took place yesterday evening in Edinburgh, which had a specific focus on the theme of education. Our expectations are that appropriately qualified and skilled staff must be employed to fulfil duties present under the additional support for learning act to provide support to pupils. However, we will give careful consideration to how we can support those individuals who require upskilling to be able to do that. Another point that Jeremy Balfour raised was around support for families who have a deaf baby or child. It has been a happy coincidence that the statement that I made this afternoon around early learning and childcare has flowed into the debate around British Sign Language. Our aspiration for the best start in life for all of Scotland's children extends also to deaf children. We are committed to ensuring that families and carers with a deaf or deafblind child are given information about BSL and supported to learn to sign to their child. Indeed, that is one of the goals contained within the draft plan. A number of constituents of members were highlighted during the course of the debate, and it is great to see so many individuals out there in communities doing great work and pushing forward in trying to promote and encourage greater uptake of and understanding of BSL. I commit to this Government to working to try and achieve some of the goals that have been highlighted by, for example, Gillian Martin, Fulton MacGregor and Marie Todd, among others, in terms of the work that their constituents are taking forward. In terms of work that we are continuing to take forward, one of the points that Tavish Scott made—I am slightly worried, Presiding Officer—is that that is twice this afternoon that Tavish Scott has referred to me as the great conciliator, which I suppose is better than some of the things that I often get called in this chamber. I now realise that it is not Tavish Scott championing the fact that I have clearly brought two consensual pieces of discourse to the chamber this afternoon. It is immediately that he knows that, because we will rally around the motion this evening, he was able to get away for his flight to Sumbara, but I am sure that he will check back on the official report later on. I want to say in relation to his constituent who has high aspirations to become the first deaf and BSL Prime Minister that the access to elected office fund, which the Scottish Government has put in place, is a means by which his constituent and others who wish to seek elected office can do so. I hold out hope that it will not be long having, in the last session of Parliament, had our great friend and colleague Dennis Robertson being the first blind MSP to sit in the chamber. I hold out hope that it will not be long until we have our first deaf MSP in the chamber and possibly our first BSL user in the chamber. I am sure that members across the Parliament would echo that aspiration. In terms of some of the other points that have been raised, Graham Simpson asked about audit around interpreting services. We have made a commitment to look at a landscape review for interpreting services, including looking at things such as skill level, training and regulation. That is something that we will look to take forward. The point was made by Liz Smith in closing and by other members about the committee inquiry into attainment. The Scottish Government has set up a working group to look to address recommendations of the inquiry and we are confident that we can deliver against them. We have already established a survey of local authorities to determine the level of qualification that BSL teachers have. I will, of course, take an intervention. Liz Smith, I am very grateful to the minister for taking an intervention. He is having discussions with SQA in response to the question that was asked by Mark Griffin. That is a very important part, just to give the credibility that it deserves. Mark Macdonald? I will certainly go back and check what discussions have been had with SQA and look at what we can do in relation to the point that Mark Griffin raised. The example that was highlighted of Dingwall academy is a very positive example of one that we should look at. Alison Johnstone said that we should look at how more schools could use BSL. I will take the opportunity, because you do not get them often, as ministers, to highlight an example from my constituency of Stonywood primary school, which has established a BSL club, which meets at lunch times and is being led by one of the people support assistants in the school, Mr McRobby, who is a BSL user, where 20 to 30 children are currently attending that club and learning BSL. There are good examples out there. I think that the point that members make about how we can formalise some of that and ensure that children have appropriate opportunities to learn BSL and then the appropriate qualifications that would flow on from that, I think, merits consideration. Miles Briggs raised the point about how we can support local delivery in relation to the national plan. There will be a requirement upon local authorities, health boards, further and higher education institutions, to produce their own plans in relation to the BSL act and how they will deliver on some of the wider national aspirations. There will be an on-going dialogue in relation to that so that the high-level aspirations that we have outlined within the plan can then be delivered at a local level. Stuart Stevenson highlighted the fact that you can respond to the consultation via a YouTube video or a Vimeo clip. I heard Mr Stevenson saying that he will take note of that for future reference, and I am sure that we all look forward to Mr Stevenson becoming a YouTube star as a consequence. Liz Smith offered an invitation to Mr Stevenson to expand on the etymology of the ZS language. I am sure that members will want to thank Liz Smith in their own way for that constructive suggestion and input to today's debate. It has been a very consensual debate on a very important issue. This Parliament came together in a fantastic way to pass the BSL Bill when Mark Griffin brought it to Parliament. I think that this is another example of this chamber working in the best possible way, in the most collective way, to ensure that we deliver the most positive outcomes for BSL users in Scotland. Thank you very much. That concludes our debate on the British Sign Language national plan. The next item of business is consideration of motion 4661, in the name of Clare Adamson, on behalf of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee on acting conveners standing order rule changes. I call on Clare Adamson to move the motion. The Parliamentary Bureau recently wrote to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee about the situation where a committee convener is absent for an extended period of paternal leave. The bureau asked us to consider whether standing orders could be revised so that an acting convener could be appointed during those circumstances. We have considered the request carefully and we agree that it would be helpful to change the rules. The committee has proposed a new procedure in standing orders. Under this procedure, if a convener is absent for a period of paternal leave, a member from the same party would be appointed to the committee on a temporary basis to cover the period of paternal leave. The committee would then choose an acting convener from among the committee members who are from the same party as the convener. The acting convener's tenure would come to an end when the convener returned. The procedure will allow members to become parents to retain their position as convener while taking a period of paternal leave. It also respects the Parliament's decision in relation to the party affiliation of the convener. That is a relatively small change to the rules. However, it sends out an important message that members will not be disadvantaged as a result of taking paternal leave. I am pleased to move motion S5M-6404661 in my name. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 4776 in the name of Joffice Patrick on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau setting out a business programme. I ask any member who wishes to speak against the motion to press their request to speak button now, and I call on Joffice Patrick to move motion S5M-4776. Formally moved. Thank you very much. No member has asked to speak against the motion. The question therefore is that we support motion S5M-4776. Are we agreed? Yes. We are agreed. The next item of business is consideration of six parliamentary bureau motions. I would ask Joffice Patrick to move motions S5M-4777 to S5M-4782 on the approval of SSIs. Move done block. Thank you very much. We come to decision time, and the first question is that motion S5M-4789 in the name of Mark McDonald on the consultation on the draft British Sign Language national plan be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are all agreed. The next question is that motion S5M-4661 in the name of Claire Adamson on behalf of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee standing order rule changes be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are all agreed. I propose to ask a single question on parliamentary bureau motions S5M-4777 to S5M-4782 if any member objects, please say so now. No member is objected. The question is that we agree motions S5M-4777 to S5M-4782 in the name of Joffice Patrick. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. That concludes decision time. Thank you very much.