Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD): "One in five lip-reading classes in England and Wales are threatened with closure next year. Will the Minister reclassify lip-reading as an essential skill rather than a leisure activity, making sure that the classes are accessible to the hearing-impaired and continue to protect their ability to communicate?"
Lib Dem MEP Liz Lynne says the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (yesterday Friday 3rd December) is a timely reminder to the EU Commission and member states to 'keep the promise' to disabled people and end discrimination against them once and for all.
As a week of BBC features looking at the issues facing people with disabilities - Access All Areas - continues, what challenges does the job market give disabled job-seekers? Job hunting at the best of times can be a demoralising process. But if you are disabled and the country is in the midst of an economic downturn, then it can prove utterly pointless.
A disabled woman in a Dorset care home says the government's scrapping of mobility payments will have a "devastating impact" on her life. From October 2012, the £49.50 a week "mobility component" of the Disability Living Allowance, for some care home residents and children, will be axed.
More than £500m could be saved if mental health services in England were run more efficiently, a report says. Better community support, cutting unnecessary hospital stays and reducing sickness absence can all help cut costs, say policy experts.
Some 90% of people surveyed by the BBC believe the government should provide funds to make the workplace accessible for people with disabilities. But 40% felt disabled people turned down job offers even when they were physically capable of doing them. The survey found that attitudes to disability and disabled people's rights varied between age groups and social groups.
