Working families are juggling work/family responsibilities to try and keep expensive childcare costs down. These time- and work-pressures impact massively upon personal wellbeing and worker productivity. Free, work-based childcare would show the company was progressive, forward-thinking and family-orientated. Practically, it would reduce travel time between alternative providers and the workplace, avoid any unplanned absence to cover childcare issues, prevent employees looking for better-paid jobs elsewhere to cover increasing childcare costs and would drastically improve working-parent motivation, well-being, loyalty to the employer and productivity. This kind of service would 'keep families together' and would truly reflect employer ambitions to promote a real work-life balance.

Many investors from 2007 were conned into buying properties that were fraudulently over-valued by third party professionals, including property developers, panel surveyors, mortgage brokers and conveyancing solicitors, all part of a scam to fleece money from high street lending institutions. The high street lenders have repossessed many of the properties which have so far seen millions of pounds lost in shortfalls on the original mortgages. These shortfalls have been 'lost' in the accounts of the Lloyds Group and UK tax-payers should be told in detail how much all this amounts to and what steps the group has taken to recover these shortfalls. Lloyds has protected itself by repossessing the houses of the investors who fell foul of what a member of Lloyds' Chief Executive Team termed as a 'scam', in a letter to one investor, it then repossessed. The investor had written to challenge the bank's conduct in the whole saga that saw three of her properties re-possessed to the tune of £530,000. In its reply, the bank's official wrote: 'I disagree that BoS should be accountable for the shortfall as we were also victims of the scam.' There are at least 22 properties in the north and north-west of England, which were all over-valued by between £100,000 and £150,000, involving investors that have been forced into repossession. Third-party professionals used by Lloyds on a daily basis have fleeced the group for millions. Lloyds meanwhile, has been able to 'write off' these 'bad debts' with no comeback or explanation on its behaviour. British taxpayers shored up the ailing Lloyds Group, following the disastrous and scandalous way it operated its business in the lead up to the 'credit crunch' in 2008. The public need to know exactly how the losses - in the region of £3.2 million - from this 'scam' were reported and whether Lloyds reported the 'scam' to the Police or any of the financial watchdogs and authorities. Bank of Scotland were made aware of the 'scam' in May 2008. It is now December 2017 and the Lloyds Group has not addressed any of the questions raised by investors about its handling of the situation and hides behind jargon, data protection and its solicitors, Eversheds. In the meantime, Lloyds continues to hand out 'performance' bonuses in the tens of millions to a raft of senior management, whilst it has taken no action in delving into the 'scam' that it said it was a 'victim' of. How shameful that it has not had the decency to work with the investors/borrowers involved in the 'scam' it too was involved in, other than to repossess their homes and push them into untold stress and misery! Come clean Bank of Scotland - face up to the situation like the rest of us do when times get tough!

On March 7th disabled Albert Carter called into his local Sainsbury to buy cigarettes. After paying for them he temporarily lost control of his mobility scooter, knocking over a shopper, who was unharmed. He also hit the Customer Service desk. As a result of this, Sainsbury have now banned him from every store in the Country, using the same letter that they apply to shoplifters. The letter has traumatised Albert, such that he will no longer go out on his mobility scooter. If you think that this is a national disgrace, & that Sainsbury have acted in a draconian manner by sending Albert that letter, then please sign this petition, calling upon Sainsbury to withdraw the banning order, and to apologise to Albert.

Up and down the country patients and their loved ones are having to fork out 20 pounds a month upwards on car parking for extended visits in hospital or regular appointments. The cost of getting to and from hospitals is another thing to worry about for families who are already experiencing bleak times. With hospital waiting times currently out of control, the cost of parking is unjustly becoming higher and higher

We recently witnessed a particularly unpleasant scene In which two Bouncers at the Amersham Arms physically assaulted a young man using far more force than was necessary on one person who was trying to follow the instructions they had just given him. One Bouncer then proceeded to threaten and verbally abuse the young man after he had left the premises. This is unacceptable. Peoples jobs should not given the right to assault and abuse people and should only use a necessary level of force. It's ruining many people's enjoyment of their local space to dance and have fun and it's not in the Amersham Arms interest as they will loose business and already have quite a cemented reputation for a venue where the bouncers are a problem. But more importantly this is an issue of people abusing power to torment and abuse others and should be something that is called up more often.

My estimates doubled in 2004. By 2010 they had tripled. Now that I have a water meter my bills have decreased by 75 per cent ! I was not given the choice. 70,000 other Peabody tenants may have been paying 3x too much for 10 years. That's a lot of profit for greedy corporations.

A recent survey by the Federation of Small Businesses found that only 16% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in rural areas had access to superfast broadband. Some 10-15% of the population could not get broadband despite a government target to hit 95% by 2017. Before spending £millions on enhancing to mega-speeds areas which already have a more than adequate service, everyone i.e. 100% should have a minimum standard to enable businesses to run, websites to be uploaded and students to study. I wonder - if 5% of the population signed a petition would it make any difference? That is an incredibly depressing and abysmal picture. Question for our Government, what will you do about it?

In 2012 GlaxoSmithKline stopped production of Alphosyl HC Cream leaving Psoriasis sufferers like myself without any equivalent product to relieve the symptoms of Psoriasis. There is no cure for Psoriasis. I have suffered this condition since 1954, I have had numerous treatments over the years but, none have been as effective as Alphosyl HC Cream. Please help put pressure on GlaxoSmithKline to put Alphosyl HC Cream back into production.

HMRC wrongly and unfairly applied favourable terms to the settlement of 1,100 individuals/businesses it identified from leaked HSBC Swiss files as having evaded paying tax, even though none of the 1,100 cases qualified for the favourable terms. Tax evasion is a criminal offence and the favourable terms offered included immunity from prosecution, penalties from 10% of unpaid tax instead of 200% and a claw back period of 10 rather than 20 years. These favourable terms have cost the British taxpayer up to £100million in tax revenue and the potential of further criminal prosecutions. However it is not too late. As the rules were wrongly applied the decision to offer favourable treatment can be overturned. We can still recover the correct amount of money owed to help fund our public services.

Public provision of water services in Scotland should continue to be a point of pride and a point of principle. Water is a service that should continue to be delivered for the benefit of the people. Public water provision in Scotland has resulted in the lowest average water bills in the UK for both households and businesses. Let's keep it that way by maintaining the responsibility and the benefits of water provision in the hands of the public sector here in Scotland.

It is important that we cultivate a sense of responsibility and honesty within society and the example HSBC have set goes directly against the grain in that regard. We need them to show us how sorry they really are by contributing meaningfully, responsibly and honestly to the society they helped deprive of income.

Already, over 1000 people have died, working in abysmal conditions and searing temperatures on poverty wages in the richest part of the world. It is predicted that if this rate continues, 4000 will have died constructing the facilities for the 2022 World Cup. Workers, upon finding that the pay and conditions are not as described when they were recruited, have told of their passports being retained by the construction companies, forcing them to stay. FIFA has consistently turned a blind eye to this because of the financial implications. It is time for the FA, for once, to put morals before money and unilaterally withdraw from the 2022 tournament. If a leading association takes the lead, others will follow. Human lives are more important than FIFA's arrogance and greed.