The e-petition System
Something which past me by in politics over the last year was the removal (April '10) and reinstatement (August '11)1 of public petitions as a valid method of bringing a debate to parliament. The basic idea is that you can submit a petition to direct.gov.uk (after checking for duplicates first2 3). It gets tagged to the relevant office (or deleted if, say, it's a motion for the discussion on "Changing the National Anthem to Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up'" or "The Game"). It then has a year to gain 100,000 signatures after which it 'could' be debated in parliament.
Personally, I think that debated is the wrong word. The way the law is currently implemented, if a fully signed petition goes to debate, a vote will be cast, and the law changed, or the process started over. This is, to me, a very dangerous tool that gives only three points of veto on the public pushing through any point: the gauntlet of having the petition enter the system (Civil Service4), then being debated (?. See Below), and then vote in commons (MPs).
A single stage debate is a deadly weapon in any law making institution where decisions can be passed by a quorate presence - the number of MPs required for quorum is 40 (including the Speaker)5. There's been enough controversy over hastily passed legislation, so this seems worrying. However, I digress.
Who Decides Whether Something is Debated?
One would assume this is some mix of MPs who might introduce a discussion from the listings on the site, or a discussion instigated as something pre-planned, where it would logically by the Speaker of the House of Commons. This is what I'd worked out in my mind. I was incorrect in both cases, but the combination is vaguely accurate - the 'completion' of a petition causes the Backbench Business Committee to be notified6 7.
Backbench Business Committee
The Committee is responsible for scheduling debates on 35 days during the current session. The House has decided that these days will be devoted to backbench business and that at least 27 of them will be debates in the main Chamber of the House of Commons, with the remainder to be taken in Westminster Hall. The Committee encourages suggestions for subjects suitable for debate from backbenchers, which should be sent either by email to bbcom@parliament.uk or by letter to the Table Office (marked for the attention of the Backbench Business Committee).8
Member Party Natascha Engel (Chair) Labour Peter Bone Conservative Philip Davies Conservative Jane Ellison Conservative John Hemming Liberal Democrat Philip Hollobone Conservative Ian Mearns Labour George Mudie Labour
This does not preclude any member of parliament making a speech under the ten-minute rule9 in response to something they're aware of being currently on the public's minds. There are a couple of other constraints given on the website10
What does this mean?
Well, first of all, it means that the amount of time for such debates is extremely limited - given that debates are generally blocked in half-days, all back bench business has a lower limit of about 70 debates. That may sound like a lot, but there's a lot of stuff that people want to at least try. And, one of the ways of making sure something doesn't happen is to consume all of the time allocated to debate it11, cutting down the amount of time available for productive debate.
The other issue is the smaller number of gate keepers. Possibly. I'm uncertain on this point, as sufficient input to other backbenchers should also cause the issue to be brought before parliament. Further to that, the make up is designed to keep the committee as open to all suggestions.
The committee consists of a chair and seven other members to be elected at the beginning of each session. The chair is elected under the alternative vote method in a manner similar to other select committee chairs. The other members are selected under the single transferable vote method with the stipulation that the eight members (including the Chair) reflect a distribution of the seats made by the Speaker, which is to reflect the party composition of the House of Commons. In addition, at least two men and two women must be elected.
What should we keep in mind when petitioning?
Something that both politicians and the electorate tend to forget is that these people are elected to serve in our interests, not our every whim. Although the UK does not currently have a proper right to recall, something that really should be sorted out, the idea is that we send them to make the decisions for us. If I had my way, any petition would have to be made with full citations to the related legislations / proposals, as a naïve filter to attempt to make sure people understand the problems involved before the mass media campaigns begin.
Whilst listening to the Business of the House, 26th Jan12, it turns out there's a seminar and review of the e-petitions system in the works; the seminar is on March 613.
- 1 ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_petition#E-government_petitions_in_Europe_and_Australia
- 2 ↑ Their search engine takes the union of every petition containing one of the words. And doesn't appear to rank them by relevance. I am disappoint
- 3 ↑ Also, I do wonder if I'm in a very small minority who actually look for duplicate posts before posting
- 4 ↑ At least, I assume that direct.gov.uk is run by the civil service
- 5 ↑ Technically, this is for a division. A debate can be carried as long as there are enough people to have a debate, plus the Speaker to address. An excellent debate could be held by just one person. However, this is of less relevance
- 6 ↑ http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/7337
- 7 ↑ http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/19149
- 8 ↑ http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/backbench-business-committee/
- 9 ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Minute_Rule
- 10 ↑ http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/faq#question5 "Why do you say my e-petition 'could' be debated in the House of Commons?"
- 11 ↑ Extremely wasteful, but unfortunately true, this method is called talking out. A recent example is that of the Daylight Savings Bill (Sitting recording) which had a debate of over 4 hours.
- 12 ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9686000/9686275.stm
- 13 ↑ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120126/debtext/120126-0001.htm#12012667001078