British Sign Language Week

Harriet Samuel

Background

Sign Language Week 2025 will run from 17-23 March to raise awareness of British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language. The flagship awareness week takes place every March to “commemorate the first time BSL was acknowledged as a language in its own right by the UK Government on 18 March 2003”. Sign Language Week is run by the British Deaf Association (BDA) as the “National Representative Organisation of British Sign Language (BSL) and Irish Sign Language (ISL) in the UK”.

The theme for this year’s Sign Language Week is ‘More than a language: culture, community and belonging’.

The Sign Language Week theme colour is turquoise. This is inspired by the Deaf flag which was established as a symbol for Deaf communities around the world in 2024 by members of the World Federation of the Deaf.

Prevalence of BSL

According to the BDA, BSL is the fourth most widely used indigenous language in the UK, with an estimated 151,000 people using the language (of which around 58% are Deaf).

The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) report that in 2021, an estimated 25,000 people used sign language as their main language across the UK.

Sign Language legislation and government developments (England, Scotland, Wales)

Recognition of BSL

On 18 March 2003, in a statement, the government formally recognised British Sign Language as a language in its own right:

The Government recognise that British Sign Language (BSL) is a language in its own right regularly used by a significant number of people. For an estimated 70,000 deaf people it is their preferred language for participation in everyday life. BSL is a visual-gestural language with its own vocabulary, grammar and syntax.

The Government understand that people who use BSL want their language to be protected and promoted in the same way some minority languages are by the Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The Council is considering how that might be achieved for indigenous sign languages. The Government will give careful consideration to any proposals which the Council might make.

The Government have already taken action to improve access to BSL, for example by identifying situations where it might be reasonable for employers and service providers to engage the services of a BSL/English interpreter.

The Government will be funding a discrete programme of initiatives to support this statement.

This recognition on its own did not grant BSL legal status or recognition in England, Scotland, and Wales.

British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015

The British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 17 September 2015 and received Royal Assent on 22 October 2015. The Act aims to promote the use and understanding of BSL. Section 1 states:

The Scottish Ministers are to promote, and facilitate the promotion of, the use and understanding of the language known as British Sign Language.

The Act also requires Scottish Ministers to prepare and lay before the Scottish Parliament ‘National Plans’, which set out their strategy for fulfilling the duty in section 1. These National Plans must be published once every six years.

The first of these National Plans, the National Plan 2017-2023 (PDF), was published in October 2017 and contained 70 actions, ranging across a variety of themes, including public services, education, work and social security, health, transport, culture and the arts, and democratic participation.

The second National Plan, British Sign Language (BSL): national plan 2023 to 2029, was published in November 2023 and contained 45 actions across ten priority areas:

The Act also requires the Scottish Government to report every six years on progress made towards the duty laid out in section 1 of the Act. The Scottish Government published its first progress report on 27 October 2021. The report noted that whilst several of the 70 actions had been achieved, many were wholly or partially incomplete, partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The next progress report is due to be published at the midpoint of the 2023-2029 national plan in 2026.

British Sign Language Act 2022

The British Sign Language Act 2022 received Royal Assent on 28 April 2022. It originated as a Private Members’ Bill, introduced to the House of Commons on 16 June 2021 by Rosie Cooper MP. Rosie Cooper came in 20^th place in the ballot.

The British Sign Language Bill swiftly attracted cross-party and, crucially, government support. This was attributed partly to awareness of BSL raised by Rose Ayling-Ellis, a deaf actress and BSL user who won the television dance competition, Strictly Come Dancing, in 2021.

During the Bill’s second reading debate Rosie Cooper told MPs:

I want to finally recognise BSL in statute—not just a gesture but a law that requires positive action from the Government, with real progress to put deaf people on an equal footing with those of us who hear.

[…] this recognition will be clear and a message that their language is equal and should be treated as equal.

The BSL Advisory Board

Following the introduction of the Act, a non-statutory board, consisting mainly of BSL users, was established in March 2023; The BSL Advisory Board. The Board was introduced to advise the government on “matters of importance to deaf people and on implementing the BSL Act.”

The Board consists of 16 members, and is co-chaired by Craig Crowley MBE FRSA.

Summaries of BSL Advisory Board meetings can be found on gov.uk.

The Act’s provisions

The British Sign Language Act 2022 has three main sections.

Section 1 provides that “British Sign Language is recognised as a language of England, Wales and Scotland.” Northern Ireland is not included as the relevant law is devolved to Northern Ireland.

Whilst there are no official languages in the UK, nor any clear mechanism in UK law via which a language can acquire official status, recognising a language in law can help to encourage its use and recognise its cultural importance. There are other examples of this, such as The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 (which gave the Welsh language official status in Wales), and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 (which established a body (the Bòrd na Gàidhlig) to promote the use and understanding of Gaelic language). As previously mentioned, Scotland has its own BSL Act – the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015.

Section 2 of the 2022 Act created a duty for the Secretary of State to “prepare and publish a British Sign Language report for each reporting period”. The report must describe what each relevant government department has done to promote or facilitate the use of BSL in its communications with the public. The relevant government departments are those listed in the Schedule to the Act. The list includes only the main central government departments; arms-length and non-departmental public bodies are not included.

The first reporting period ended on 30 April 2023, and under section 2(6) the Secretary of State was required to publish the report no more than three months after that date. The first report, the British Sign Language (BSL) report 2022 was published on 31 July 2023, and the second report, the British Sign Language (BSL) second report, 2023 to 2024 was published on 17 December 2024 (see section below).

Section 3 of the Act provides that the “Secretary of State must issue guidance, or arrange for guidance to be issued, about the promotion and facilitation of the use of British Sign Language.” In 2023, the Government Communications Service published internal guidance for government departments, covering “best practice and things to consider when planning communications for BSL users, creating a BSL translation or using BSL interpreters, as well as advice on how to procure BSL translation or interpreting”. During a debate on 17 October 2023, the government stated the following regarding publishing of external guidance:

The BSL Advisory Board will advise the Government on the guidance detailed in the BSL Act and on its implementation to best represent the deaf community. This external guidance will be published by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions during the next BSL reporting period—summer 2024—with support from the Cabinet Office Disability Unit.

The government has not yet brought section 3 into force. Under section 4(4) of the Act, section 3 would come into force on a date appointed by the Secretary of State, by way of statutory instrument.

Sign Language legislation and government developments (Northern Ireland)

Recognition of BSL and ISL

Both BSL (British Sign Language) and ISL (Irish Sign Language) are used and recognised as languages in Northern Ireland. According to the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland, “BSL is the first or preferred language of communication of approximately 3,500 members of the deaf population of Northern Ireland while approximately 1,500 use ISL.”

On 20 March 2004, the Secretary of State announced the formal recognition of BSL and ISL as languages in their own right. However, this announcement did not award BSL and ISL legal statuses in Northern Ireland.

Sign Language Bill (Northern Ireland) 2025

In the New Decade New Approach agreement (PDF) published in January 2020, the Northern Irish Government made the commitment to introduce a sign language bill.

On 10 February 2025, the Sign Language Bill (Northern Ireland) 2025 (PDF) was introduced to the Northern Ireland Assembly by the Minister for Communities. It completed its Second Stage on 18 February 2025, and has been referred to the consideration of the Committee for Communities at the time of writing.

More information about the proposed bill can be found in the research paper (PDF) produced by the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Research and Information Service

British Sign Language Reports

2024 report

The government published the second statutory BSL report on 17 December 2024. It described activities undertaken by relevant government departments to promote or facilitate the use of BSL in communications with the public. Its publication was delayed by five months due to the UK General Election in July 2024.

In its introduction, the report stated that the “The new government is strongly committed to continuing to improve the accessibility of government communications for everyone, including the Deaf community and BSL users”.

The Annex to the report showed “BSL activity by ministerial department”. It included a table showing, by government department, the number of public announcements about policy or law given in BSL; publications in BSL; and press conferences, general social media or website use in BSL. The report found that there had been a significant increase in the use of BSL by government departments, stating that BSL communications during the reporting period had more than doubled from 76 to 176, with 6 more departments reporting BSL activity. However, while there was a significant increase in activity from the previous reporting year, 5 of the 21 departments had no BSL activity during the reporting period.

The report included a list of case studies showing what it describes as good practice in government departments, for example:

During this reporting period, the Cabinet Office produced the highest number of public-facing BSL material of any department, including BSL interpretation of the Prime Minister’s major speeches.
The Department for Education announced the introduction of a GCSE in BSL. Following a 12-week public consultation (which received 717 responses), the content for the GCSE was published in December 2023. The BSL advisory board were also consulted on the content of the GCSE course.
The Department for Transport integrated BSL into the ‘it’s everyone’s journey’ inclusive transport campaign (which formed part of the department’s Inclusive Transport Strategy, translating two videos into BSL for the campaign).

The report also set out the next steps that the government intended to take to encourage better departmental communication with the Deaf community. These included:

Publishing external guidance in due course for best practice to support BSL and for communicating with the deaf community. This guidance will be created in consultation with the BSL Advisory Board and the Disability Unit.
Increasing the publication of data from every 3 years to every year for the next 5 years.
Taking ministerial responsibility to improve BSL use by establishing a group of Ministerial Disability Champions.
Producing improvement plans in each government department (something which was delayed due to the general election).
Issuing internal BSL guidance to civil servants.

2022 report

The government published the first statutory BSL report on 31 July 2023.

The report highlighted a dedicated YouTube BSL channel as an example of good practice in government departments.

The report outlined the next steps the government intended to take to improve communication with the Deaf community, including:

Publishing a BSL report every year for the following five years, instead of the statutory minimum of every three years.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to ask each ministerial department to produce a 5-year BLS plan.
BSL guidance under section 3 of the Act (which is yet to be commenced) to be published:

The BSL Advisory Board will advise the government on the guidance detailed in the BSL Act, and its implementation to best represent the Deaf community. This external guidance will be published by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions during the next BSL reporting period with support from the Cabinet Office Disability Unit.

The Annex for the report showed that the Cabinet Office and the Department for Work and Pensions had the most examples listed; there were 15 instances of the Cabinet Office using BSL in press conferences, social media or on its website. However, 11 of the 20 the government departments in the table had no examples listed of BSL activity.

Sign Language GCSE

The Department for Education committed to the introduction of a GCSE in BLS in 2018, after consultations with Signature (the leading awarding organisation for BSL qualifications) and Ofqual.

In June 2023, the department ran a 12-week public consultation, which received 717 responses. The consultation feedback was published in December 2023, which showed positive feedback regarding the subject content.

It is important to note that this GCSE will not incorporate sign language into the National Curriculum, however it will offer schools the option to teach the subject to students.

It is expected that the GCSE will be available from September 2025.

BSL access for children and parents/carers

According to the BDA, there are over 50,000 deaf children in the UK, over 90% of whom have parents/carers with no experience of sign language.

BSL in Our Hands is a campaign that was launched on 18 March 2024 (Sign Language Week 2024) by the BDA to raise awareness of the need for early access to BSL for deaf children and their parents/carers, and to campaign for free and consistent access to classes across the UK for families of newly identified deaf children.

This is an issue that has been raised in the Commons on several occasions, including in a debate on Speech and Language Therapy on 27 January 2025, a debate on Auditory Verbal Therapy on 21 January 2025, and in a PQ answered on 22 April 2024.