Business of the House

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I will not promise a statement at the moment but, if I may, I will draw the hon. Gentleman’s point to the attention of my colleagues on the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. I know that the Committee has raised a number of issues with IPSA as a consequence of its examination of the organisation’s estimate. We will take the hon. Gentleman’s point on board when we further consider some of these IPSA issues.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

In recent months, my visually impaired constituent, Doug Hollingsworth, has been having great difficulty in accessing audio correspondence from the Department for Work and Pensions. May we have a debate on how people with visual impairments can gain better access to that Department?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that the House will be sorry to hear of the difficulties that my hon. Friend’s constituent is experiencing. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing them to our attention. I will raise the matter with the Department for Work and Pensions, which I know has the facility to offer a range of formats, provided as “reasonable adjustments”, for visually impaired or blind people, including materials in audio format, large print or Braille. I shall bring the case to the Department’s attention, so that it can look into whether it is making the necessary adjustments.