Ensuring Accessibility: Live Subtitles and BSL in Parliamentary Proceedings (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Before we come to Prime Minister's questions, I would like to point out that live subtitles, the British Sign Language interpretation proceedings are available to watch on permanent live TV.

Speaker 2: In the House of Commons and the House of Lords, we provide live subtitling for all chamber business. We provide subtitling through a technique called re-speaking, which is exactly what it sounds like. We have an operator who's trained up and who repeats, re-speaks exactly what they hear. So they listen to House of Commons and House of Lords chamber proceedings and they repeat what they hear. And that produces the text on the screen that viewers are able to watch on Parliament Live and follow proceedings as they happen.

Speaker 1: We've promised the country that this bill will stop all small boat crossings. No ifs, no buts. Sounds like more talk.

Speaker 3: Sounds like more talk. In the interest of adequate action, when will he achieve that? Will he achieve that? Mr Speaker, we will be implementing this plan as soon as we can pass it through Parliament. So I look forward to the honourable gentleman's support for stop.

Speaker 4: The main challenges I face as a live captioner are probably because the very nature of captioning, you need to stretch your short term memory because you're taking in the information and speaking at the same time. Also, sometimes the content that you might be covering can be quite intense, but it's also really rewarding. So it's really good to have the experiences that we have and no two days are ever the same.

Speaker 3: He stood there last year saying exactly the same thing. We said it wouldn't work, they passed the law, the numbers went up. Absolutely deluded. It is clear what we stand for Mr Speaker. We are doing what is right, we are acting with compassion, we are acting with fairness and we are acting to respect the law and orders of our country. I do not need to hear you chundering all the way through for stop. Joining the others for a cup of tea for stop.

Speaker 2: I think the best things about having live subtitling on Parliament Live right now, it's around accessibility, it's around making sure that people across the country, across the world even, that are interested in engaging with the work of Parliament, that they're able to do so. If people are hard of hearing, they shouldn't be barred in any way from being able to access the work of this place. And live subtitling is part of a suite of services that we provide that ensure that we can do that and ensure that we can deliver parliamentary content to a wider range of audiences.