Update on e-petitions
Posted on | 20 January 2012 | No Comments
The UK House of Commons Procedure Committee recently released its report on the Government’s e-petitions scheme.
It is well known that there is significant confusion regarding how many signatures an e-petition requires in order for it to be debated in the House of Commons. Indeed, this blog regularly gets hits from people searching for information on how many signatures does an e-petition need in order to be debated. What I have tried to make clear in previous posts is that no e-petition is guaranteed a debate in the House of Commons, but that an e-petition which garners over 100,000 signatures will be referred to the Backbench Business Committee for consideration for debate.
The Committee’s report has further clarified the matter (italics added):
26. We are also concerned that the statement [on the e-petitions website] that a petition with over 100,000 signatures is “eligible for debate in the House of Commons” is unclear and not well-understood by the public. The subject of an e-petition (so long as it does not fall foul of any of the House’s own rules) is eligible for debate no matter how many signatures an e-petition has. Members may choose to apply for adjournment debates or for debates in backbench time without the support of an e-petition signed by over 100,000 petitioners. Passing the 100,000 threshold is significant only because it triggers a letter from the Leader of the House to the Backbench Business Committee.
27. We recommend that the Government should modify the sentence “You can create an e-petition about anything that the government is responsible for and if it gets at least 100,000 signatures, it will be eligible for debate in the House of Commons”, which currently appears on its website, by leaving out “it will be eligible for debate in the House of Commons” and instead inserting “the Government will ask the Backbench Business Committee of the House of Commons to consider scheduling a debate on it in the House”.
In other words, any e-petition, even if it has only a handful of signatures, could be brought forward for possible debate by an MP if that MP believes the issue at the heart of the petition should be debated by the House. Reaching the 100,000 signature mark only ensures that the Government will ask the Backbench Business Committee to consider scheduling a debate on that e-petition (but will not guarantee that this debate will occur).
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