A HAMPSHIRE MEP has taken part in a major European debate on the treatment available to sufferers of multiple sclerosis.

Roy Perry attended the event in Strasbourg after The Petitions Committee of the Parliament, of which Mr Perry is vice-president, decided to submit a petition from MS sufferer Louise McVay, from Sutton Bonington, near Loughborough, on the issue to the European Parliament for a full debate.

It was chosen as the last debate for the year as a way of winding up 2003 as The Year for People with Disabilities.

There are currently 400,000 people in Europe with multiple sclerosis, including 85,000 in the UK.

During the debate Mr Perry spoke about his twin brother who had been diagnosed with a similar condition to multiple sclerosis, ataxia nervosa, in the early 1990s which confined him to a wheelchair before he died two years later.

He paid tribute to his brother's em-ployers Shell UK who had created the opportunity for his brother to continue in employment despite his disabilities.

Mr Perry said: "All that disabled people ask for is the right to be treated as a real person."

He added there was a real lack of treatment and research into the condition.

He said: "Further research is needed and we must be prepared to encourage and support that research.

"If there is therapy that helps, for example beta interferons, then it must be made available to all sufferers.

"We must learn from each other and we must learn to help Louise and the hundreds of thousands like her."