§ Lord Morris of Manchesterasked Her Majesty's Government:
What response they had from the Royal National Institute for Deaf People to the consultation undertaken by the Departments of Trade and Industry and of Culture, Media and Sport on the forthcoming communications reform White Paper; and what action they will be taking to ensure that the document's proposals provide equal access for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. [HL3852]
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyThe Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) responded to the invitation for views on the contents of the forthcoming communications reform White Paper by the joint Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) team that is preparing the paper. RNID's response centred on issues of particular concern to it, such as subtitling regulation, British sign language interpretation on TV, interactive voice response, and equality of access to the Internet and telephony.
The RNID has also responded in detail to DCMS's separate consultation paper on the statutory requirements for the provision of subtitling, sign language and audio description services in digital terrestrial television. DCMS will give careful consideration to the responses to the consultation paper before publishing the results later in the year.
Both responses will be taken into account in the Government's consideration of the future regulation of broadcasting in the light of the communication reform White Paper, which will be published later this year.