I have worked in the NHS for over twelve years. In the last parliament I and many other NHS staff went on strike for the first time in many years. This was a step many staff never thought we would have to take. The 1% was the trigger but the protest was about so much more. Nurses and other staff who work within our National Health Service do an exceptionally difficult job. They care for us and our families but who cares for them? David Cameron tells us that his government is on the side of hard working families and yet Nurses and other NHS staff have seen their pay fall in real terms. Jeremy Hunt as Health Minister, who co-authored a book calling for the NHS to be dismantled and has been investigated in relation to his parliamentary expenses, actively stopped NHS staff from receiving a 1% pay increase, below the rate of inflation. There is a push to remove leads and allowances staff get for working unsocial hours, paid to them for caring for our families at the expense of their own. He has overseen a top down re organisation which has wasted billions of pounds and caused massive disruption to services. The conservative government has said that it values the NHS and its staff whilst seeking to undermine them wherever possible by allowing more and more profit hungry organisations to cherry pick the areas that will make them the most money, often at the expense of NHS services themselves. Morale is at an all time low right across services. Caring, compassionate, experienced staff are leaving in their hundreds because they can no longer face what is being done to the services they value by an ideology driven Health Secretary so far removed from the pain inflicted on front-line services. Can we expect such dedicated and caring staff to be totally focused on what really matters, the patients, when they are worrying about providing for their own families? So what does Mr Hunt offer to improve morale and support staff in delivering the care they want to provide? An unfunded commitment to £8 billion and additional commitments to find further £20 billion in savings from services already cut to the bone. Lets send him a message, lets tell him that we do not trust him with OUR NHS #nofaithinhunt

To force someone existing on welfare benefit into unpaid Work runs counter to any ideal of a humane society and its government. Whole communities have suffered as a result of ever changing economic fortune, and it falls to government to address wide spread unemployment and offer leadership and example, rather than deflecting responsibility and demonising the unemployed as being some how to blame.

Adult education is a source of removing dependency on government resources and hand outs. Adults living in deprivation can go back to college to retrain or gain basic skills so that they can have more confidence to secure better jobs. WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? The department for business, innovation and skills found that further education courses improved the lives of people who had completed them in countless ways. From becoming more employable to being more involved in the local community to better health and well-being. BUT... - The UK government has slashed funding for non-academic (not university based) adult education by a staggering 40% since 2010. - If government cuts continue, adult education will not exist by 2020. Colleges and training agencies have been advised to find other forms of funding. - It is a human right to have access to education at any age. Why should it be limited to our childhood? There are countless reasons why a person may not be able to read and write/speak English/hold qualifications/find a job as an adult. For instance: War Culture that does not encourage the schooling of girls Domestic responsibilities Poverty We believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to access services that may improve the quality of their lives, regardless of age. It is never too late!

This is important because it is another example of governments eroding people's rights to withdraw their labour when employers don't pay them enough or put in place policies which change their terms and conditions for the worse. Remember people have died, been forcibly relocated and suffered for the rights you have today. Don't let any government take them away from you.

As a hardworking parent I know how important this is. A recent change to my wages led to me trying to get through to the Tax Credits helpline to report my change in circumstances. After 3 weeks of trying, giving information to the automated system and being told they were too busy, or getting through to a queue and kept on hold for over a hour then unceremoniously cut off I was frustrated, anxious and left with a large phone bill. I resorted to writing to HMRC and did eventually also get through on the phone, however the information I had given them was applied incorrectly and again I was left trying to contact the helpline with no success. I have since given up, however I know of many people in vulnerable situations who are finding the extra pressure of this unbearable, it's time this system was made fit for purpose.

As some of you may be aware, the Green Party tried to stand two candidates in Basingstoke (Sarah Cope and Clare Phipps), and the Electoral Commission rejected their application. Four independent people (Rachel Ling, Emma Rome, Zion Zakari, and Adam Lotun) attempted to do the same in two other constituencies. We had been in talks with the GP leadership about working together, but have now received an email from the GP's legal advisor telling us that they have zero interest in cooperating to present the legal case. I don't think that is right. I believe the Green Party should work with independent campaigners to get job-sharing as an option for how candidates should be able to stand. (n.b., I am referring to job-sharing, where two people are both committed to a single job, sometimes also known as flexible working. I am not referring to the second-jobbing that happens among many MPs currently, or the part-time antics of Boris Johnson).

The Labour Manifesto rightly says it is important to strive for greater equality in the UK. It commits to raising the National Minimum Wage to living wage levels by 2020. But this will not deal with rising pay inequality in the public sector - where taxpayers' money often gives the top more than 10 times the wage of the lowest paid. Nor does it deal with huge and unjustified salaries and bonuses in large private sector firms - many of which receive huge amounts of public money - and where top incomes are often several hundred times greater than those at the bottom. A renamed Fair Pay Commission would examine both low and high pay. It would make recommendations to Parliament to reduce income inequality and will monitor progress on a year by year basis. Curbing excessive high pay is not only fair, it is also important for the economy. It will encourage longer-term investment, raise middle and lower incomes across the board and reduce the fizz at the top of the housing boom.

According to Citizens UK the wages of supermarket workers are being topped up by £11 billion each year in benefits. For too long supermarkets have been underpaying their staff & expecting the tax payer to foot the bill but now is time to fight back. Supermarkets turn over billions of pounds every year & are easily in the position to pay the living wage & if they were to do so would save this country £11 billion every year. Imagine where that £11 billion could go - NHS, Police, Fire Service, Education to name a few. While our public services are being drained of resources huge billion pound, multi-national companies are being subsidised by us the tax payer, it must now stop to save our economy & our public services The living wage is set at £9.15 in London & £7.85 elsewhere & is calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK - that's right, the basic cost of living. All employers should be paying the living wage but supermarkets have the moral right to do so as they employ such a large number of employees (5 million) & turn over such masses of money. It's important to remember as well that this isn't just the big 4 who are guilty, those with a smaller market share must also accept responsibility - particularly the Co-operative whose morals & ethics were built on challenging greed & dispersing money back into society 170 years ago facebook.com/blocuk twitter.com/ukbloc

If this country is going to be economically successful then it is vital to ensure that people who need it, have a support system in place to take care of them at their greatest time of need. People do not choose to be ill or disabled, therefore it makes no sense to penalise these people, either morally or economically. During the election campaign the Prime Minister spoke a great deal about his disabled son, who is now, very sadly no longer with us, therefore, I cannot believe that such a person adopts policies which takes vital support money away from this group of people. To any sensible economist this flies in the face of what normal conventional wisdom tells you should be done when an economy is in trouble. Having studied micro macro and global economics, I am aware that conventional wisdom, and common sense dictates that you adopt a spending policy in order to help the country to recover. After all one mans spending money is another man's wages. Another reason this system must be abolished now is that there are more than one million appeal cases pending. The success rate of these appeals indicates that by far the majority of the people who claim these benefits are people who are in genuine need. Finally, I think it is an absolute disgrace that the hardworking doctors, nurses and GP's are having their diagnosis and medical notes questioned in this way, which is very disrespectful and shows a lack of gratitude for the fantastic work they do, without which none of us would be here. This action represents privatisation of the Benefit system and the NHS back the back door as the result of employing a profit making American company, whose employees are paid bonuses for achieving their target figures of refusing or denying the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country access to money which they need just to fulfill their basic needs, and meet their most basic human rights of having enough money to feed themselves and any family they may have, warmth and shelter. Therefore, for the sake of the recovery of the economy, and the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country, I would implore you to abolish this unworkable system immediately.

We the undersigned condemn HMRC’s decision to bring in unpaid benefits claimants to undertake PAYE processing work on taxpayers records. We note this comes at a time where HMRC is unable to deliver on its business targets due to chronic understaffing. Movement to Work (MTW) is a government scheme aimed at 18-24 year olds who are not in education, employment or training. Officially a programme of vocational training and work experience, it actually is the latest incarnation of the government’s ‘workfare’ programme – providing employers free labour by making the unemployed work for their benefits. The Civil Service is one of the core providers in this scheme, meaning that the government itself is one of the main beneficiaries of unpaid labour. In HMRC, the employer wants to double those brought in from 1,000 to 2,000, and if successful that number could increase even further. The potential for these placements to carry out work that should be done by paid staff, covering up staffing shortfalls in a climate of job cuts and office closures, is patently obvious. Personal Tax has taken the brunt of job cuts in HMRC, with over 5,000 staff lost in the past five years. This has created a staffing crisis wherein the Department has failed to answer adequate numbers of calls and been left with huge backlogs of work, which they have then tried to cover up through the use of overtime and dragging workers out of other work areas (often with the result of additional backlogs there) to answer calls during peak times. The use of claimants is just another way to mask the backlogs. Why employ additional staff if you can get the work done for free? Why offer existing staff overtime if you can draft in more claimants to do the job? Why bargain with the workforce through their trade union when it’s so easy to draft in the unemployed at no additional cost? Why take any steps to prevent further job losses or office closures with a reserve army of labour on call? The first tranche of MTW placements in Bootle number just ten. But the potential for this number to increase exponentially remains a threat to our jobs and working conditions, especially as they are being put on Work Management Items, the contingency work for the AO grade in Personal Tax, at a time when the department wants to half the number of items on hand. It must also be said that MTW is exploitation of the placements themselves. They are doing the work of paid staff for no more than their dole, and treated as a disposable resource by an unscrupulous employer who doesn’t want to pay the rate for the job or foot the bill for the actual number of staff needed.

We are street traders in Colchester there is a handful of us. Many street traders have worked in the town for decades. We trade seven days a week providing goods for our local community. Over the years street traders have built trust with the community and have been rewarded with the local communities loyal custom. The council has served notice to the traders we now have 20 days to save our businesses ,save our staff from being made unemployed. We have been model tenants contributing tens of thousands to the councils treasury. So why in these times of austerity with public services being cut is the council taking away funds from the public purse. By the council relocating traders from their current established positions and raising rents by 300-400% they are most definitely forcing the hard working street trader out of business. We urge the public to save us as we feel that over the years we have contributed to the local economy and provided a service for the public. This is your local public service that the council would like to take away so please show your support.

It is still legal to discriminate against people in Northern Ireland in relation to the provision of goods, facilities and services on the basis of the person's age unlike in Britain and the Republic of Ireland. Older people in Northern Ireland endured the 'Troubles' for many years and looked forward to the 'peace dividend', only to find that their elected representatives can't agree to give them the same protection under the law as is enjoyed by older people in the rest of the UK & Ireland. The Northern Ireland Executive includes a proposal to introduce legislation to outlaw age discrimination in its Programme for Government in 2011, but has so far failed to get agreement in the Assembly for this over the last 4 years. Prof. Mark Lawler of Queen's University Belfast has described how many older people were being denied possible life saving and enhancing cancer treatments each year purely on the grounds of age.