In Touch hears from the RNIB about their plans to participate in the Government's consultation on the Benefits Bill. They describe their position on the bill as it stands and how they will involve the voices of blind and partially sighted people in any consultations.

With Wimbledon 2025 underway, In Touch looks at grassroots visually impaired tennis and a Yorkshire league, set up by an enthusiastic exponent of the adapted sport. The LTA outlines how visually impaired people can get involved with tennis in their area.

Presenter: Peter White

The government have published their Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill, but there is growing concern among visually impaired people about what all of this actually means for their benefits. In Touch reconvenes some people in the know to try to provide information about what the bill, in its current form, means for visually impaired people.

Presenter: Peter White

Pocklington Lodge is the last of the Thomas Pocklington Trust's housing complexes. The charity plans to sell the property, as a result of changes in their strategy and expertise over the years. In Touch visits Pocklington Lodge to hear from some of the residents, who fear what the sale of their complex could mean for the future of their homes. In Touch also visits Pocklington's headquarters to chat through reasons behind the decision with CEO, Charles Colquhoun.

Presenter: Peter White

New College Worcester, who are a residential school and provider of specialist education for visually impaired children, has launched a campaign seeking wider government support for the provision of specialist education. The campaign takes a broad approach, asking government for greater support across both mainstream and specialist education settings. The College Principal, Rachel Perks, provides details of their campaign, along with some other signatories and parents.

Presenter: Peter White

NASA tells In Touch about a condition that affects the vision of around 70% of their astronauts. It is called SANS and although the space agency aren't currently seeing hugely negative affects to their astronaut's vision upon returning to Earth, they are concerned about what could happen once we begin longer-term space exploration, with this being considered a 'red risk' of reaching Mars.

Presenter: Peter White

In Touch invites three stand-up comedians - Jake Donaldson, Sydney May and Lizzy Lenco - to discuss how they use their blindness as a source of material in their comedy routines.

For more information on our three comedians and where to see them live:

Presenter: Peter White

The European Accessibility Act is a new piece of legislation that will apply to EU member countries from the end of June, but what effects might it have on the UK given that it is no longer an EU member state. The Act covers a wide range of products and services that blind and partially sighted people use daily. To help analyse this are Antoine Fobe, head of advocacy and campaigns with the European Blind Union and Léonie Watson, Director of accessibility consultancy and auditing company TetraLogical.

The Audio Description Association is looking for more visually impaired people to join their organisation as members, with the aim of shaping the future of audio description provision for consumers. They are currently offering some free memberships and to find out more, email: [email protected]

Presenter: Peter White

The Association of Optometrists will be asking MPs to amend what they regard as an outdated administrative task that is delaying thousands of patients getting their certificates of visual impairment. These certificates allow people to get access to essential care services after a diagnosis, but at the moment only ophthalmologists can sign them off. Adam Sampson is the Association's Chief Executive and he tells In Touch about the situation and about how thousands of optometrists across the country could help with this problem.

The Rayban Meta Smart Glasses have been on the market in the UK for a little while now, but for some months, many visually impaired users have been waiting for a particularly helpful AI feature to land in the UK. The roll out of the Look and Tell feature has been happening over the past few weeks, but some visually impaired users had questions about the seemingly random way in which is was rolled out. We ask this, and other listener's questions to Chris Yiu who is Director of Public Policy at Meta.

Presenter: Peter White

Times are hard for many charities, and those in the sight loss sector are no exception. In a previous episode of In Touch, we heard how Guide Dogs needed to take action to avoid a deficit of some twenty million pounds. So what form will that action take and what does it mean for jobs, services and waiting lists?

We're joined by Guide Dogs CEO, Andrew Lennox who tells us about the charity's plans to deal with the challenges it faces and he responds to concerns being raised.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image, wearing a dark green jumper. Above Peter's head is the BBC logo (three individual white squares house each of the three letters). Bottom centre and overlaying the image are the words "In Touch"; and the Radio 4 logo (the word Radio in a bold white font, with the number 4 inside a white circle). The background is a bright mid-blue with two rectangles angled diagonally to

Matt Wadsworth has, for the last decade or so, been working to make fellow visually impaired people's access to the food industry much easier. He developed the concept of Good Food Talks, which is now available as a free app, and it can provide a raft of restaurant menus in an accessible format and on the go. Matt has been working with food data management company Nutritics, to reach more providers in the industry. Nutritics are currently conducting research, that aims to better understand visually impaired people's access to the food industry. If you would like to contribute to their research by providing your experiences, you can do so via the link below:

https://app.glowfeed.com/survey/727a96ce-a100-4560-b6e0-e4e02527dda7?linkId=c807f9ee-c876-4e70-9ede-bc033b3e1f3a&channelId=b212f786-3cc7-4dc2-b762-bd2762389ab7

Also on the programme: Jixie Dye has been visually impaired all her life, and she has recently fulfilled a long-standing ambition of becoming a published author. She joins Peter White in the In Touch studio to discuss her new children's book, The Welsh Witch and her subsequent series.

Presenter: Peter White