The All Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness (APPG) is a cross-party group of parliamentarians (MPs in the House of Commons and Peers in the House of Lords).

The group meets throughout the year to:

understand the issues facing deaf people and people with hearing loss
campaign for policy change in Parliament.

Officers

Chair

Lilian Greenwood MP (Labour)

Vice chairs

Marion Fellows MP (Scottish National Party)
Ian Mearns MP (Labour)
Sir Mike Penning MP (Conservative)
Tommy Sheppard MP (Scottish National Party)
Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat).

Help inform our work

The APPG on Deafness is keen to hear from deaf people, charities and organisations to help inform and shape its work.

As part of its role providing the Secretariat to the APPG, RNID is committed to working with a range of different partners.

For further information about the APPG’s work or to find how you can get involved, please get in contact with Robert Geaney at [email protected].

Past successes

Over recent years the APPG on Deafness has:

Successfully campaigned to change the law to give ministers the ability to require subtitles on on-demand programmes.
Successfully lobbied for lifting the Government’s cap on Access to Work awards which disproportionately impacted deaf people who need British Sign Language interpreters in the workplace.
Called for British Sign Language to be part of the national curriculum in support of the National Deaf Children’s Society’s campaign.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the APPG on Deafness has called on the Government to distribute clear personal protective equipment (PPE) for workers within health and social care settings. This resulted in the Government providing 250,000 clear masks to frontline NHS and social care staff.