The parliamentary petition site is in the news at the moment, as nearly three million people have signed a petition asking for a new general election. The petition is set to be debated on the 6th of January, although eager petitioners might not hold their breath on the outcome. On this topic, just as on our issue of proportional representation, parliament’s petition site isn’t a magic route to changing the law.
Why doesn’t the ERS use parliament’s petition site?
As an organisation that runs petition on a variety of topics, you might have noticed we host petitions ourselves, rather than set up petitions on petition.parliament.uk. While parliament’s petition site offers opportunities that our petitions lack, there are also more substantial downsides.
Firstly, parliament’s petition site either takes away your control of the wording of the petition, or the timing. The Petitions Committee can reject a new petition if one on that topic is already live on the site. With the obvious need for proportional representation, there is nearly always a petition on electoral reform live. So we would need to either promote a petition we didn’t write, or wait to register a new one when any existing petition expires on the site – removing any control over timing.
Secondly, the benefits are not that useful. The government does respond to any petition that reaches 10,000 signatures, but we already know the government’s position on electoral reform. The Petitions Committee will consider any petition that reaches 100,000 signatures for a Westminster Hall debate, but even this isn’t what many may think. They can simply ignore the petition if they want, but more importantly, a Westminster Hall Debate is not a debate that can change any laws.
Westminster Hall debates are better understood as an opportunity to have a debate for its own sake. Often held in a side room to the historic Westminster Hall (which is different to the House of Commons) MPs make speeches, then hold a vote to say that the matter has been debated, which is the end of the process. There is no mechanism for the topic of the petition to ‘win’ the debate.
A petition also isn’t the only way to get one of these debates. Any MP can apply to run a Westminster Hall debate via a ballot arranged by the Speaker’s Office without having to go through the petition process. So, if we want a Westminster Hall debate, we could ask a supportive MP if they wanted to organise one.
One of the biggest issues with the parliament petition site is that the data on who signed the petition becomes the sole property of the government – those whose very actions we are challenging. We can’t contact the people who sign the petition again, for instance to ask their MP to vote a certain way or to tell them more about developments in the campaign.
Will there be a new general election?
On the 6th January, MPs will debate the petition to ‘Call a General Election’. Once MPs have had their say, they will take a vote to say the petition has been debated and that is that. There is no legal way for the debate to result in a general election.
That’s not to say parliamentary petitions are entirely pointless – we have supported petitions in the past that have reached 100,000 subscribers and generated a Westminster Hall Debate. It was an opportunity to get MPs to record for why they support or oppose electoral reform, and it provides a focus for the media to talk about an issue. You can watch videos of the MPs who spoke at the debate on proportional representation on our YouTube channel.
Likewise, the petition to ‘Call a General Election’ has generated endless column inches on whether Labour have gone back on promises made during the election, and will give opposition MPs the chance to try and set the narrative that Labour have done exactly that. It just won’t call a General Election.
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