REGIONAL ACCENTS

Early day motion 1286, tabled 19 December 2005 by Fraser Kemp (Labour). Signed by 50 members.

That this House notes that telephone calls received by the computerised voice recognition system used by the TV Licensing Authority for address transfers are often terminated or transferred to human operators for completion because the software cannot understand regional and national accents and dialects; further notes that the software specifically does not understand the accent used widely in the North East of England; further notes that the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom have accents which are not received pronunciation English; is proud of the diverse regional and national accents used within the United Kingdom; and calls upon the Government to ensure that all publicly-funded voice recognition systems are able to be used by people with regional and national accents and dialects generally spoken in the United Kingdom.

Signatures by party: Labour 29, Liberal Democrat 10, Conservative 5, DUP 2, Scottish National Party 2, Respect 1, UUP 1.