Under government changes to the NHS, local Councils have become responsible for certain health services, and for overall scrutiny of others. We people of Southampton are therefore calling on Southampton City Council to defend our public NHS from the invasion of private services. Please note that for the Southampton City Council to view a signature as valid, the signer should either live, study or work in the area of Southampton City Council. For most of our lifetimes, the NHS has been a public service giving free healthcare whenever we needed it. Now it is being broken up and privatised piecemeal under government reforms. Already in Southampton over a dozen private companies are competing for contracts to provide health services. This will fragment the NHS and make it more difficult to provide joined-up treatment for patients. Private providers have shareholders to please so they will tend to think about putting profits before patient care. Their contracts are not made public because of commercial confidentiality. All providers, even those who already work with the NHS, now have to tender competitively for contracts. Not only is this an expensive process which will be easier for large companies with big budgets, but also it will waste money that could have gone on patient care.

The gradual withdrawal of services will eventually mean the end of local democracy as the council becomes ever more pointless and powerless. For example as part of its budget proposals Gateshead City Council is proposing reduction of branch libraries to 12 and the withdrawal of professional support for 5 libraries which may or may not continue being run by volunteers. This comes on top of massive staff cuts last year and more proposed in the future. Local government may not be perfect but it's better than a mish mash of services provided by charity or multinational companies like G4s or SERCO.

The shale gas is fossil fuel and is not long term solution. The method of fracking is highly controversial and it turns green fields into industrial sites. The cocktail of chemicals used in the process is highly toxic and if leaked is impossible to clean up ever. In many European countries such as France, Germany, Ireland, Bulgaria, also states from USA, including New York, the method has been banned or is under a moratorium until further studies on environmental impact are finalized. Scotland announced a moratorium on fracking as well. There have been numerous leaks in USA when using the method of fracking, which have caused pollution of water supplies and entire ecosystems.

On 30 January 2013 the executives of Cumbria, Allerdale and Copeland County Councils will vote on whether to continue with Government plans to build an underground nuclear dump in the Lake District of up to 25km square. Scientists from the Government’s Nirex investigation in the 1990s onwards have made it categorically clear that an underground nuclear depository is not safe in mountainous areas of high waterfall where radioactive waste is likely to leak into the water table, where the geology is unstable as in the whole of the Lake District region, with multiple cracks through which radioactive material could escape. There is no scientific evidence that an underground nuclear repository would be safe anywhere, and yet the Government is determined to continue with its plans to bury waste anywhere people can be persuaded to take it. Voting No would force the Government to take a more responsible attitude in its plans for nuclear expansion – burying the waste out of sight is not the safe answer to this dilemma. http://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/truth-to-power-no-nuke-dump/ http://www.davidsmythe.org/nuclear/documents.htm http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/Publications/2010/rock-solid-a-scientific-review/ Please also sign the petition to the leader of Copeland County Council on 38 Degrees 'No Nuclear Dump in the Lake District' http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/no-nuclear-dump-in-the-lake-district We need to put pressure on all the Councillors who will be deciding on this issue.

We work at Animal Lifeline – a registered charity based in Stoke-on-Trent. In the thirty years it has been running, the situation with unwanted or abandoned dogs is the worst we’ve ever seen it. The problem is most critical with Staffordshire Bull Terriers and breeds associated with a macho image. Such dogs are often bred for fighting, and charities like ours are bursting at the seams with animals that have become too much of a handful for people to look after. We want to see a law enforced saying that no one can breed pedigree dogs without a license. The stipulations of that license need careful consideration but we’d recommend that: Any individual granted a license must follow a ‘Responsible Breeder’s Code of Practice’, All recipients must be properly home-checked, Spot checks are carried out on breeders by authorised authorities to ensure they adhere to animal welfare laws and the Code of Practice, A log book similar to the log book of a motor vehicle , to be passed on if the dog is transferred to new owners Please sign and share the petition. This trend of the overbreeding of 'macho-image ' dogs must be addressed.

Many members of the Church of England and Church in Wales, both clergy and lay people, LGBT and not, are in favour of allowing gay marriage ceremonies. In time a new hierarchy will also be in favour and at that point it will be much simpler to allow "opting in" than to go through the process of amending legislation. Meanwhile the C of E will be just as well "protected" as the Roman Catholic and other churches which do not wish to hold gay marraige ceremonies. Legislating to make gay marriage illegal in the Church of England and Church in Wales simply makes homophobia legal, which wouldn't be allowed in any other institution.

I believe the only way forward to address this justly is to stop NHS investigating itself and make Trusts accountable- financially! Therefore my suggestion is a fully Independent complaints system funded by a Complaints pool. The PHSO process currently costs over £30m per annum to investigate less than 2% of complaints brought to it..that 98% left unresolved! Funding for Independent Complaint Resolution could come by scrapping the ineffective PHSO process, we would save £m's and each Trust paying into a Complaints Pool (with Trusts failing at local resolution (first stage of complaints process) to pay in substantially more.) I feel there will be a willingness to keep costs low, implementation & learning lessons may be the real winners.

As part of its budget proposals Newcastle City Council is proposing the closure of 10 branch libraries, along with staffing cuts at City Library. Public libraries provide a vital service for all sectors of the community, but it is the most vulnerable who will be hit hardest, just as access to information becomes even more essential in view of all the other government changes which are about to hit. Not everyone affected will be able to afford to travel the increased distance to a library, and children are particularly likely to lose out. Once these local libraries are closed they will never be restored and we will all have lost a vital resource. The City of Newcastle will have suffered irreparable damage to its reputation as a centre for culture and learning. As local author David Almond said recently, "a library is one of humankind's greatest inventions and is at the heart of our culture".

Cystic fibrosis is a life limiting condition affecting the respiratory and digestive system of sufferers. There is no cure at present only medical treatments to alleviate symptoms, fight infections and digest food. These medications need to be taken several times a day. Prescriptions now cost over £7 per item. CF patients should not have to pay for medications that keep them well and alive.

The 'big four' supermarkets: Asda, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsburys do not pay the Living Wage. These companies employ around 900,000 people meaning that together they employ the second largest number of people in the UK after the NHS. The Living Wage is “the threshold at which people can live above the poverty level with a sufficient safety net to provide for quality of life”. We need to ask these supermarkets to pay their staff the living wage. Big companies don’t like bad publicity. 38 Degrees members put pressure on the Olympic sponsors who were dodging their tax in the summer, and they caved to public pressure. We need to shame them into paying their staff a wage which affords them dignity and shows that they’re worth more than the legal minimum. Sign this petition to show the CEOs that you think they should pay their staff a wage they can live on! Together we can work together to lift people out of poverty. These supermarkets can afford it! The salaries paid to their CEOs are evidence of this. Justin King, the CEO of Sainsburys, receives £3.2 million a year; Philip Clarke of Tesco, £6.9 million; Dalton Philips of Morrisons, £4 million; Andy Clarke of Asda's pay is not in the public domain. If they can afford to pay their bosses this much, they can afford to pay their staff a few pounds more an hour. Tesco announced sales of more than £1 billion a week and annual profits of more than £3 billion despite the impact of the global downturn. Sainsburys opened five supermarkets, 28 convenience stores and two extensions, adding 267,000 square feet to its estate over the last three months. If they can afford to expand to at this rate, they can afford to pay their staff more. The Living Wage is beneficial to employees, employers and taxpayers. It prevents working poverty and the exploitation of low-paid workers. Taxpayers top up the low wages of supermarket workers by £50 a week in tax credits. If all low paid workers earned the living wage, the government could save £823 million a year by decreasing welfare benefits. It’s not just those who are unemployed who are in poverty, it’s also those in work who just don’t earn enough money to pay for the basics. One-fifth of women and one-seventh of men earn less than £7 per hour. More than six million working adults in Britain are living in poverty. Since the beginning of the Living Wage campaign in 2001 led by Citizens UK, they have lifted 45,000 people out of poverty and put over £210 million into the pockets of some of the lowest paid workers in the UK. *UPDATE* I have made a short link if you'd like to share the petition on Twitter: It is http://bit.ly/Big4LW745

**UPDATE: Job Done! (House of Bishops statement 11 Dec 2012). Many thanks to all supporters - keep praying!** 42 out of 44 Dioceses have voted for women bishops; the House of Laity vote clearly did not reflect the democratic wishes of the membership they are supposed to represent. A year's delay will enable Dioceses to reflect again, and make their views even clearer to their Synodical representatives.

* Aesthetic reasons- not to cramp the historic site of the Abbey itself. * Historic reasons - there has always been an hotel there for centuries. * Archaeological - the hotel is in the grounds of the historic Abbey complex. * Social and Economic - UK tourism began in this area and it continues to attract tourists from all over the world. The first part of Tintern they see is the Abbey and the hotel.