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

Provide cheap, fast, reliable public transport. Would save billions, boost national and local economies, create jobs and help people into employment, and improve health and wellbeing. It would enable the elderly and vulnerable to stay part of their communities and reach friends and services, cut congestion, cut road traffic accidents, cut pollution.

Make it illegal for schools or local authorities to charge parents for teaching their children to read, as Croydon are doing:

insidecroydon.com/2014/05/18/gove-allows-croydon-to-charge-children-for-reading-lessons/

If any councils or schools are thinking of charging to teach kids maths, they should also not be allowed to.

In fact, could the government bring back free universal education please?

to charge parents for teaching their children to read, as Croydon are doing

I can't quite believe I just read that. I hope someone has taken a complaint to the Ombudsman.

I know, it's gobsmacking isn't it?

How come they've managed to get away with it?

Where is the government? The one that talks about standards in education?

I hope the national press pick the story up.

Greater support for single parents - enabling them to get back to work; enabling them to stay in work, eg overhaul of employment legislation so that time may be taken from work to look after sick children; subsidised childcare.

Greater efforts to make parents currently not meeting their parental responsibilities in terms of child maintenance to do so. Stigmatisation of those parents, rather than the ones left holding the baby.

Don't know if it's already been mentioned but change the law regarding smacking/ using reasonable chastisement for children.

waves

Ooh hello Windy all quiet again thank goodness and I'm in my own bed x

Honestly, are things getting better? Have been thinking about you. No-one on that thread had the faintest idea of what a stunning, confident woman you are. Makes you think!

Thankyou Windy .things have settled down but I'm always braced for the next time. DD is now on anti d's but I haven't noticed much difference. Just to add to the mix her father has been in touch ( no contact with him for over a year) trying to make me force her to see him

I don't know how or when it will all end , I live in hope.

It will, I'm sure.

OK

Solve the housing crisis.

Stand up to multinationals.
Go after bankers and tax evaders.
Living wage.
Don't let the bosses pay themselves 20 times what the lowly worker gets.
Stop terrorising people on benefits.

Be more imaginative when looking for solutions to long-term unemployment.
Never build on the green belt.
Preserve and conserve what is beautiful and rip down what doth offend the eye.
Renationalise public transport.

For starters.

End collective worship in schools, unless they are faith schools.

Stop cutting services to the vulnerable. Eg mental health service users, social services, children's centres. ( not an exhaustive list).

Do not stop people's benefits when they are waiting for an ESA appeal. In fact, take all the nasty rhetoric and cruelty out of welfare reform. Do not cap welfare spend.

Ensure that public spend on pursuing tax avoiders is proportionate to the issue.

Restore legal aid to give the vulnerable proper access to justice.

Abolish bedroom tax.

I think you should end collective worship in all schools. Unless you are somewhere like London they are taking everyone in the catchment area whatever their faith , or lack of it.
In a village it is the only school and open to all.

Actually I totally agree with PP re access to justice and bedroom tax.

Restore legal aid. Stop spending vast amounts of money rebranding services eg financial inclusion fund being changed to Money Advice Service. Spend the money on service delivery.

Restore legal aid to give the vulnerable proper access to justice.

YES!

and scrap PIP, medicals should be done by medically qualified people, not form fillers. The old DLA system wasn't ideal but PIP is barbaric.

Carers allowance. For a start, it is pittance. But my personal issue is one i'm sure i'm not alone on. Dh earns too much to get it. Fine. But don't refuse to provide a carer when he is home as he can do it.

Demonisation of poor/disabled/a particular race or place in the media should be accountable to laws on inciting hate crime.

I have a long list of issues with pip. But the medicals are done by hcps. They just then pass their paperwork onto a non-hcp who ticks the relevant boxes.

Good idea about collective worship and stupid lunchbox ideas about low fat food in schools

Build more council houses
Scrap bedroom tax
Raise min wage so tax credits cant be needed in a ft job
Complete rejig of gp as gatekeeper. Better mh provision

Accept that there are not enough jobs so someone is going to end up on benefits. Or, even better, create jobs.

Pursue absent fathers much harder for maintenance, with a lower level of state support for mothers who won't name the father without good reason.

• Stop the dismantling of the NHS
• The minimum wage MUST be a proper living wage.
• An end to zero hours contracts (just how is someone supposed to plan their life, their childcare, their bill paying, with no security or proper idea of hours to be worked, or expected income? It is scandalous that businesses can get away with this.)
• Sort out the tax system: fewer loopholes and ways of legally avoiding tax, both for corporations and for very wealthy individuals.
• Scrap the bedroom tax.
• Increase childcare provision (in school holidays, before and after school, more workplace crèches, e.g. making it mandatory to have a crèche if a workplace has more than, say, 50 staff)
• Better education in schools on sex, consent, relationships, the harms of pornography, understanding objectification and how it leads to discrimination and violence against women.
• Follow the recommendations of the recent report from the APPG on prostitution, to adopt the Nordic model in the UK, to bring about an end of demand for prostitution. In a civilised society, no human being should have the right to buy another's body.
• Include more women's achievements in the school curriculum.
• As more of the population is going to end up renting for longer, we need to be more like other parts of Europe with protected rents, and strict regulations to stop exploitative landlords.
• Renationalise utilities.
• Ban fracking, and make genuine investment in long term, sustainable energy provision which doesn't harm the environment - the companies in the energy sector have no loyalty to future generations, whose lives they will be wrecking through their short-sighted, profit and greed driven actions.

I'll stop for now... I am so angry about so many injustices and inequalities.

leftunity.org/

so you could join this Sage

Ban fracking, and make genuine investment in long term, sustainable energy provision which doesn't harm the environment

That's like saying "ban disease and invest in longer lives for everyone". A wonderful goal but exactly how would you achieve it?

Wind power is unreliable and expensive and even that damages the environment with its construction materials.

Childcare should be offset against tax as they do in some European countries. Instead we have childcare vouchers, which barely touch the sides. 2 kids in full time nursery = £2200 a month (2 x £1100) in London.