Blind and Partially Sighted People: Employment Support

Richard Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

As always, my hon. Friend adds important evidence that takes the debate forward, and I thank him for it. Hopefully the Minister is listening as well.

[Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)]

The hon. Member has rightly mentioned the importance of Access to Work and how it can make a real difference in supporting disabled people, including blind and partially sighted people, to secure and retain employment. One of the challenges is ensuring that there is enough provision and that enough employers are aware of Access to Work. Does the hon. Member agree that it is important to ensure greater awareness of Access to Work and more opportunities for that support?

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I know that the Minister is an assiduous Minister who is here to help, and that the staff and civil servants behind him are taking notes on all these matters, so hopefully when he winds up the debate he will satisfy our requests. I also welcome the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), to his place; I wish him well in the role and look forward to his contribution.

The Access to Work scheme has no minimum number of hours for eligibility for support, although people are generally expected to reach the lower earnings limit. Access to Work aims to help if someone needs support or adaptations beyond the reasonable adjustments; it helps pay towards them. What we have in place is excellent, but as the hon. Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker) says, people need to know what is available. The scheme is a great one, but the onus is firmly on the employers’ shoulders. That is where we are we are failing. There needs to be a pathway for our young people throughout schooling and into employment. We need to tell people who have not worked before, “It is not impossible. It can be done. It is within your reach to use your talents, intelligence and abilities and work as your peers do.”

Debates like this one raise awareness, which is wonderful, but we need to ensure that any person who has a diagnosis of sight loss understands that they are not alone or expected to sit at home. They are part of this community, and there is a space for them and a role for them to play. The charities seek to hammer home that message and they do absolutely marvellous work, but we all need to do more. My hope is that this new Government will achieve that. I have known the Minister for years and he has always shown sympathy and compassion, so I know that he will be able to respond in a positive fashion and help people to do better. We have that opportunity, and the Government have that opportunity. Let’s do it.

[Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) not only on securing this debate on such an important topic, but on her skill and commitment in leading the all-party parliamentary group on eye health and visual impairment.

The APPG is such an important group for ensuring that the voices of blind and partially sighted people are heard in this Parliament. Having been for many years a member of the cross-party group on visual impairment in the Scottish Parliament, I am delighted to find that the APPG here is also an effective forum for advancing key policy areas for people with visual impairment. Changing employers’ attitudes and increasing employment opportunities for blind and partially sighted people is vital, for all the reasons that my hon. Friend set out in her excellent opening speech and that the hugely important “Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives” report highlights.

As an MP for a Scottish constituency, I am keenly aware that this is as important an issue for people with visual impairment in Scotland as it is in the rest of the UK. In his excellent speech, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) was quite right to point out that there is also important work for the devolved Administrations to do. Only one in four blind and partially sighted people in Scotland is in paid employment. Research by RNIB Scotland shows that there are about 9,000 registered blind and partially sighted people of working age in Scotland, of whom only about 2,000 are in work. As many as 78% are not employed, so for blind and partially sighted people in Scotland the disability employment gap is particularly acute.

My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea rightly highlighted the disability pay gap and the inequality that it creates in our society. There is a huge opportunity cost not only to people with visual impairment who want to work and cannot find work, but to our society as a whole. In my career before my election to this place, I was fortunate to work at the charity Sight Scotland. A number of our services employed blind and partially sighted people. They were valued members of our team, not only as experts by experience but because of their individual skills and their knowledge. They would be assets at any workplace where they were employed.

During my time at the charity, we conducted research into the social isolation that is experienced by too many people with visual impairment. Our research showed that 90% of our respondents had experienced loneliness. It is important to recognise not only that increasing employment opportunities helps to counter low income and poverty, which still affect far too many blind and partially sighted people, but that being in work, having a workplace to go to and working alongside colleagues helps to tackle isolation, promotes inclusion and improves the quality of life for people with visual impairment in so many other ways as well. It is vital that we create far fairer access to employment for blind and partially sighted people and ensure support is in place for them and for potential employers to achieve that.

In my constituency, the charity Seescape supports more than 4,000 people each year through rehabilitation and through aids, equipment and accessible technology. Those kinds of support are essential to achieving inclusion in the workplace. Seescape’s work is transformational for so many blind and partially sighted people, not only in Glenrothes and Mid Fife but throughout the whole Kingdom of Fife. It is hugely valued by our community.

I very much welcome the recommendation in the “Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives” report that the UK Government should partner with sight loss organisations to develop best practice on recruiting blind and partially sighted people and supporting them to enter the labour market. They are the very organisations with the right expertise and knowledge to achieve that goal.

I also endorse the substantive and practical recommendations in that report for the Government and employers. Those recommendations come at an important time, as we look towards the “Get Britain Working” White Paper and the £240 million that will be invested by the Government to promote employability. Following our conversation at Mr Speaker’s excellent event to celebrate Disability History Month, I am encouraged by the fact that the Minister, who I welcome to his place, is seized by the opportunity that the White Paper offers to increase disability employment and to set out an effective strategy.

Sadly, in the last few years, there have been cuts in funding for employability at both the UK level and the Scottish level. Not enough has been done to promote opportunities through Access to Work, a scheme that can make a real difference when it is effectively delivered. We need to change that situation by ensuring that the White Paper leads to an employability strategy that actually works for blind and partially sighted people.

In Scotland, employability programmes such as Fair Start Scotland have certainly not had enough success in including people with visual impairment. That needs to change and it can change. We know what works in promoting the employment of blind and partially sighted people: changing attitudes and changing the approaches of employers, in line with the practical recommendations made in the “Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives” report and more broadly in relation to disability.

I also commend the work of the commission led by Lord Shinkwin for the Institute of Directors and its report, “The Future of Business: harnessing diverse talent for success”. That report makes a series of recommendations to Government to create the most favourable conditions for businesses and directors to flourish, with specific reference to gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and disability.

One member of that commission was Dr Theresa Shearer, the chief executive of Enable, where I worked until I was elected to this House; I declare that interest. The All In programme, led by Enable Works, has formed employability partnerships across Scotland that have brought together specialist third sector organisations so that they can collaborate. Those partnerships have had great success in securing training and employment for many people who face barriers to employment, including blind and partially sighted people. Indeed, they have secured three and a half jobs for every one job delivered by traditional employability schemes.

There are many factors involved in improving employment opportunities for blind and partially sighted people; indeed, we could have a separate debate on education and transitions into employment. However, the many important recommendations in the “Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives” report will result in real progress if they are adopted. The first recommendation is essential, namely that we establish a disability employment strategy that sets out measures to improve employers’ attitudes and increase the number of blind and partially sighted people who find and—crucially—retain work.

I commend that report and its recommendations, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea on all she is doing to ensure that its ambitions are fulfilled. Fulfilling them is vital if we are to achieve genuine inclusion for blind and partially sighted people in our society throughout the UK.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Our final Back Bencher, before we move on to the Lib Dem spokesperson, is Lee Pitcher.