Right now, one in ten women lose their job when they have a baby here in the UK. This isn't acceptable. Pregnant women and mothers now face more discrimination at work than they did a decade ago according to research from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Here's what the Women and Equalities Committee recommended should become law: 1.The Government should publish a strong, specific communications plan for the awareness-raising and attitude-changing work it has agreed to undertake 2.Employers should have to do an individual risk assessment when they are informed that a woman who works for them is pregnant, has given birth in the past six months or is breastfeeding. 3.The right to paid time off for antenatal appointments should be extended to temporary and people on zero-hours contracts. All maternity rights should be reviewed to make them more equal regardless of the type of working contract you have. 4.The Government should increase protection from redundancy so that new and expectant mothers can be made redundant only in specified circumstances. (Paragraph 70) 5.The Government should review the three-month time limit for bringing a tribunal claim in maternity and pregnancy discrimination cases and should substantially reduce tribunal fees. 6.The Government should monitor access to free, good-quality, one-to-one advice on pregnancy and maternity discrimination issues and assess whether additional resources are required. Maternity rights should protect every woman in the UK. They should protect us from suffering discrimination in the workplace, due to pregnancy or maternity. They should make sure we aren’t passed over for promotion due to being on maternity leave, or that our employers block us from accruing any holiday whilst we’re off work. Let's make sure they our maternity laws are changed for the better, to protect all women.

Microbeads are polluting the oceans, and poisoning wildlife. Waitrose recently announced that they are going to stop stocking ANY products with microbeads in them. ASDA should follow their great example and, not only stop using them in their own products, but stop stocking them all together.

Carers should be at least paid the equivalent of an office worker and not the minimum wage. When a decent wage is being paid then the quality of care will rise and staff will be retained. The treatment of those in care will improve ten fold. The care industry is in crisis with under-paid and over-worked tired care staff looking after vulnerable people and it is time that these people are recognised for the jobs that they do .

When someone goes to prison they aren’t the only one to be punished: their children and loved ones are also punished by being separated from their father, mother, husband or wife. When a foreign national goes to prison for more than 12 months the law says they must be automatically deported at the end of their sentence, meaning that they get punished more than twice over for their crime. But worse than that, their families (who haven’t committed any crime) then face a stark choice between being separated forever from their loved one or being forced into exile from their country of birth and being separated from the rest of their family and friends here. My Story: My husband was in a road accident and was devastated when he learned that he was responsible for someone’s death. This resulted in him receiving a 5-year prison sentence and, because he is a foreigner, he will be deported at the end of his time in prison. I, too, was very sad when I learned that a person had died. I was distressed when my husband went to prison and I had to learn how to live without him. But now I am feeling anguish at having to either face a lifetime of being separated from him or to move abroad and be thousands of miles away from my family, friends and roots here in my country of birth, unable to afford the flight home to visit because flights in his country cost a fortune relative to salaries there (even assuming I can get a job given that I don’t speak the language well enough). This law was brought in because it is Parliament’s “view” that the deportation of foreign criminals is in the public interest. But is this really the case? This “view” is not backed up by any evidence. It may be comforting to think that we are safer if we deport foreign criminals but this is not the case. Aside from the fact that we may be at risk from those people any time we travel abroad, any public interest is cancelled out by the fact that at the same time as deporting foreign criminals we are also receiving British criminals deported back to the U.K. from abroad, thus punishing even more innocent families who have had nothing to do with their family member’s crime. Even more importantly, figures published by the Ministry of Justice show that ex-offenders who live with their family are less likely to re-offend than those who don’t live with their families, and those who are homeless are more likely to re-offend. (1) Deportation results in separation from family and can mean homelessness – in other words, deportation is actually increasing the risk to the public of re-offending. So aside from the inhumanity of this law in punishing the innocent, it is actually CONTRARY TO THE PUBLIC INTEREST. Thank you for reading this. If you are signing this because your own loved one is facing deportation, please try to include your own story, however brief. (After you have signed, a small box will appear on the right, saying "Tell others why you signed".) I’m grateful to everyone who signs this petition and would like to make one more request: Please SHARE this with as many people as you can. Please also consider giving a donation to 38 degrees, who have made this and many other petitions possible. (1) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/491119/re-offending-release-waves-1-3-spcr-findings.pdf - see Table 4.5 on p.20 (p.26 of the pdf)

Chester has a unique Roman Ampitheatre and a rich cultural Roman heritage. The ampitheatre is the only one of it's kind in the country . Don't let the Council lease it so it can be built over ! Children visit the site for cultural purposes and it is an asset that cannever be replaced

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

Unpaid carers save the nation around £162 billion every year. They often have to decide between paying bills, eating, or getting the person they care for to crucial medical appointments, or visiting them in hospitals or hospices. They also have their own lives to balance around caring, for example travelling from school, college, university or work to the person they care for on a regular basis; or in the case of intermittent carers, such as university students, if an emergency arises and they have to take time off and travel long distances to help the person they care for. Public transport is an essential service that should be financially accessible to carers. Various regions of the country have railcard schemes that provide discounts based on where people live, but there is no national scheme for rail or bus that does not depend on age or disability. There are benefits available to some carers depending on their circumstances, but even when they are awarded, travels costs are so high that it still becomes a struggle. The Government is already looking at improving the rights of carers and services provided to them, so I believe this is the right time to fight for concessionary or even free travel for carers. Please join me in asking for a carers railcard and bus pass, that would be life-changing for thousands of people. This petition was inspired by a Scotland-specific campaign, created by Amanda MacDonald.

The board of the Oxford university hospital NHS foundation trust maintain that their impending downgrading of the maternity unit at the Horton Hospital, Banbury is due to no suitable doctors being available, news has also been released that two trauma doctors have resigned their posts. An investigation of the advertised posts in the trust show no indication of these posts being available. Downgrading of services at this local district general hospital, without any upgrading of services in the area's ambulance trust or the 'main' hospital in Oxford will inevitably mean sick / injured people being transported in unsuitable conditions for 30+ miles through some of the most congested roads in southern England to a hospital that will be overstretched trying to deal with a workload it was never designed for. This situation was totally avoidable and is no indication of a civilised country in the 21st century, those responsible should be bought to account

this is important as it is the closest science can at present allow a lesbian couple to have a child as close to biologically both of theirs as possible. The non biological parent is carrying the biological parents child and feels like a part of the ''making our baby' process. At present it can cost lesbian couples thousands of pounds to do this and only the rich couples can afford it. Allowing the same rights to lesbian couples to that of heterosexual couples on NHS including Reciprocal IVF would allow the poorer couples the chance to also have a family.

Unpaid Carers (carers who do not provide care as a career) are a crucial part of society that saves the government £162 billion a year. Free/concessionary transport for carers would allow carers to live a better quality of life. Carers face many barriers to work and education such as school or college, Travel being one of them. Free travel for carers would help reduce these barriers. Often carers have to decide between the simple and essential things in life such as being able to afford food to eat or accessing vital support services they need to cope with their caring role. Travel should be an essential service rather than another barrier that makes it harder for us to deal with our many responsibilities. This would allow carers to access free transport without the cared for person having to be present in the instance that the cared for has a travel card. However Not every cared for person has the concessionary companion card. If carers are able to access transport at no cost to them this will allow them in turn to provide more/better care for their loved ones. At the end of the day public transport is a service that is a need, we are an essential part of the community so why can't we use it too! For carers to receive this free travel they would need to prove to whomever is in charge that they are in fact a carer so this system can not be abused. A way in which they could do this is by having a letter from their carers centre or health professional such as social work department or if they are in receipt of carers allowance the letter proving this. Carers need assistance in alot of areas such as an increase of money they receive for Carers Allowance due to it clearly not being enough . This issue is being looked at by government and slowly increasing so I believe now transport needs to be looked at . Not everyone can get benefits so let's help people get what they deserve , might not seem important to most but to many it will change their lives. We deserve to be treated as equals...Is free/concessionary transport for carers to much to ask for in return for those who give up their lives to care for others?

In 2014, Public Health England published their final version of a health report on fracking. The report was narrow in its contents and missed out some significant health evidence that indicated hydraulic fracturing impacted upon public health. Since that report, hundreds of other health reports have been published with critical evidence that now needs to be taken into account before any shale activity should proceed within the UK. Medact have released two reports into public health and fracking, both of which have been ignored by the Conservative government. Medact said they have “called for a moratorium on fracking because of the serious risks it poses to public health. Fracking has already been suspended in Wales and Scotland because of health and climate risks and New York State has banned fracking because of the ‘significant health risks’. “The [Medact] report highlights the limitations of Public Health England’s report on fracking, including the fact that it was narrow in scope and failed to critically assess the adequacy and reliability of the regulatory system. “Working with various experts in energy policy and climate change, Medact’s report also describes how shale gas produces a level of GHG emissions that is incompatible with the UK’s commitments to address climate change.” A letter published in the British Medical Journal stated: “The arguments against fracking on public health and ecological grounds are overwhelming. There are clear grounds for adopting the precautionary principle and prohibiting fracking.” This letter was signed by 18 academic and medical professionals. In Lancashire it was left to the county council’s own director of public health to assess health impact. He advised that there was no regulatory system in place, in that health outcomes are not part of the regulatory bodies’ agenda. He could provide no assurance of baseline or any ongoing monitoring of health. More recently, an important study has been released by Johns Hopkins University linking fracking to an exacerbation of asthma. Public Health England’s mission is: "to protect and improve the nation’s health and to address inequalities" If Public Health England is to fulfil their public duty and mission statement, then to not acknowledge and act upon the wealth of contraindications towards hydraulic fracturing, they could be in breach of their position and may face a legal challenge. A full and concise article by Alan Tootill, with references on this subject, can be found here: http://www.frackingdigest.co.uk/health.htm

I feel that this is important because public services should not be used to generate profit for individuals or shareholders beyond what is necessary to operate the service and provide investment into improving the service.