05 February 2025
The employment and disability ministers were amongst MPs who joined the eye health community in discussing barriers to work faced by those with visual impairments at the first meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Eye Health and Visual Impairment of 2025.
The meeting was held at the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday 22 January.
Alison McGovern, the employment minister, and Stephen Timms, social security and disability minister, were on hand to hear from charities about the implications of sight loss on career prospects.
Keith Valentine, chief executive of Fight for Sight/Vision Foundation, shared his lived experience of blindness, telling attendees about his experience of being diagnosed with sight loss as a child.
Evan John, policy and public affairs adviser at Sense, and Charlie Rashbrook, internship coordinator at the Thomas Pocklington Trust, also spoke at the meeting.
The event was hosted by Marsha de Cordova MP, chair of the APPG on Eye Health and Visual Impairment.
MPs in attendance included Steve Darling, Richard Baker, Daniel Francis, Kate Osamor, James Firth, and former optometrist and now MP for Leicester South, Shockat Adam.
During the meeting, de Cordova emphasised the findings of the APPG’s 2024Changing attitudes; changing lives report, which noted that only a quarter of blind and partially sighted people are in employment.
An increase in the number of blind and partially sighted people being in work will contribute to the economy, de Cordova said.
The Government currently has a target of 80% of all adults being employed. The target is tied to the Labour Party’s top priority of economic growth.
Confidence and opportunity
Rashbrook highlighted that one of the recommendations of the Changing attitudes; changing lives report was that employers sign up to the Thomas Pocklington Trust’s Get Set Progress internship programme.
The programme sees visually impaired individuals matched with organisations that can offer them internships.
Interns must have either never worked before, or be returning to work after experiencing sight loss.
The key aims of the programme are to increase individuals’ opportunities and to increase organisations’ confidence in employing those with disabilities, Rashbrook said.
He added that increasing opportunities for individuals and increasing confidence for employers are the most important outcomes of the programme.
The internships administered by the programme are paid at the living wage, and include assistive technology training, peer support and mentorship.
Interns spend 80% of their nine-month placement with the partner organisation, and 20% of their time with the Thomas Pocklington Trust.
The programme also includes visual awareness training for employer partners, including guidance on how colleagues should interact with visually impaired people.
Around 100 interns have been supported by the programme so far, Rashbrook said.
He added that Channel 4 has joined as an employer partner for 2025.
Current partner employers include the General Optical Council (GOC), which is currently hosting its second Get Set Progress intern.
GOC chief executive, Leonie Milliner, told attendees that being part of the programme had made the GOC a “stronger and more responsible employer.”
A revelation in assistive tech
Keith Valentine spoke about the progress in assistive technology that has been seen since the creation of the iPhone – something that he called a ‘revelation.’
The Be My Eyes tool has shifted technology into the hands of user and should provide further impetus for the creation of equalities policies, Valentine said.
This technology means there are “profound opportunities” for the Government to make progress in this area, he added.
Sense’s Evan John noted that 1.6 million people in the UK live with complex disabilities, but that half do not have the support or equipment they need to look for work.
There are no job centres in the UK with assistive technology, John revealed, adding that it would cost just £5 million to equip every job centre with the technology required.
He added that disability empowerment is not part of the training for job centre staff, and acknowledged that, with the best will in the world, they cannot provide a level of service they are not trained for.
John also noted that 50% of jobseekers with complex disabilities are unaware that Access to Work exists.
With 55,000 people on the Access to Work waiting list as of October 2024, this is something the government needs to prioritise, he said.
McGovern noted that, while extra Access to Work staff have been recruited, this has not been enough to decrease the waiting list.
Stephen Timms MP acknowledged that there has been “a real surge of applications” to the service over the past two years.
“Radical rethinking,” is now needed on Access to Work, he said.
Making job centres work harder
Timms would welcome suggestions on how assistive technology could be incorporated into plans for a green paper that his department is expected to publish in the spring, he said.
Valentine suggested that the Government is well-placed to invest in assistive technology, and also has a role to play in education.
He noted that iPhones are not available through Access to Work, despite being one of the best tools for accessibility.
The Government also has a role in ensuring that equality, diversity and inclusion is maintained by businesses, Valentine said.
McGovern explained that a large-scale review of job centres is underway, and acknowledged that 10-minute appointments are not productive for anyone. Building both willingness and infrastructure is essential, she said.
Job centres are not tailored to individual’s needs at the moment and her aim is to achieve a ‘personal service,’ McGovern added.
Rashbrook noted that job coaches also need to be made aware of the schemes that already exist.
The Thomas Pocklington Trust wants its employer partners to know that they are accessing talent that they could not find through traditional recruitment pathways, he said.
Next steps for inclusivity
Shockat Adam raised the question of how confident partially sighted people currently feel when moving into the workforce.
Valentine noted that barriers are material and systematic, but emphasised that the Get Set Progress scheme exists to take on some of the load for those it works with.
Addressing workplace and employer culture is the first step, Valentine believes.
Ministers were also asked if they would review the Equality Act 2010 to ensure that it could remain fit for purpose post-2025.
Timms confirmed that the Government is consulting on the pay aspects of the act, and reiterated that he welcomes thoughts on how assistive technology could be incorporated into it.
“There will be lots of letter writing in mine and Stephen’s future,” McGovern told attendees, adding that she believes “the UK Government can play a massive role here.”
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