“The Lords have told government to ditch plans that would leave people struggling financially if they became sick or disabled. Now 38 Degrees members can help make sure MPs listen.” Kathy Peach, Head of Campaigns & Social Change, Scope

In the next few days we could help stop some of the worst cuts to support for sick and disabled people. When the plans were debated in the House of Lords, Lords and Baronesses voted to stop some of the most unfair cuts – including support being ended after only a year for some people recovering from very serious illnesses, like cancer.

Now, the government is threatening to reverse these decisions and bring the cuts back. But they can only do that if they can persuade enough MPs to do what the government tells them. If we work together, we can push our MPs to stand up for what’s right and defend sick and disabled people.

All over the country, disabled people and their families are anxiously waiting to see what will happen. The decision could be the difference between a decent life and serious poverty. Becoming sick or disabled could happen to any of us. Now, we’ve got a chance to stop MPs making a tough package of cuts even worse.

Even with the changes the Lords have made, there are big worries about what these plans mean for disabled people. But if MPs don’t back the Lords’ changes, it could end up being even worse. Our voices will be joining hundreds of other groups, including Scope and Sense, who want MPs to protect these improvements.

Right now, many MPs could be on the verge of doing the right thing. A final, people-powered push from thousands of 38 Degrees members could convince them to back the Lords’ changes to the bill.

I thought it might be time to give a quick update on the NHS campaign. It’s been a bit quiet over the last few weeks, but things are about to hot up again.

Andrew Lansley is still trying to get his plan through parliament. It finally passed through the House of Commons last summer. It has been in the House of Lords for the last few months. Before Christmas thousands of 38 Degrees members contacted the Lords with concerns as the plan went through “committee stage”.

On February 8th the next stage in the House of Lords begins – “report stage“. Report stage will last a few weeks. This could be the final time that the House of Lords discuss the NHS plans in detail.

Before report stage starts, we can expect the government to announce if it will make any changes in response to our campaigning. Our people powered legal team is standing by to quickly analyse the proposed changes. They will cut through the spin and legal speak, so we are able to respond together.

Once report stage starts the Lords will have another chance to vote on changes to Lansley’s plan. They will be able to vote both on changes proposed by the government and changes proposed by other Lords. Some votes could be very close. We may have to pull together quickly to make sure the votes go the right way.

When we hear the government announcements and see what changes they are proposing, 38 Degrees members will have to vote together to decide what we should do next. This is likely to be within the next two weeks.

At the moment, we’re hearing a mixture of rumours on how much ground Andrew Lansley might have given. On the one hand, there are some encouraging signs that lords have secured important concessions on keeping the Secretary of State’s “duty to provide” a health service.

On the other hand, just  a few hours ago the Royal College Of Nurses and Royal College of Midwives announced that they thought Lansley’s plans were still very dangerous. They argue that the best thing would be for them to be scrapped altogether.

We will need to be ready to move fast and vote to decide together what we do next.

It’s amazing to think that when we first started to campaign to protect our NHS, people told us we were
wasting our time. They said the changes would be done and dusted by December 2010. But we didn’t give up. We kept up the pressure and defended our health service.

By working together we’ve formed the biggest campaign ever to protect the NHS. We are now half a million strong. We’ve signed petitions, delivered them to our MPs’ doorsteps and put pressure on key politicians. Over the last few months over 50,000 of us have contacted members of the House of Lords. On top of that we’ve funded a crack legal team to get to the truth of what’s on the table and expose the full extent of the government’s plans.

It’s nearly a year and a half since we started the campaign. Soon we’ll need to be ready for another big push. There will be more than a few politicians hoping that we’re worn out by now, or that we’ve got bored and decided to do something else. Time and again, 38 Degrees members have proven those who’ve doubted our commitment wrong. We know how important our NHS is, and that’s why we’ll keep working together to protect it.

So, please watch out for an email in the next couple of weeks asking you to help decide what we do next. In the meantime, if you’ve got any thoughts or ideas you’d like to share with other 38 Degrees members do share them in the comments below.

Tomorrow, we have the chance to persuade MPs to back a new law that would give voters the power to sack MPs who don’t do their job properly. It could be a massive step forward for people power: just imagine if we’d been able to fire the MPs who abused the expenses system.

This new law- proposed by Zac Goldsmith MP- would give voters in each constituency the power to call a fresh vote if 10% of them sign a petition. Most MPs will still be deciding what to do about the debate Friday. A well-attended, noisy debate about giving voters the right to sack MPs is just what’s needed to get the government to stick to their promises.

The government will be hoping that hardly any MPs bother to show up. That way, they can stick to their plan for a much weaker recall law that would end up giving MPs even more power. They might even try to quietly drop the idea altogether.

But if thousands of us email our MPs and ask them to back a new “recall” law, we can make sure loads of MPs turn up to the debate on Friday. Lots of us talking about plans for a powerful new recall law will build the pressure on the government to toughen up their own weak plans.

Back in May 2009, a recall law was the first thing 38 Degrees members decided to work on together. Even though there were just a few thousand of us back then, we helped to persuade key MPs to back the idea. Now we’ve teamed up with Unlock Democracy, who’ve been working with Zac Goldsmith MP to get the recall law back on the agenda.

Once you’ve got in touch with your MP, it would be great if you could share your MP’s reply in the comments section below, so that other 38 Degrees members can see where our MPs stand.

*UPDATE*  This morning, Scottish Power finally announced they too will drop their prices. They have announced a small gas price cut of 5%.

Are we finally starting to tackle the gas and electricity rip-off? A week ago, 38 Degrees members started asking the big gas and electricity companies an awkward question: how come global prices have dropped, but our bills are still sky high? Our 90,000-strong petition started making the news and suddenly the companies started to get jittery.

As the numbers on the petition grew, one after another, EDF, British Gas, Scottish & Southern Energy, npower and now E.ON have announced they will at last drop prices. But they’re still only offering to pass on less than half of the savings, with price cuts of around 5%. Meanwhile Scottish Power are still refusing to budge at all.

The companies are hoping we’ll settle for these small price cuts. Let’s show them we’ll keep the pressure building until they pass on all the savings. The heads of all these companies need to personally understand that after years of price hikes, we’ve finally had enough.

Can you take 2 mins to email one of these company bosses and ask them to stop ripping us off?

Phil Bentley, Tony Cocker, Ian Marchant, Vincent Derivaz, Volker Beckers and Keith Anderson. We’ve got the email addresses of each of these six highly-paid chief executives. They probably don’t understand what it’s like to struggle to cope with price hike after price hike – and they won’t be used to hearing directly from thousands of us who do.

When they see an avalanche of emails from fed-up customers and potential customers, alarm bells will start ringing at their company HQs. They’re the men in charge – and they’ll be the ones held responsible if customers start leaving in droves. They’ll be picking up the phone to board members and scheduling emergency meetings to decide what to do.

The more of us that email a company chief, the more they’ll feel the pressure to cut their prices, and fast. Can you join in?

We know that when we work together in big numbers we can win. It’s true for politicians, like when our half-a-million strong petition showed them they couldn’t sell off England’s woodlands. It’s even more true for big businesses who want our custom every day – not just our vote once every five years.

38 Degrees volunteers gathered in London this morning to hand in the 90,000-strong petition to the offices of E.ON. A few hours later, E.ON phoned the 38 Degrees office to tell us they’re dropping their prices too – but only by 6%.  Let’s make sure the men in charge of our nation’s biggest gas and electricity companies can’t miss us in their inboxes as well as outside their office windows.

Can you e-mail the chief of a big gas and electricity company today?

Two of Britain’s smaller gas companies – Co-operative Energy and Ovo Energy – cut their prices before any of the biggest six suppliers.  If E.ON, Scottish Power, British Gas, EDF, npower and Scottish & Southern don’t get their act together, they can expect to lose a flood of customers to their smaller rivals in 2012.

**UPDATE – After handing our huge people-powered petition this morning, E.ON called the office this afternoon to tell us they have just dropped their electricity prices by 6%! It’s a start, but we need to keep the pressure building for bigger cuts that reflect the global price drop.**

Within the last week British Gas, EDF, npower and Scottish & Southern have cut their gas or electricity prices by around 5% . E.on and Scottish Power are the last remaining big gas and electricity company yet to cut its prices. So this morning, some 38 Degrees staff and volunteers went to e.on’s headquarters at 100 Pall Mall in central London to step up the pressure.

We turned up outside e.on headquarters to greet their staff coming in to work with our 93,500 strong petition, placards, banner, and chants.

Some very uncomfortable e.on employees quickly shuffled passed us with heads down on their way into the building. There were press photographers waiting to capture the event and passing traffic kept beeping in support of our message!

Dr Clive Peedell and David Wilson deliver Bevan's postcard.

38 Degrees member and Co-Chair of the NHS Consultants Association, Dr Clive Peedell, has been running alongside  fellow oncologist Dr David Wilson since 10th January to show opposition to the Government’s NHS reforms

They are running from NHS founder Aneurin Bevan’s statue in Cardiff to the Department of Health in London in just six days. We were lucky enough to get a message from the man himself!

‘Bevan’s Run started on January 10th from Bevan’s statue, Cardiff, with the aim of reaching the Department of Health at Richmond House, London, on Sunday January 15th.

The aim is to raise public awareness of the damaging effects of the Health and Social Care bill on the NHS and to add to calls for its withdrawal.

Myself and co-runner Dr David Wilson will be delivering 3 “Bevan’s Postcards”, which outline the reasons why the bill should be withdrawn, to David Cameron’s constituency in Witney, as well as the Department of Health and 10 Downing Street. The postcard can be viewed here.

Lots of aching muscles, but ice baths helping a lot!
Best wishes
Clive’

Further details about the run can be found at Clive’s blogsite

Bevan’s Run can be followed on Twitter @cpeedell and by using the hashtag #bevansrun.

There will be more news on this blog about the NHS Campaign soon.

*** UPDATE ***
Our pressure is working. This morning EDF Energy said they’ll cut their gas prices by 5%! They’re not the only ones sitting up and taking notice. Today, politicians have been queueing up to echo the demands of 38 Degrees members.

It’s no surprise they’ve acted so fast. In just two days, 60,000 of us have signed the petition demanding big gas and electricity companies pass on the gas price drop, instead of stuffing their own pockets.

It’s time to build the pressure on British Gas to follow EDF’s example. On Friday, we’ll deliver our massive petition direct to their doorstep. At the same time, we’ll bombard their Twitter account with messages from 38 Degrees members.

The more of us that sign the petition, the sooner British Gas will crack under the pressure and drop their prices. Can you join in?

Have you noticed the global price of gas has dropped recently? Probably not – the prices we pay for gas and electricity are still at record levels and have risen six times faster than household incomes since 2004. There are nearly a million 38 Degrees members. If enough of us get involved we can drive down gas and electricity bills for everyone.

Companies are always eager to pass on price hikes. But too often when the wholesale price falls, our bills stay sky-high. Is this just the mysterious way the markets work? Or is it profiteering? We need to act fast to force them to pass this price cut onto us, their customers.

Help shame the energy companies into passing the price cut on to their customers – sign the petition now.

A huge petition could shift the energy companies’ thinking. They’ll know that the public is losing patience with them. They’ll be risking even more bad publicity. And they’ll know every signature is a customer or potential customer. So let’s make this petition huge!

The Times reports that even British Gas insiders “believe that a cut of less than 10 per cent would be affordable”.  A 10% cut would make a big difference to families struggling to heat their homes this winter. But if we don’t speak up, there’s a real risk the companies will continue to cream off the extra profit instead.

We’ll deliver the first batch of signatures to British Gas – the biggest gas and electricity company – later this week. Please add your name now.

Before Christmas, 38 Degrees members voted to work together to stop the energy rip-off. We’ve all been hit by gas and electricity price hikes. This fall in global gas prices is a chance to challenge the energy companies to treat us more fairly.

Help make the gas and electricity companies realise that no amount of clever advertising and slick PR will rescue their reputation if they don’t pass this price cut on. Please sign the petition, and forward to all your friends and family.

Legal aid is under threat. The government is planning to change the rules so legal aid cannot be used to help people challenge welfare benefit decisions when mistakes are made. Inaccurate benefit decisions can see people pushed into poverty. Expert advice allows them to challenge these decisions and make sure they are right.

Lord McNally is in charge of the government bill in the House of Lords. Email him urging the government to amend it to ensure thousands of people continue to benefit from expert legal advice.

Disabled people will be among those who will suffer most from the government’s plans to cut legal aid. Rose Hartley would have been one of those people -after her disability benefit was wrongly cut by the government, she was only able to appeal against the decision thanks to the free legal aid advice she received. Here is Rose’s story:

Photograph by Ben Langdon

 “They took my money off me so it must be right”

Rose Hartley’s mobility, speech and memory were seriously impaired by a stroke which has also resulted in her needing a pacemaker and daily injections to thin her blood. Fortunately, despite accepting the decision that cut her benefit to just £18 a week, Rose showed her letter to one of the carers at the stroke clinic she attends. He urged her to seek legal aid advice and she was referred to the Islington Law Centre which is where Lorna Reid began supporting her.

Lorna explains that Rose had made the common mistake of not providing enough information in her medical assessment and so she had been judged capable of self-care. “For example, when asked whether she could use the bath Rose had said yes. What she hadn’t said was she needed her friend Wendy to run the bath, test the water, check for obstacles and then wait patiently for 40 minutes while she got herself into the bath.”

“Disability tests take a very simple view of things and are often presented as you can or can’t do things. Here we have the time and the experience to drill down into the answers people give to find out more. If someone answers ‘yes’ to ‘can you dress yourself?’ we will ask them how long it takes them.”

It became clear to Lorna during the time she spent with Rose that it was Rose’s confidence in her own ability to rehabilitate and her determination to remain independent that were her “undoing”. Rose agrees: “I can’t get dressed, I can’t use the cooker, I can’t clean or go shopping. I thought I could do all these things, but it doesn’t work like that. I want to do them, but I can’t. Maybe one day I will be able to.”

But by not providing the Department of Work and Pensions with the true facts of her situation Rose was missing out money that would have helped her live a more comfortable life. By spending time with Rose and Wendy and asking them the right questions Lorna was able to understand the true extent of Rose’s need and build a set of medical evidence that meant she was able to successfully appeal her benefit decision.

Rose says: “I didn’t think I was going to get my appeal, but I got it and it is only down to these people.”

It’s vital we protect access to free legal advice for people like Rose. Email Lord McNally now and tell the government to scrap their plans to cut legal aid.

Thanks to Scope for sharing Rose’s story.

This morning, we found out that the government’s tax collectors – HMRC – don’t seem to have been doing their job properly. Instead of making sure everyone is paying their fair share of tax, they’ve agreed to “sweetheart deals” letting big companies off paying billions of pounds.

The government will be hoping we’re too busy doing our Christmas shopping and working out how we’re going to pay our heating bills to care what their tax officers have been up to. But they’re wrong.

A huge public outcry and a flood of complaints to HMRC will send a powerful message: we won’t stand for the government giving big business the green light to dodge billions in tax.

It only takes 2 minutes to send a complaint letter to HMRC – we’ll collect all the letters together and deliver them in the New Year:

Today’s news is full of the shocking details of these deals. The Daily Mail warns “While families, shopkeepers and small businesses are forced to pay their bills in full, big businesses are striking favourable deals and have a ‘far too cosy’ relationship with HM Revenue and Customs.”

As lots of us prepare for winter on a tight budget, it’s not hard to imagine that those billions of pounds could have been spent on something better than stuffing the wallets of the most powerful companies in the country. We could have spent it on schools, on hospitals, or making sure everyone can have a safe, warm home this Christmas time.

We know that tax dodging is a big issue. That’s why last month we decided that it should be something we should make an urgent priority.  This is our chance to make sure we get a fairer system. A people-powered flood of complaints now will surprise HMRC and force them to think again.

Add your letter of complaint to HMRC now.

Over the last few hours on Facebook lots of 38 Degrees members have been speaking out. Here are some of their comments:

- Tober: “It’s a Scandal. Get to it 38 degrees!!”
- Paul: “A list of these firms need to be published and the individual amount they owe. Im glad this is front page news today”
- Andy: “disgusting smell of corruption hangs over this whole business.”
- Dean: “I feel so angry about this – and so impotent, what can be done?”
- Michelle: “No it isn’t fair, but sadly I’m not surprised! The rich get richer and the poor can pay!”
- Diana: “No it isn’t fair and that unfairness is at the heart of all the resentment and division in our society. When did someone decide it was OK for tax officials to accept lunches or other gifts?”

In the New Year, we’ll deliver all the letters of complaint to HMRC: add your letter today!