Because there can be no right in a world where hospitals are filled with civilian casualties from towns turned into warzones, where parents dig their murdered children from the rubble of their homes, where neighbourhoods resemble scenes from history books and those who should be protecting them are actively contributing to the wholesale destruction of life.

Deer Park Medical Centre is a GP Practice providing an excellent service to a large number of people in West Witney due to close on the 3rd November 2016. It is currently being serviced under contact to Virgin Care. Whilst many of us do not agree with the privatisation of health services, Virgin are undoubtedly providing a good service. Whatever it takes to keep this practice open must be done. You cannot seriously consider allowing it to close. Other GP practices in Witney are already badly overstretched and waiting times for an appointment are often measured in weeks. This is not the case at Deer Park, I am a patient and have never had to wait more than days, also they operate walk in clinics for urgent cases. Please don't use the people of West Witney as political pawns in this dangerous game.

The House of Lords is an anachronism and is stuffed full of politicians cronies and buddy pals sent there as a reward for services rendered to them that is not necessarily to the benefit of the electorate. We need an accountable second chamber to curb the excesses of the elitist Commons who have lost touch with the electorate.

In June 2014, the Government introduced charges for using the Child Maintenance Service. To apply for a maintenance assessment it costs £20.00, with no guarantee any maintenance will ever be received. To then have the maintenance collected, more charges are imposed on both parents. The paying parent pays an extra 20% on top of their maintenance assessment and the receiving parent has a further 4% of their maintenance deducted. This means on an assessment of £100, the paying parent actually pays £120 and the receiving parent only gets £96, with the government taking a total of £24, not including the application fee. So far the charges have totalled over £8.5 million and are rising to a staggering £1 million per month. This money should be supporting the future of children and going towards essentials such as clothes, healthy food, books, education and heating. The charges are designed as a deterrent for using the Child Maintenance Service and it is feared that thousands of children are not receiving maintenance as a result. Even the government’s own research predicted 100,000 fewer parents would make maintenance arrangements because of the introduction of charges. Where maintenance is received it is often at a lower amount, either because parents feel pressured to accept a lower payment rather than use the Child Maintenance Service and face charges, or because they use the service and have money deducted by the government. The new system also puts extra pressure on relationships between parents, particularly when there is a history of abuse and/or violence. Studies have shown how essential child maintenance is for lifting the growing number of children living in poverty out of that desperate and disadvantaged situation. The charges are due to be reviewed at the end of the year so now is the time to call on the government to end this unfair tax on single parent families. Sign the petition asking the Minister for the Department of Work and Pensions to end all charges for the use of the Child Maintenance Service.

Voter engagement is crucial for our democratic process especially for people who often fail to register or participate in elections. Millions of voters will feel further disenfranchised if their registrations are ignored in this matter of national importance.

It was announced today that the renovations to the Palace of Westminster will cost up to £4billion and involved the MPs moving out for 6 years. This will leave us (the British people) with a magnificent looking building, but a parliament in the same state it is now with MPs involved in a scrum to attend each morning to bag a seat! In addition, the UK is already too London centric; despite rhetoric about building a "Northern Power House" the government has yet to do anything practical in this direction. The current debating chambers are not fit for purpose; there are insufficient seats for every member of parliament. A new building could provide to the needs of a 21st century and offer both space as well as technology solutions such as telepresence so that MPs can be involved in debates while not attending in person; allowing better use of their time as well as allowing a better family life / work life balance. Cost and time overruns are likely to make renovations cost much higher than the estimated £4 billion and we will still be faced by an antiquated building not fit for purpose. So lets look to the future not to the past and consider what is BEST, not what is convinient for individual MPs.

Because there are too many empty properties and too many homeless people

This is important because the UK is one of the least wooded countries within the whole of Europe. The country was completly covered in trees when the first people arrived. Now only 13% of our land area is wooded. Woodland is the naturally occuring habitat for this country. Fields, wildflowers, breakland and heathland although great for wildlife are habitats that arose in the abscense of our woodlands. Without woodlands on our east coast the land is being lost to the sea due to erosion. Without woodlands in our uplands the soil and wildlife are suffering amd floods downstream in our urban areas are rife. Most of the UK' indigenous biodiversity resides in our wooded areas because that is the natural habitat they would have had in this country before the great clearances of the forests. Surely for a country which is naturally of woodland habitat it is the duty of the Government to make sure there is plenty of this rich habitat left and that it expands. -Woodlands hold our greatest biodiversity. -Woodlands act as a windbreak (when enough of them) so should reduce effects of wind on urban areas. -They are brilliant places for people to escape to. -Trees help give us clean air and beautify the landscape. -They slow down and in some cases prevent soil erosion. -Trees help to prevent flooding by slowing down the process of water falling as rain getting to the sea. I believe if this cannot be done then the east coast of the country should at least be focused on. We loose meters of land a year to the North sea on the Holderness coast due to soil erosion. Houses cant be built on the cliffs, its a danger for people to be there. With the addition of trees the soil wound be bound together, it would be less saturated and as a result erosion would be a fraction of the rate it is now.

TTIP may be dead but worse still is the upcoming Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta). Not only the NHS but every service will be totally controlled by corporations that can simply sue governments for any supposed future profits that it claims to lose if action is taken to protect the public. We elect governments and hold them to account - we do not elect corporations to decide what is best for us.

ACOBA (Advisory Committee On Business Appointments) seems essentially ineffective in scrutinising the appointment of ex ministers and civil servants into positions within big corporations. It is "advisory" only, therefore can be ignored. It rarely advises against any such appointment, and it is time limited in scope. These business appointments leave open the strong possibility that the appointees can use their knowledge of, and contacts within government to the corporations' advantage. Given the often very senior positions they have held within government, we can not be sure that the possibility of a future job does not affect their departmental decision-making, in favour of these corporations. This affects significant areas such as defence, health, social security and justice. It risks blurring the boundaries between private and public benefit. It reduces trust in government.

Workers' rights in this country have been hard-won, but Brexit now gives the Government the chance to strip workers in Britain of their protections and rights at work. We can't allow that to happen. The Workers' Rights (Maintenance of EU Standards) Bill seeks to ensure that there is a floor of workers' rights below which no contract or employer can sink. This applies to rights such as protecting workers from redundancy if their company changes hands, health and safety rules and measures to protect employee representatives against detrimental treatment for carrying out their role. Please sign to support this bill and write to your MP to ask them to do the same. Draft letter here- http://www.melanieonn.co.uk/10_minute_rule

The inability to use Paypal's global electronic money transfer system, is hindering the progress of Palestinian owned businesses to exploit markets necessary to their healthy growth, in an location where this is vital. They should have the right to compete on a more even footing with Israeli settlers who suffer no such restrictions.