<p>As Minister for Communications, I met with the former Minister for the Disabled, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), in May 2013 as part of our wider departmental discussions around the digital inclusion agenda. We discussed the accessibility of telecommunication services, in particular relay services in the UK for disabled and older people and how we can support the work that the UK Council on Deafness (UKCoD) and its Deaf Access to Communications (DAC) committee has been doing with stakeholders on Video Relay Services (VRS) in the UK—this work includes considering voluntary funding solutions for VRS. I will be meeting with UKCoD's DAC committee to discuss the findings of their work on 27 November.</p><p>Ministers have also written to more than 80 businesses with public facing customer service functions to encourage them to have an accessible contact strategy in place that use a mix of e-mail, SMS, text, and video relay services to facilitate engagement with their disabled customers.</p>