Carers are classed as unemployed yet they get payed less than current unemployed levels. Carers work 24/7 without recognition, Carers at a minimum, need to receive the same amount of Benefits as the unemployed and refine their roles as employed with all rights. Care payments are also taxable so they should be given the same rights as anyone that is working and the same support regardless of their ability to have another Job along with being a care giver. For many caring for someone that has a disability is a 24/7 Job with no holiday pay and no other way of gaining an income. Being a Carer receiving £61.35 a wk whilst the unemployed receive £72.50. As a Carer on £61.35 wk we have to pay our own eye tests and prescriptions, the unemployed don't!! It costs over £500 wk to look after someone in Care but home Carers receive £61.35 wk. Carers save the economy more than £120billion yr but Carers only receive £61.35 wk. Why don't you allow a Carer some Airtime? Lets also be very clear on the Carers Allowance, its a deduction of Benefits the person Being Cared for would normally receive, so in real terms I'm robbing Peter to pay Paul( no pun intended) Its a mockery of the system and abuse of situation. Thousands are giving up work to look after a loved one. We also have over 800.000 kids who receive nothing for the caring they provide whilst missing out on growing up as a child should, enjoying a childhood. Again this wont get Airtime unless we take our concerns directly to those responsible. This Government must stop paying lip service to Carers, they are a vital to the Economy. The SNP have now committed to this.

Access to Work isn't a benefit and doesn't incur a cost to government - in fact it brings money into the treasury, yet Deaf and disabled people are having their support allowance capped or cuts made (meaning they can no longer afford to use qualified interpreters or the support they need). This places jobs at risk and has already resulted in job losses and demotions. People currently in work are potentially being forced out of work and onto benefits, which goes against everything the government is telling us they are trying to achieve. Deaf and disabled people bring a vast amount of skill and talent to our workforce that we can't afford to lose. We want to ensure that full support is provided, and people are enabled to gain, maintain and progress in their chosen careers. Personal choice and control needs to be handed back to the experts on Deaf and disabled access needs in the workplace - the individual Deaf and disabled people who use the scheme We want to ensure Deaf and disabled people are not subjected to a glass ceiling due to lack of support.

People who reach age 60 and are unemployed have very little chance of finding employment. Technology alone will account for too many redundancies. Youth unemployment is at an all time high and in many cases earlier retirement will free up jobs for them. Many of the younger generation need to be given a chance to work and raising the retirement age is only making things worse for them. To expect people to work longer and longer before they retire is based on the premise that people are living longer. Yet that does not apply to every segment of society; it is just an average. No government should be basing the age of retirement on average life expectancy. These figures are warped! Instead, they need to look at the areas of UK with lower life expectancy and base the age of retirement on that figure, minus at least five years for men and women. Otherwise the wealthy, who have longer life expectancies overall, are the only ones who will get to enjoy their retirement. The people who have slogged their whole lives MAY live to their age of retirement, but what will their quality of life be? So many are already ill when they retire. This is totally wrong and needs to be addressed by MPs. An optional retirement age of 60 takes account of those differences and would not stop those in good health continuing to work should they wish to. It would be a much fairer system all round if people were given that choice. As a bonus, this would reduce the costs of operating huge bureaucracies such as The Department for Work and Pensions, who at present continue to push older people into employment that is just not there, (and please, lets be honest for once, it really isn't), often including those who are sick and disabled. People having to sign on in their 60s is ridiculous. They deserve more dignity than that. This money would be better spent on helping younger people into work and the older people to retire. Many have worked all their lives since they were 15 and I don't feel you took any of this into account when you changed the retirement age drastically for women born in the 1950s, . Some have not been able to work all the time, due to ill-health or raising families, but this doesn't matter. We are a welfare state and all should be treated equally. Not only will they work longer than the next generation, who's education tends to continue for longer, but they're supposed to continue working for 51 years in all! It's ludicrous! No-one should be forced to work that long. We shouldn't be treated like "stock", we should be treated like people, which is what we are. Lowering the retirement age would enable younger people to pay into the system and their own pensions, which in turn helps the economy. Letting the young stagnate while bullying the old, the sick, the disabled people into work which they have little chance of obtaining, is not to anyone's benefit! It was right that the EU wanted us to equalize ages of retirement for men and women. In this regard, men had been discriminated against for too long. It was wrong, however, to make women born in the 1950s to bear the brunt of those changes. The age for men to retire should have been reduced to 60. This would have been a much more equitable way to resolve the discrimination. Many people die in their 60s and earlier, in spite of statistics, and the way things stand now, some people will be forced to work until they die, without a chance to retire! I personally have lost two good friends to illness when they were only in their early 50s. Another friend had a stroke at 39. My uncle died aged 36 of a heart attack. I could go on. These are real people, not statistics. People who retire at 60 still have much to give to society. Allow them the opportunity to enjoy their retirement on a state pension and free them up to contribute to society in ways that differ from paid work. At the same time, give the youngsters a chance to participate fully in society. Many have never had that chance! Reducing the optional retirement age to 60, while allowing people to work longer should they wish to, is a win win situation for everybody. Not everything is about money, though it seems to have become that way in the UK. Besides, importantly, people have paid for their pensions. They are not a benefit. They are a right!

In times of austerity, the Queen should not be exempt from the cuts that affect people with far less money than she has. We're constantly being told by the government that we are "all in this together", however it seems that in every reform it's always the poorest who are hit the hardest. This year the queen was given a £5 million "pay rise" after a new system of paying the monarchy came into force.Apparently she owns all of OUR country's sea-shore! Meaning that she gets "royalties" for EVERY type of energy -oil,gas,wind,wave, - that crosses HER shoreline.Her annual tax-free government grant has been set at £36.1 million for 2013/14 and will rise accordingly every year. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/queen-handed-pay-rise-5-1806123 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323228/Queens-38m-year-offshore-windfarm-windfall--owns-seabed.html The queen is estimated to be worth about £17 Billion - much of it made through wars around the world and the arms trade: in other words, she Profits from Human suffering - as all her ancestors have since 1066 A.D. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm6P5sDXs3k Yet at the same time people across this country are struggling to cope as the bedroom tax makes it harder and harder to make ends meet each month. The queen should pay the bedroom tax on her hundreds and hundreds of ornate and unused bedrooms - as a sign that we really are all in this together. Since I first instigated this Petition, we have had to pay 'William and Kate's decoration Expenses at Kensington Palace and also the increased Security Costs for the ever extending royal family Also, queenie has just been granted £76,000,000 for repairs at 'buck hice' (you and I will have to make do with Ikea and Homebase). I had to pay £120 per hour in order to gain MY pilot's Licence. I wonder how much Wills and Harry and Charlie and Stavros (Philips nickname in aristocratic circles) had to pay to get theirs'

Carers provide over £162bn in savings to the UK economy and now carers are being targeted by the DWP for prosecution relating to overpayments that the DWP could have stopped. Dear Prime Minister, We, the undersigned call upon the government of the United Kingdom to immediately halt all existing and further investigations by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) into erroneous claims for Carers Allowance resulting in overpayments. The DWP has the facilities to be able to determine whether a claimant is being overpaid within weeks of the overpayment being made, so why is it taking this public body, years to detect overpayments. As you have already discussed in previous sittings in the House of Parliament and may have read in both local and national newspapers, carers are being scrutinised by the DWP, personal finances are being looked at, and law-abiding citizens are being convicted of fraud due to errors made by the DWP. These convictions are being used to prosecute “victims” of these overpayments for the DWP to use the Proceeds of Crimes Act to recover the overpayment, meaning that claimants are losing their right to family inheritance and life savings. The responsibility lies with the Department for Work and Pensions to notify claimants of the overpayments as soon as they are aware that the overpayment has occurred, this is fundamental in business as according to ACAS, so why is it not compulsory for the DWP to abide by these rules, and why are the DWP not asking persons who have been overpaid to repay the money at a rate that is suitable for them? The Department for Work and Pensions is a ministerial department that is overseen by the UK Government, we call upon you to act in the best interests of the public, to stop these proceedings and assist in the recovery of the public funds without turning pensioners, the vulnerable and the weak into criminals. Thank you for your time Prime Minister. On Behalf of carers across the UK.

Do not make our lives even harder than we already have it! We are human beings, using vouchers can be embarrassing, it may cause mental distress, many of us cannot take changes as many of our lives have been turned upside down by serious health problems. This is inhumane. 

To promote positive change West Bromwich Albion football club

Legacy benefit ESA lost out in the £20 uplift and DWP are going to do it to us again by moving us over to Universal Credit.

It’s time to stand up for children’s welfare. It’s time for this abuse to STOP. FULL STOP.

This amazing service is having to close down after 32 years due to a lack of funding. In this time, they have helped locals with debt issues & claiming benefits, welfare advice & filling out all sorts of forms. They have helped recover about £7 million for local residents. They struggled on during Covid - seen clients face-to-face & in these uncertain times are needed more than ever. West Dunbartonshire Council have always helped fund the centre, but are no longer going to do so.

It is a glaring anomaly that those who earn the national living wage or just above it should be faced with losing over half their Universal Credit whilst those earning over £100,000 per annum pay income tax of only 45%. Using legislation to match these two figures would provide some equity in the tax and benefits system.

Despite Brexit and COVID-19, we still live in one of the richest countries in the world. So, it is truly disgraceful that an increasing number of people are being forced to choose between paying energy bills and food. Food banks are not the solution! While they have done an enormous amount of good work feeding those who need it the most, their existence cannot be justified as long as the government is happy to spend tax payers' money on £300,000 flat refurbishments and 'vanity projects' like HS2, a project which even traditional Conservative voters don't want! Moreover, there are sufficient funds in National Insurance contributions to pay for this much-needed increase in Universal Credit. Many of those claiming Universal Credit contributed to that fund. So, why is it not being used to fund the very things National Insurance was designed to prevent?