What would you like to see as a private members' bill?

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Following the results of the private members' bill ballot, ePolitix.com members put forward their ideas for a bill.

Age UK

Protection of Carers' Services Funding Bill

Carers save the UK economy an estimated £87 billion a year. It is a false economy to allow their physical and mental health to be undermined by a lack of support. Older (60+) carers, who often have health issues themselves, need planned and emergency respite care. Yet, only 26 per cent of the £100 million through the NHS to provide support for carers in 2010 -11 was actually spent on increasing support for carers. One quarter of primary care trusts in England are in fact planning to reduce spending on carers' services. The government should make ring fence funding available to ensure a genuine increase in respite.

Salvation Army

Private members Bill : Underage Gambling Research Bill

The Salvation Army wants research into underage gambling in the UK put on a statutory footing. Currently there is insufficient and uncoordinated work on this issue between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Gambling Commission, The Great Foundation, The National Lottery Commission and the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board. This bill will make it compulsory for the relevant agencies to research this area together and make it a theme of the British Gambling Prevalence Survey, which would have to take place by law every two years under the direction of the Gambling Commission.

Homeless Link

In the spirit of greater localism we would like to see a Bill come before the Commons removing restrictions on local authorities' ability to assist destitute people on the basis of immigration status. Currently councils lack the discretionary powers to assist certain groups (such as people from "new European" countries). There have been horror stories, such as people desperate for money being terribly exploited or pregnant women forced to sleep rough. This is not just a tragedy for these individuals but for local communities and their councils who see people decaying on their doorstep but are prevented from intervening because of centrally imposed rules.

British Heart Foundation (BHF)

Emergency Life Support (ELS) Skills Bill

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) would like a private members' bill that seeks to ensure all children in England leave school trained in vital Emergency Life Support (ELS) skills.

ELS is the set of actions needed to keep someone alive when problems arise, until professional help arrives. This can include performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and helping someone that may be having a heart attack. ELS is particularly important in cases of cardiac arrest, where it takes only a few minutes for irreversible brain damage to occur. Many people who might otherwise die can be saved if someone applies ELS on the scene.

ELS skills are simple and straightforward to learn. Imagine what a difference it could make if every child in England could leave school knowing how to save a life.

Contact Gillian Watt on to find out how you can help.

British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy

Recognition of Genetic Variation and Non-discrimination in Public Health Policy

Rationale: Post-genome mapping is revealing the degree of variation between individuals and some sub-populations. Major planks of public health policy are designed to be of universal benefit. However there are exceptions to this, most notably in the suitability of universal population dietary guidelines. This bill aims to establish the principle that the individual citizen's fundamental rights to genetic non-discrimination are recognised wherever an individual may be adversely impacted or have a non-beneficial response to public health guidance. All population guidelines should be accompanied by a caveat that they may not apply to some individuals.

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