MNHQ calling: we want to know what would be on your policy wishlist

[RowanMumsnet]

Over the years, when MNers have got stuck into issues they particularly care about, we've often seen agreement (or something approaching agreement ) around particular policy ideas.

As the May 2015 general election approaches (ish), we’d like to find out what you think about what the next government should do - parenting-related or otherwise. Which commitments would you like to see in the parties’ manifestos? What would make you consider switching your vote (or voting at all, if you don’t currently intend to)? Which issues do you think deserve to be top priority for incoming ministers?

We’ve collectively campaigned on or added our support to others' campaigns around a number of issues, such as:

affordable, available childcare;
better provision of education, health and social services for children with additional needs;
better miscarriage care;
more and better sex and relationships education in schools;
the availability and variety of contraception;
getting sales reps off maternity wards;
flexible working; and
tackling FGM.

Other issues that seem to crop up regularly are bringing down the cost of some school uniforms; and more and/or better-paid parental leave, including paternity leave and bereavement/adjustment leave.

Are there other things Mumsnetters collectively agree on? Are those on the above list still as important to you as they have been? We’d thought we'd throw out this entirely unscientific starter for 10 with a view to informing a more nuanced analysis of each issue and a fuller survey of Mumsnet users in time for, no doubt, the string of ministers and ministerial hopefuls headed our way come early next year when the election campaign gets into full swing.

So please do let us know what you think.

Thanks
MNHQ

[FidelineandFumblin]

Generous tax breaks for each job created/ reconfigured as term-time only.

Ditto for each job created/reconfigured to offer working hours of 9.30am -2.30pm ish.

Parents hired on one of these patterns would still need holiday or wrap around childcare BUT NOT BOTH making employment a more affordable and viable proposition for some parents.

I can't see why g'ovt would object to this as it would benefit their own workfare agenda.

Employers could cover the summer break with students/jobseeking graduates, providing valuable experience to them. Win-win

[Retropear]

Tax breaks for families with a sahp and yy to phasing out of church schools.

While we're at it I would also like to see an end to the pushing of sub standard school dinners and more scrutiny as to what schools are feeding children(as we're all paying for it).

Would also like to see free food and help with childcare for rich families scrapped.

[FidelineandFumblin]

Tax breaks for families with a sahp

YY - transferable personal tax allowance for families with a SAHP.

[LumpySpacedPrincess]

Ditch right to buy it just over inflates the housing market. Affordable housing and fair rents. Build more social housing. Knock a zero of everybody's property, though I understand not everyone would like this.

As someone else said, keep your beaky nose out of education. The changes this government are making to the curriculum are ill conceived at best and the changes which were coming in but they prevented were wonderful.

Tackle misogyny, it's getting worse not better.

No more religious schools and the ones who exist have to accept everybody, not just fellow church goers.

Stop demonising poor people and the disabled.

[LumpySpacedPrincess]

And everything Retropair said about school dinners.

[LumpySpacedPrincess]

Sorry, Retropear.

[Retropear]

[IdealistAndProudOfIt]

Agree with staying out of education and giving leas back the power to open schools. And stopping privatisation... A propos of which...

STOP the ttip agreement, and all other American trade agreements benefitting companies and rich over individuals and poor, forcing privatisation etc not to mention wrecking all semblance of sovereignty (why does everyone blame the eu? It's the US, time and again)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership

Improve all local services for local people, 'choice' politics only benefit the rich. Stop choice politics.

DO something about the environment - how many wake up calls do you need. Micro generation, public transport are both necessities. Thousands of Private family cars hauling 1 carcass around every day are not.

[RowanMumsnet]

@MileEndRoad

A 'hide poster' button .

arf

Thanks very much for all the input - please keep it coming.

[Simile]

Legal aid. We should not have a system where the poor are discriminated.

CSA. (need a linky to thread) but basically stop a Mum (or parent with full-time responsibility for children) paying baliff fees because the Dad (or errant other half) has refused to pay child maintenance but has been court ordered to. The baliff fees should not penalise the Mum & children when they have done nothing wrong. Not a fair system at all.

[IdealistAndProudOfIt]

Since this is a wish list ...

Get rid of this attitude that 'you can't stop rich people from spending their money' and the unproven idea that rich people and companies benefit the economy more than the exploited working poor: stop all buy to lets, tax the hell out of everyone owning multiple homes, (at least make owners liable for council tax not tenants) and bring in a national maximum wage of 10x, all right, 20x minimum wage.

Improve public transport and cycling facilities to the point where we can talk about heavily restricting if not actual banning the use of private cars (save for disabled people) within 5 - 10 yrs. this will also require people being able to find jobs locally. (What is the point of having people from pt a rushing to job b at pt c, while people do the same to identical jobs from pt c to pt a? Not good for resource management of all kinds).

Could go on and on all day

[NearTheWindymill]

I won't have time to read this all later because it will grow and grow but:

Resources to deal with those who continually disrupt in the classroom to get them out and educate them separately so that the majority are empowered to fulfil their potential. Giving schools the freedom to permanently exclude those who should not be in the mainstream. This is not related to those with SEN who have every right to be there providing schools have the resources to ensure everybody has a fair crack of the whip.

Ensuring that there is an economic benefit for those who return to full employment after a period on benefits. No working family should be worse off for working.

More sustained support, money and community aid to obliterate gang culture from London's estate. This almost exclusively links to drug culture.

A health visiting service that is fit for purpose.

[Koothrapanties]

I would want the cost of food to go down and wages go up. Dh works full time and we are still struggling to feed ourselves.

I would also like zero hour contracts to be banned. Dh was working a zero hour contract until recently and we nearly lost everything because of it. We couldn't afford food or our bills and were behind on rent.

I would also like the energy companies to stop putting their prices up when their profits are astronomical.

I would like us to follow other successful countries lead and increase the school starting age. Children should be allowed to be babies for as long as possible.

[enderwoman]

Treat non-payment of child support like non-payment of tax.

Make the tax credits formula more easy to understand.

Close the loopholes that allow self employed NRP avoid maintenance

Charge the NRP for bailiff fees for unpaid maintenance and CSA admin charges.

Work with teachers. My son is in y8 and the school knows that when he does GCSE the grades will be 1-10 but other than that they don't know what this means.

More money for special needs students. I'm a single parent on a low income and can't afford for a £400 dyslexia assessment plus money for a behaviourial optometrist assessment that I think my youngest needs.

More money for CAMHS. My oldest was referred to them but they were useless as his needs weren't severe.

[enderwoman]

Extend foundation stage at school to include y1.

Encourage school reports to be a written comment of a sentence or two per subject rather than the copy or paste shit we get listing what they have learned this year. That information is more useful during the year.

[Koothrapanties]

Oh and I would like cannabis to be legalised. We are wasting so much money fighting a losing battle. I just want the government to admit they got it wrong and legalise it. I don't smoke it by the way, but I know people who it benefits for health reasons and I don't think it is any worse than alcohol. Regulate it, stop the money going to the 'baddies' and use the tax on it for the wellbeing of everyone.

[enderwoman]

Include more drugs education in pshe. My oldest is in y8 and has seen older kids smoking drugs but has had practically no drugs education. Seeing pictures of addicts on crystal meth, Daniella Westbrook's septum or seeing weed addict's demeanour would help him see drugs for what they are. He sees the glamourous side portrayed in games/film/TV.

[eatyourveg]

Definitely definitely definitely training for all staff in schools on how to support students with mental health conditions - my ideal scenario would be for every school to have one designated professional akin to a specialised senco for mental help/eating disorders. There are just too many young people around going unnoticed and unsupported.

[FourForksAche]

Lack of state provision for academically able children with high functioning autism.

Yes.

More work to do on improving flexibility in the workplace to allow dads to properly share early parenting.

Repeal PIP

[FidelineandFumblin]

Lack of state provision for academically able children with high functioning autism.

Yes, yes, yes.

[RedToothBrush]

• Better mental health awareness / funding
  

• More joined up thinking within the NHS - eg: reducing the postcode lottery or departments being completely independent entities from the next (with particular reference to wide disparity of policy between maternity departments as its one of the few areas of the NHS which currently does cross boundaries and they don't even have a standardised format for maternity notes.)
  

• Ending the ignorant, ill informed and down right nonsense from the lunch box police.
  

• More promotion about what consent means in health care (fed up of seeing phrases like 'not allowed to' constantly on threads)
  

• Some sort of campaign about accepting women as they are and not referring negatively to them based on looks - amongst women - most previous campaigns of this nature I've seen has been directed against men rather than challenging women's part in this.
  

• Working to improve understanding between cyclists and drivers. (there are bad drivers, there are bad cyclists, they are cycle lanes not suitable for use for various reasons and cyclists should not be restricted to them either anyway)
  

• Work on forcing large businesses who are land-banking areas suitable for building to sell up.
  

• Changing planning laws to actually reflect the number of cars homes now own to reduce parking issues.
  

• Better education about finance in schools. Forget Pythagoras, try compound interest and its effects on mortgages and pensions.
  

- Encouraging more employers to support tax deductible child care. Encouraging nurseries at work and how they can benefit companies (and staff) even in male dominated private sector industries (especially in male dominated industries!)

• Better rights for people who are unfairly / constructively dismissed within the first 12 months of their employment. End zero hours contracts.
  

And finally, most important of all. The Campaign for Bright and Colourful Children's Clothes not divided up into regimented lines of wishy washy pale blue and pale pink! Make people hunt for frilly pink dresses and baby blue romper suits. Oh and Finnish style baby boxes would be nice too.

[ihategeorgeosborne]

Reverse the unfair cuts to child benefit. Totally out of order that a family on single income of 50k lose it, whereas family on joint income of nearly 100k keep it. I had hoped I'd tell the canvassers this when they came knocking, but they haven't been here. I am mightily pissed off and will tell them given half a chance.

Start taxing people who own more than one house. Houses should not be investment, they should be for living in and many people can't afford one due to greedy speculators. Also we should move away from taxing hard-earned income and move towards taxing land. We need to tax the shit out of non-productive wealth, as opposed to productive wealth.

[JassyRadlett]

Properly shared parental leave is starting next year, isn't it?

For me it's:

Abolish religious admissions criteria for any state-funded school, ending back-door selective education.

Build more schools, where schools actually need to be built.

Smaller class sizes - so more teachers.

Regulate rents and better regulate landlords, and penalise those who keep buildings empty when they could be useful. End the perks that make a buy-to-let cheaper than owner-occupying, such as being able to claim mortgage interest as a tax deduction.

Build more houses.

Have school inspections that judge schools on actual outcomes, particularly in the value-added sense, rather than making schools obsess over attendance. Treat parents as the most

Have schools that recognise that many families have two working parents, so some methods of delivery need to recognise the needs of those families, not just the needs of the school or how things 'have always been done'.

[JassyRadlett]

Oops. Treat parents as the central part of children's lives, rather than as an inconvenience or something to be admonished or controlled.