Telecommunication Services For The Hard Of Hearing

EDM number 1637 in 1993-94, proposed by Janet Anderson on 21/10/1994.

That this House is concerned to learn that the British Approvals Board for Telecommunications may be considering the reduction of end to end transmission and reception sound levels and that an approach has apparently been made to the British Standards Institute suggesting there should be a new standard which would not require telephone manufacturers to adapt telephones for the United Kingdom; believes that the adoption of such a new standard would open the United Kingdom market to foreign imports and would seriously affect the three million users of hearing aids, for whom any reduction in loudness ratings would be intolerable, and that a further three million hard of hearing people who are able to manage without a hearing aid now may not be able to use the telephone if a lower standard is applied; and calls upon the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to abandon this misguided policy.

This motion has been signed by a total of 58 MPs.