To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment he has made of the merits of providing British Sign Language (BSL) videos on his departmental website for the benefit of those whose first language is BSL. (142493)

DEFRA aims to produce a website that is accessible for users with disabilities. In April 2007 changes were made to the site which made it more compliant with Web Accessibility Initiative standards, further supporting DEFRA’s commitments under the Disability Discrimination Act.

Video is not used extensively on the DEFRA website but where it is used we aim to provide accompanying transcripts or explanatory descriptive text for those unable to hear the audio content of an online video. We have not assessed the feasibility of also providing BSL.