Blind and Partially Sighted People: Employment Support

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) for his powerful testimony about the enormous opportunities and barriers in this space, and particularly to the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for the work she has done on this topic during her time in Parliament. She serves her constituents and this community very well.

I was struck by the interesting speech by the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) about the opportunities of AI, which opened my eyes to the huge barriers that blind and partially sighted people have suffered and how technology is helping to overcome those barriers. I pay tribute to his wife: learning to ski with partial sight is a tremendous achievement, so all credit to her.

I echo the points made by other hon. Members about the imperative to overcome and reduce the barriers that blind and partially sighted people face in gaining work and progression in the workplace. Doing so is an absolutely necessary matter of justice to those people themselves; it is entirely wrong that people are discriminated against, directly or indirectly, because of their disability. We therefore have a moral imperative to act. As the hon. Member for Battersea stressed, we also need to reduce barriers to employment for blind and partially sighted people for the sake of the economy; when we exclude blind and partially sighted people from employment and progression in work, the country is denied an enormous wealth of talent.

Finally, addressing remaining barriers to employment and work progression for blind and partially sighted people is necessary for the sake of the taxpayer and the public finances. Our country’s disability benefits bill is simply unsustainable. It has risen sharply in recent years and is projected to rise to unsustainable levels over the course of this Parliament. On the current trajectory, spending on health and disability benefits will rise 56%—an additional £27 billion—over the course of this Parliament if change does not happen. Overall, spending on incapacity and disability benefits will rise from 2.4% of GDP to 3% over the course of this Parliament. If we could ensure that people who are currently excluded from the workforce can gain employment and reduce dependence on benefits, we could spend much of that money better in other spaces. I therefore support what the Government aim to do in this space and their plan to get activity back to pre-pandemic levels—a noble aspiration, which my party will support.

There are two ways to approach this question, as has been touched on in the debate so far. The first is the role of the Government themselves in getting the law, benefits system and incentives right in the fiscal, legal and welfare spaces. I am proud to say that my party led the way in ensuring that we as a country tackle discrimination against people with disabilities. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995, introduced by William Hague, required employers to make reasonable adjustments to facilitate the employment of disabled people, and it remains the great landmark and a vital step in this space. We also introduced Access to Work grants, which have been discussed today. I am pleased to say that last year saw the highest number of Access to Work grant applications awarded for over 15 years—68,000, of which 3,000, I understand, were for blind and partially sighted people. That is encouraging.

Nevertheless, we clearly need to go further with Access to Work, as we have heard today. Some innovations were introduced towards the end of the last Parliament, including health adjustment passports, which aim to reduce the time that it takes people to apply for and receive an Access to Work award, by allowing people to take the statement of their disabilities and necessary adjustments from one employer to another. As I understand it, that helpful and practical innovation is now in force. The last Government was also introducing an enhanced Access to Work package, which gave employees more support than they got under the existing scheme, as well as ensuring that employers received support if they were helping to facilitate access to work. Clearly, the process remains onerous and complex—that is a condition that applies across the benefit system with its complex, difficult application process. It only recently went online and it has just become possible for all people to apply for Access to Work digitally. Improvements clearly need to be made.

I am concerned about the extent of the backlog in the application process, which began in the previous Parliament and continues. In September 2023, 22,000 applications remained outstanding; in May 2024, there were 37,000; and in October 2024, 56,000. There are significant problems in processing these applications. I am interested to hear the Minister’s views on why that is and what can be done to reduce the backlog.

We need to ensure that the conditionality and incentives in the benefit system and employment support are robust and sensitive. I look forward to the forthcoming White Paper to see how that will be achieved. The hon. Member for Battersea recommends a review of the Equality Act and I welcome contributions there. It will be interesting to see what is suggested to improve that legislation.

I am concerned, however, about proposals that rely on tightening laws—strengthening the stick side of the arrangement, as it were. As the hon. Lady said, there have been a lot of laws and programmes introduced to support blind and partially sighted people—people with disabilities—into employment, yet there are still significant problems helping them to access and progress in work. Rules will only take us so far. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme talked about the role of technology, it struck me that technology will also only take us so far.

There is a danger in looking to technical solutions, whether in the law or technology, that let us off the hook for what really needs to be done. I gently point out the phenomenon of crowding out: the danger that statutory action can diminish the voluntary action that needs to be taken, in this case by employers, to do the right thing. That is the second approach that is crucial to this space; I am pleased that that was the focus of the hon. Member for Battersea’s report and today’s debate. We need to look at the attitude and culture of employers, more than the obligations and systemic responses that Government can make. Of course, Government can significantly influence the attitude of employers but, to quote the Royal National Institute of Blind People:

“There are no hard and fast rules”

when supporting disabled people at work. We should avoid making assumptions about what blind and partially sighted people can do. That is why we need a flexible approach, in which employers use their imagination and intelligence, in consultation with employees, to develop access for blind and partially sighted people in the workplace.

The way to do that is to stress the opportunity, the benefits that employers will reap and, frankly, how easy it is. I was struck by the hon. Lady’s story of what good looks like in the workplace. It sounds like human beings being human towards each other, being genuinely inclusive, ensuring that people help their colleagues literally to navigate the workplace. One can imagine the enormous benefit to that workplace and all employees when there is a culture of inclusivity and generosity, as the hon. Lady described.

The key is awareness. Many of the changes needed to make workplaces accessible are not difficult; they just need to be done deliberately as part of the policy of the Government. I welcome the practical recommendations in the hon. Lady’s report, and I look forward to seeing what the White Paper will do to implement them. I respect the Minister and his colleagues, who are genuinely dedicated to improving employment and employability. I am pleased to see what has been trailed for the White Paper, with a focus on skills, devolution, empowering local communities and opportunities for young people.

I very much hope that the White Paper will work with employers in the spirit of the report we are debating, rather than against them, but I am concerned by the policies that the Government have announced so far with respect to employers. The national insurance rise will result in thousands of pounds of taxation on every job, and new burdens on employers are being created through the Employment Rights Bill. Those are not good portents of an employer-friendly approach. Nevertheless, on this issue we agree about the direction of travel that needs to be taken, and I very much hope that my party works with the Government to progress the very helpful recommendations that the hon. Member for Battersea has made.