For some self employment is chosen, for others, in this current climate, it is the only way of having an income, for some adoption is chosen and for others it is their only chance to have a family. An independent report by Julie Deane OBE recommends that self employed people should be given the same rights as those that work for an employer. This has been seen by parliament and so far ignored. I am proud to be self employed, I am also very much looking forward to starting my family however and whenever it happens but I know that without the same support the my employed friends get, we could struggle. This is unfair. The current government is very proud of the rise in self employment. It is one thing that has made the unemployment figures look better over the last few years. The entrepreneurial spirit is something to be proud of. It is time to bring adoption, maternity and paternity pay for self employed people in line with that of employees.

It's important as the decision and outcome that is created will have a greater effect on younger people. Scotland allowed 16 and 17 year olds to vote in the Scottish Referendum, which what's the difference between that and this vote? Why shouldn't the people who are going to be affected have no say in the decision?

This petition is not about censorship; it’s not about undermining freedom of expression or about anyone being offended. It is about protecting women’s right to access abortion freely, confidentially and without fear, intimidation or public shaming. Each year 40 Days For Life picket the BPAS Clinic, on St Mary Street in Cardiff throughout lent. They gather under banners and placards and hand out unsolicited, inaccurate, pseudo-medical anti-abortion material. These tactics are intimidating, distressing and damaging to clients and staff of BPAS. We respect everyone's right to peaceful protest; let 40 Days for Life publicly state their anti-abortion views, let them be held to account and their doctrine interrogated. What we can’t let them do is operate in the vicinity of BPAS to shame, distress and intimidate women who are accessing the legal and vital reproductive health care that they’re entitled to. It is inappropriate and unjustified for an anti-abortion organisation to be allowed to interfere with women’s fundamental human and legal right to seek medical advice and care in the case of pregnancy. If you want 40 Days for Life to remove their prayer, picketing and propaganda from the vicinity of the BPAS clinic, please sign.

There is far to much food waste when we have people going hungry. All stores should be required to donate unwanted food to charities and to food banks. It should apply to any supermarket with a footprint of 400 square metres or larger. If companies flout the law they are to incur fines. Supermarkets are to sign a donation deal with charities, which will be able to increase the quality and diversity of food that they currently get and distribute. In terms of nutritional balance, they currently have a deficit of meat and a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables. This will hopefully allow food-banks to push a fresh source of nutritional quality food to people and families in need.

Once a month, I take my blind amputee brother to Asda supermarket in Perth. During our last visit to the store, we were appalled at our treatment following the use of a disabled parking space. I discovered a fine which had been imposed on the grounds that my brother (who has lived in a care home for many years and cannot drive for obvious reasons) does not have a blue badge to display. Why should a genuinely disabled person be fined in an Asda car park for not displaying a blue badge? Blue Badge Scotland clearly state on their website: "The Blue Badge scheme is for drivers or passengers with severe mobility problems. The scheme provides a range of on-street parking concessions enabling Blue Badge holders to park closer to where they need to go. The scheme does not apply to off-street car parking, for example in privately operated car parks at supermarkets or airports." I immediately contested this fine with the store management and was shocked to discover that Asda have no power to waive these fines under any circumstances. This is because Asda allow a private company - Smart Parking - to run many of their car parks across the country. This company exploits the blue badge system under their "contract" agreement and employ their own staff to cowardly affix parking fines to windshields without care or consideration for who could be using this space. By allowing such a company to run their parking areas, Asda are complicit in this greedy money making exercise. Following my formal complaint, I had a call from an Asda corporate employee who claims to be among the highest echelons of customer service representatives. This individual showed no understanding or compassion whatsoever, responding to my issue with cold bureaucracy. This employee showed (as with any other member of Asda management that i have discussed this issue with) utter incompetence in understanding the difference between criminal law and contract law. I have been persistently shamed as having “broken the law”, which is absolutely not the case. Perhaps the most shocking revelation during this call is that Asda have confirmed they DO NOT provide their own spaces for disabled people who do not have (perhaps have forgotten or never had the need for) a blue badge. Their best suggestion was that I use the drop off point at the front door. This shows an incredible lack of understanding as they expect me to leave my blind, wheelchair bound brother unattended while I find a regular space. My brother is effectively barred from Asda as there are no suitable spaces to allow safe access to their stores. This amounts to discrimination against disabled customers, as confirmed in my correspondence with Citizens Advice Scotland. They have suggested that there is a strong argument here for the discrimination against the disabled and they have notified trading standards with regards to this issue. I am grateful to have guidance and support of local mps and msps on this matter in addition to a local newspaper that intends to run our story. PLEASE SIGN this petition to help prevent other people from suffering this discrimination, humiliation and indignity while visiting their local Asda store. N.B. Tesco have confirmed that they do not treat their disabled customers in this way and are equally shocked by the conduct of Asda.

This is so important.. how can a child custody case be judged honesty and truthfully if one or both parents cannot afford representation. .. it means that the parent who CAN afford a lawyer has an advantage over the other, as he or she will not know the law as well as a lawyer. This means that the child's welfare is NOT being judged fairly

I heard on the news this morning that a person had been reported to have been interviewed on the Radio, that he was having a bowl of water with some spices for dinner. They have no food and have even been eating the grass. It has now however snowed, so the grass is covered over. They are so starved, it was reported that they have even eating their pets.\ Image is copied from BBC Website dated 7th January 16, Story Title: Syrian government 'to let aid into besieged Madaya'

Members of the public find it difficult to support a political party 100%. Our system is out of date, our MPs out of touch, the public go unheard. We agree with points made by the Lib Dems, the Conservatives, Labour, the Green Party, the SNP etc and sometimes we disagree with them all. Either way we can't communicate with the government effectively. The system needs to work for us all but instead it's dusty, nobody really understands it or cares to sort it out with any long term vision. We need to start again. Simplify. Direct questions, direct answers. If regular referendums were to take place, the public are truly part of the process, allowing us to demonstrate what we care about, that we're united and want to invest in the future of this land and it's people. Less moaning and more doing, having a proactive and fair say, feeling satisfied that the decisions are being made and supported by the majority of the UK. Let the UK public vote for their future. This Kingdom can then begin to feel proud and respected, and most importantly, united.

In making these industries exempt, the funding has to come from elsewhere. The Conservative government has made it clear that it will not finance renewable energy off its own back, so funding will instead be passed on to regular households. The Government proposes to withdraw support for short-term funding (the next 4-5 years) of renewable technologies like solar panels and wind turbines as they are concerned it will add £ 7 p.a. to consumers energy bills which is unacceptable. Households will see their bills increase by £5 a year for the next four years to fund this exemption, at a total cost of £20 added to household bills. What has also been revealed is that projected savings from “reforming” (closing) the renewable obligation and feed-in tariff (renewable energy support schemes) will save households a total of £17 over the same period. Clearly, this action does not fit with the Governments intention to save consumers money on their energy bills as this action actually increases consumer energy bills. Renewable energy industries benefit communities, reduce wholesale future electrical energy costs and reduce pollution, making the environment a better place for current and future generations. Money used to support these schemes will now be passed as "Levy Control Framework Exemptions" (tax breaks) to high energy busines users - who pollute the planet and cause pollution related illnesses. The European Commission has aggregated a list of industries it considers intensive users of energy. That list, includes but is not limited to industries such as the mining of hard coal and the manufacture of refined petroleum products. On the face of it, it looks as if savings made from the feed-in tariff are being handed straight to large energy users to make sure they can survive the kind of difficult business environment the government is creating for domestic solar. It’s a galling prospect, and one that flies completely against any ‘the polluter pays’ principle put across in environmental law. “Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children” Please sign this petition to let George Osborne know we want a clean environment for our children and not to give money used to support clean energy industries away to support polluting fossil fuel companies. More details on the link below, but please read the quote below the link from Carl Sagan - a famous astronomer who was moved to write about the last image of our planet, taken as a Voyager satelite left our galaxy : http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/editors_blog/fit_cut_savings_all_but_handed_to_potential_polluters_under_eii_2592 “From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.” ― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot:

Anti women and anti renewable energy

I feel this is important as people with autism are just as capable of serving their country as their neurotypical counterparts (even more in some cases)

This petition is important as it will widely help disabled people live their life independently and efficiently. 18,000 people with high support needs relied on the fund and said it "transformed their life". The fund has recently been closed resulting in changing peoples lives greatly in a negative way. This petition may contribute towards re-opening the independent living fund even if it is a small difference. Please take a couple of minutes out of your time to sign up for this campaign. It will be greatly appreciated :)