First Special Report
Connecting Parliament with the Public
1. We published our Report on Connecting Parliament
with the Public on 16 June 2004.[1]
We have now received a response from the House of Commons Commission,
covering those recommendations which relate to matters within
its responsibility. It is published as an appendix to this Special
Report. We mention two of our other recommendations in the paragraphs
below.
'STRANGERS'
2. We recommended that the term 'Strangers' be no
longer used in referring to visitors to the House of Commons (Recommendation
22). On 26 October, the House removed references to 'strangers'
from the Standing Orders. The Commission's response comments
further on the use of the term in other contexts.
PUBLIC PETITIONS
3. We recommended that the Liaison Committee and
the Procedure Committee consider a process whereby public petitions
should automatically stand referred to the relevant select committee
(Recommendation 29) and that the requirement for the top copy
of a petition to be in manuscript be dispensed with (Recommendation
30).
4. The Procedure Committee has now considered these
recommendations, after consultation with the Liaison Committee.[2]
We are grateful to them for doing so. The Committee has produced
a recommendation for sending petitions to departmental select
committees. It also concurs with our recommendation to dispense
with the need for a manuscript top sheet.
1 HC 368, Session 2003-04. Back
2
Public Petitions, Fifth Report from the Procedure Committee,
Session 2003-04, HC 1248. Back
| 
