Dear Minister, Maria Eagle stated in The House of Commons Debate on Food Poverty on Wednesday 18th December 2013 that, "there is a very straightforward way for Ministers to clear up any doubt about the reasons for the increase in reliance on food aid: they can finally publish the official report into the growth of food banks, which was delivered to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in June. That report has now been sat on by Ministers for six months, longer than it took to produce. In April, the then Minister of State at DEFRA, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), said: “The conclusions of this work will be available in the summer and published on the Government's website.”—[Official Report, 23 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 821W.] Now Ministers say the report is still being subjected to “an appropriate review and quality assurance process.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 November 2013; Vol. 749, c. 1293.]" I demand that The Department of Work and Pensions and DEFRA release this report so that we can all see if the Government's report agrees with, or disputes claims from Voluntary Organizations and Churches; that one third of people referred to Food Banks are due to Social Security delays and cuts. I would also like to remind you that people, working and unemployed, who are referred to Food Banks, can usually only be referred to them three times within a twelve month period, after that there is no help! I would like to know from you, why this report has been subject to "review and quality assurance" for so long and when will it be released?

As the wild boar in Britain are currently "tagged" with feral status, this means that they can be shot all year round. As this species has dependant young, protection needs to be put in place to ensure that they are not managed during the birthing and weaning periods. We are also asking that no sows in gestation are targeted after the breeding season. Predominantly, wild boar rut in November and give birth in the spring. When born the young hoglets are dependant on the sow's milk for up to four months and if the sow is removed during this time, there is a real risk of them starving to death. Wild boar are a true native species to Britain and deserve like many non-native species in the UK a luxury of a closed season. By giving the wild boar native status, this will help eliminate the risks of seeing orphaned piglets starving to death if the sow is killed. Wild boar were not chosen for extinction by nature, they were eradicated through hunting by man and we owe this native species a second chance.

SAVE GOSDEN HOUSE SCHOOL Gosden House School is under threat again. After throwing the school into turmoil last year with an ill thought out scheme to go purely Primary, Surrey stripped out the Residential provision to save costs and now want to close the school and open a secondary school for high functioning autism. This will throw away over 50 years of exceptional provision for special needs children in Surrey. Yes, there will still be a school on the site but the unique mix and ethos that is Ofsted Outstanding, Gold Arts Mark and a Shakespeare’s Globe Education Trust partner, will be lost. We support the ambition to provide a better and affordable service for all special needs children but this proposal is simply madness. Across the county it will lead to reception age children in transport for up to three hours each day, a massive reduction in special school places and a betrayal of the staff and children, both current and future. Rather than build on an example of excellence, Surrey are proposing to destroy a beautiful thing. If you are able to help us with the campaign please contact parents@save-gosden-house-kids.info Please help us fight for Gosden House School and sign this petition NOW we only have a short time to make our case.

The new Universal Credit replaces JSA, Income Support, ESA, Housing Benefit, Tax Credits and Working Tax Credits. Government says Universal Credit will make work pay. This is rubbish. Universal Credit is about cutting the Social Security bill meaning millions will be worse off. Once fully implemented Universal Credit :- Will mean easier sanctioning forcing people to live off nothing. Housing subsidy will be time limited forcing more to be homeless. Support for child care drastically cut. Disability elements cut or abolished altogether. Thousands of small businesses will be forced out of business. Some rates are lower than current benefit rates. For the unemployed UC will eventually become time-limited. The government has so far wasted hundreds of millions in IT and other failures but even they admit the benefit savings will be in the BILLIONS. BILLIONS taken from the needy and most vulnerable in society.

In September 2012, my nephew Michael Molloy was one of three people killed on a coach travelling back from Bestival Music Festival on the Isle of Wight. Kerry Ogden and the coach driver Colin Daulby were also killed. They were coming home to Liverpool. The coach crashed into a tree because the front tyre blew. The tyre was 20 years old. Unbelievably this tyre was not illegal because there is no law to say how old a tyre should be. It cost Michael, Kerry and Colin their lives. In addition, the coach was a 52 seater but, illegally, there were 53 people travelling on it - all in their teens and twenties. Many suffered devastating injuries and Colin trusted his employers to provide him with a safe vehicle. Kerry was only 23 years old, my nephew, Michael, was just 18 years old. He was a young, talented musician and songwriter with his whole life ahead of him. He would still be here today if the use of old tyres had been illegal. The Transport Minister, Patrick McLoughlin, has refused to act on research undertaken in the USA which clearly highlights the dangers around using old tyres, He states that there is not enough evidence to legislate. It is hard not to conclude from his response that Mr. McLoughlin has bowed to pressure from businesses such as coach companies and second hand tyre retailers not to change the law as it could cost them money. Instead he feels it is enough to issue guidelines about the age of tyres. It is, of course, companies such as Merseypride Travel - the coach company who put profit before lives -who would simply ignore these guidelines. This is why the Traffic Commissioner, Beverley Bell has had to act and remove their licence indefinitely as they are not fit to run a coach company. How can we be sure that other unscrupulous coach and bus companies won't operate in such an irresponsible and despicable way? The answer is that - without legislation - we can't. It is predominantly children, young people, elderly people and people who can't afford a car who are the most frequent users of public transport. The use of old tyres has to stop for everyone's sake because every time somebody steps on a coach or bus or allows their children to travel on this type of transport, they could be putting their lives at risk.. Please give your support to this important campaign. Thank you.

Education is the practice of learning in which knowledge and skills are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training, or research. Michael Gove refuses to abide by the wisdom of generations by ignoring research findings; by denying expert opinion; by deriding expertise in the field; and by deliberately demoralising our teachers. Any pupil or student similarly and willfully ignoring research, expertise and secure knowledge in the same way as Michael Gove would fail any examination. Any inspected school doing so would be found "Inadequate". To save the future of education in this country and to prevent further damage Michael Gove must be persuaded to resign.

Lyndale school is a special school for children with special needs. Its a wonderful school and the council want to close it due to shortfall of £70,000. For some of the children there is no suitable alternative. The disruption and emotional upheaval to the children this will cause is dispicable and we urge the council to reconsider. We will fight all the way and by any means to keep this school open.

Hundreds of pedestrians have to cross these intimidating roads every day, many of them children attending a number of local schools, particularly Balfour Primary, Downs Infant and Junior, Dorothy Stringer, Varndean and The Montessori School. There are also two parks adjacent to the roads (Blaker’s and Preston which are a popular choice for sports, recreation and walking), a busy local shopping area, homes for older people and several children’s nurseries. We urge the city council to prioritise the needs of people for safer roads where they live, shop, work, play and go to school and reduce these traffic speeds as soon as possible. Preston Drove and Stanford Avenue were excluded from the 20mph speed limit scheme on the basis that they are "key bus and taxi routes", but buses only use sections of those roads or are infrequently scheduled, so they are not key routes. Surrenden Road is a wide dual carriageway in a residential area and the traffic presents a clear risk to children and adults. It has been the subject of a long term community campaign for road safety improvement. There is overwhelming evidence that reduced traffic speed reduces casualties and mitigates the effects of road traffic collisions. Research shows that 20mph zones in London have reduced overall casualties by 42%, and the reduction was greatest for younger children. The study concluded that: “20 mph zones are effective measures for reducing road injuries and deaths.” 20 mph speed limits on these three roads would bring enormous benefit to the people using them. Speed reduction should be urgently applied.

On the 4th December, 2013, the government announced that children who were in foster care would be allowed and supported to remain with their foster carers until they were 21 years of age. There was much celebration amongst campaigners when the announcement was made. However, those celebrations did not extend to children and young people in children’s homes. Children in residential care are not included in this change even though arguably the residential sector cares for possibly the most vulnerable and disadvantaged young people who may be unable, or indeed choose not to be fostered. ECLCM is a campaign group, without funding or political affiliations with any other group, formed to stop Government discrimination against children in residential care who want support to 21, the same as those in foster care. One young 15 year old in residential care said: Just because foster children are settled in a family environment does not mean that young people in residential are not. I would love to live here until I am 21.' Children in children’s homes will still face being discharged from care at 18 (or even younger) and facing the savage disadvantages that life can bring. We know from the feedback we received that these young people were not celebrating last week. It is our view that increasing the care leaving age for fostered children and not those in other residential settings will have unintended consequences. It will: • create a ‘two tier’ care system, in which children in foster care receive longer aftercare support than those residential settings; • create an ‘underclass’ of children in care who have to leave care at 18; • reduce real choice for children as they will be compelled to accept family care in order to gain better aftercare; • create serious issues for social workers when family placements are breaking down. Instead of considering a residential care option, they may repeat family placements in an effort to protect aftercare; • have an impact on the self-image and confidence of children in residential settings other than foster care, who may feel undervalued and discriminated against by a change which excludes them through no fault of their own. We welcome the change in leaving age for fostered children to 21 years of age. We congratulate the campaigners who achieved this and acknowledge work that took place over several years. However, we feel that to accept this change whilst excluding other children in care is discriminatory and not sufficient. We ask that the government support all children and young people in care to 21 years of age. We ask all those who share our view to support our campaign for equality. It is the least we can do for our children. Petitioners: BEN ASHCROFT @AshcroftBen IAN DICKSON @IDickson258 ROSIE CANNING @RosieCanning1 ED NIXON @EdNixon2 LISA CHERRY @_LisaCherry PAOLO HEWITT @PaoloHewitt1 ALEX WHEATLE MBE @brixtonbard DR JOSIE PEARSE @angelstrand DR GORDON MILSON @gordonmilson HELEN WILLIAMS @coralhels MARY CAMPBELL-WHARAM @insight_mary RAYNE O'BRIEN @rayne_obrien DANIELLE McLAUGHLIN @Dmamclaughlin ROSE DEVEREUX @RoseDevereux1 PHILOMENA HARRISON IVOR FRANK, LLB, Barrister-at law

Over two days in Bloomsbury 41 people were arrested while exercising their democratic right to protest. There are videos of people being pushed to ground by police officers, and of one protester being punched in the face twice by a metropolitan officer. Those arrested were driven to police stations far from central London, had their phones taken off them, and were bailed on the condition that they did not walk down Malet Street. Those arrested included student presidents, journalists with their press cards and legal observers. The next day a rally was held in opposition to the police behaviour on Thursday. As this rally gathered police officers went into a nearby costa and searched the bags of students and intimidated them. Similar things were happening on nearby Euston Road. Within 10 minutes of the rally starting riot police were surrounding the peaceful protesters. It appears that the metropolitan police are using terrorism laws to persecute and intimidate peaceful student activists. This after the arrest of the president and vice president of the University of London Union - one for arranging a protest, one for questioning the police on their stop and searching of black students. The police cannot simply intimidate young people into silence, it is vital that an investigation is carried out into this behaviour - and those responsible are held accountable.

Its is so important that Seaham's new secondary school is replaced, like for like, and that it includes a swimming pool. Past generations of Seaham learnt to swim in a makeshift outdoor swimming pool, colloquially known as the pit pond, which was in fact water storage for Dawdon Colliery, however following the demise of the mining industry, and the closure of the three pits which were in the town, the pit pond was lost to the following generations. Swimming is such a vital life skill and even more so for the children of Seaham who live on the North Sea coast to have access to a decent sized learning pool. We believe the whole community would benefit from the replacement of the pool. This is not about profit, this is about saving lives. Surely one pool is worth more than several lives which have been lost in the past few years in our seas.

We the undersigned strongly oppose any more cuts to frontline Fire & Rescue services in Mid & West Wales. Our Fire Service has been cutting firefighters from frontline service for over ten years and we want it to stop.