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The House of Lords has returned to debate the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. The first time that the Bill was on the agenda for Peers, they were not shy in coming forward to explain why the Government had got this wrong - and it was no different this time.

Hi Everyone!

So today is the day of the Scope Apprentice Challenge! We are at the Scope Shop in Wimbledon ready and raring to go with Sue the shop manager and her team of volunteers to make lots of money for Scope.

We have Alex Hitchcock (finance team at Scope) as our very own Santa - supported by his two elves! And a whole heap of Christmas treats and goodies which we hope will bring in lots of customers and increase that all important fundraising.

So the day has finally arrived - the Scope Apprentice Challenge! If you are in Wimbledon or Crawley, get down to the Scope shops and support the teams.

There has been frantic activity over the past week, with selling going on all over the Scope office, and all over the internet, but it all comes down to today. The teams are just about level on £600 each going into the big day. It'll be very close!

At the beginning of 2011, over 400 Scope campaigners wrote to the chief executives of some of the country’s major cinema chains (as well as to theatre owners) including Odeon, Vue and Cineworld.

As a result of all your efforts, Scope was contacted by the Cinema Exhibitors Association, the cinema industry’s representative body. We had a meeting with them in October 2011 where we were able to explain why it was so important that cinemas made sure disabled people could enjoy the same cinematic experience as anybody else.

You might have already seen the other team blogging about their Apprentice-style challenge in Wimbledon - but now you should hear about the other team, Team Crawley!

So, I was thinking on the way in to work on the train this morning, “I wonder if I could be on the real Apprentice?”. I was musing over the reasons for and against, and I came up with one over-riding reason why not – I’m not ridiculous enough! Just look at Stuart Baggs!

Scope is holding a unique charity challenge, where two teams of fundraisers are pitted against each other to see who can increase the profits of a Scope shop in one given day in the Scope Apprentice challenge. To help increase the profits of the shop, we are using tools such as Justgiving and have some great support from generous donors such as the staff at Promotional Products - thank you.

Anyone in the Grand Committee room in the House of Lords in Westminster last night would have witnessed an impassioned and energised debate on the future of Disability Living Allowance (DLA), as peers of all political parties scrutinised the Government’s plans for reforming the welfare system.

We are entering the greatest period of change that the welfare system has probably ever been through since its inception.