Andrew Duff MEP

Sean:  What does your work as a Member of the European Parliament involve?

Andrew:  Well, it's extremely hard work.  The Parliament is drawn from 27 countries and it is centred in Brussels and Strasbourg; Belgium and France.

And we have an awful lot of power to create the standards to improve the economy and society across the EU.

We aren't greatly appreciated.  We aren't properly reported by the press or by television.  We are not actually awfully well served by political parties.  So we have to do an awful lot of this - informing, and exciting people about the Parliament - just by ourselves.

But it's important work and it's extremely interesting, and it's a great privilege to be inside it.

Sean:  We have been told that a lot of laws about disabilities have come from the European Parliament.  Can you tell us more about this?

Andrew: Yep.  They have three aspects to them.

Firstly - Spreading good practice across the 27 countries about the treatment of the problems of people who have disabilities. It is interesting that there isn't a single country that has got it all right.  Some have got it all wrong.

So it's a question of spreading the appreciation of the problems that people with disabilities confront and sharing best practice.

The second big thing is to combat discrimination.  There is a lot of prejudice against people who have disabilities partly through fear and partly through an absence of contact.  People are very poorly informed about the problems and prospects of people who have disabilities and they tend to react in an unkind and unfair way.  So we set standards and codes of conduct for the treatment of people with disabilities and we penalise unfair discrimination.

The third element is closely associated but it is about employment.  I think that the access to jobs for people with disabilities is often very difficult.  So we insist that employers are obliged to consider employing people who have disabilities.

In all those three areas: sharing good practice, combating discrimination, and improving the access to jobs, the European Parliament is tremendously influential and fairly successful.  I think we can be proud of the work that we have done.