Bill Harvey: The inequalities of equality

I attended the annual Essilor Symposium last week (see write up in next week’s issue) and enjoyed some very heated debate around some of the current topics of controversy. One discussion, triggered by the always provocative Dr Glyn Walsh, was centred around the 2010 Equality Act.

The Act was introduced as a way of unifying the various laws ensuring that all are treated equally irrespective of gender, ethnicity, physical or mental impairment or belief and so on. With specific regard to ‘impairment’, Glyn highlighted that ametropia is exempt from the list of impairments covered by the Act which states this exemption ‘in relation to the impairment of a person’s sight, to the extent that the impairment is, in the person’s case, correctable by spectacles or contact lenses or in such other ways as may be prescribed’.