Mark Pritchard – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Pritchard on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that councils do not discriminate against people for whom British Sign Language is their first language in the provision of council services.

Mr Marcus Jones

The responsibility for providing appropriate support to enable meaningful communication with deaf people by local authorities lies with the local authorities themselves.

All local authorities have a legal responsibility under sections 20 and 29 of the Equality Act 2010 not to discriminate against disabled people in the provision of services and to make ‘reasonable adjustments’, which means for example providing information in an accessible format to allow deaf people to have equal access to their services.