Coventry and North Warwickshire Euro MP Christine Oddy is backing new moves by the European Parliament to end discrimination against people with disabilities and to boost their job prospects.

She is supporting a resolution which calls for an action plan which would lead the way to all 15 member states of the European Union taking a common approach to removing the barriers which many disabled people currently face.

Local programmes financed under the European Social Fund would have to include measures specifically aimed at helping disabled people. In a further move, the report to the Parliament's Employment and Social Affairs Committee calls for:

• A Europe-wide common definition of disability

• New statistics to be compiled so that there is accurate information on the scale of the problem.

• Monitoring of European Union programmes to guarantee that they are proving effective in tackling discrimination.

• Disabled people to play a much greater role in running the programmes.

It also asks for a Directive which would Iay down minimum standards for access to workplaces across the continent.

Examining previous action taken by the Commission to help disabled people, the report welcomes many of the moves but says that help has often been confined to people already in jobs and that other groups have often missed out.

Ms Oddy said:

"I will be giving my full support to these measures which go a long way towards ending the discrimination which disabled people have traditionally faced. It is vital that the Parliament backs them and that the Commission acts to see that the hopes become reality."