Listen to an interview with Mark Harper MP, Shadow Minister for Disabled People

4 March 2008

On Monday 3rd March, Mark Harper MP, the disability spokesperson for the Conservatives visited Action. We took a few minutes to ask him about his role and about the Conservatives' view on blind and partially sighted people with regard to employment.

Listen to the interview:

Download the interview (4.3 MB)

Richard Holmes, Parliamentary Officer arranged the visit having previously met with Mark to discuss employment issues, so Mark could see for himself the variety of work with which Action is involved.

We had certainly put together a packed schedule which began with a visit to one of our Mobile Sight Loss Information vehicles, allowing Mark to see the variety of equipment which is available along with the impressive number of publications which Action produces.

Mark was then whisked off to meet with Steven Franks, Manager of Action Team North London. This allowed us to outline the Action Team structure and Mark had a number of questions around how we manage the number of calls upon these services and what are the most common demands upon the service.

Mark has previously attended an event which highlighted the work of the Visage project and in particular the development of the small business units. Consequently we thought it would be a good idea if he were to see them in operation so we therefore took him to visit IRIS Digital Archiving which is operated by Liz Cook and Pearce Distribution Service which is the business of Ashley Pearce.

Over lunch, Mark discussed issues around employment with Chief Executive Stephen Remington and Head of Service Development Colin Whitbourn. These included the Access to Work scheme, current government policy on Welfare Reform and his party's own proposals for addressing the issue of how to successfully move people from incapacity benefits into work.

Everyone agreed that the visit had been very useful and we shall certainly be continuing to work with Mark to seek to influence future policy both of the Government and the Opposition.