Examination of Witnesses (Quesitons 1-19)
MICHAEL JABEZ
FOSTER MP, MR
DAVID HEATH
MP AND BOB
SPINK MP
17 JANUARY 2007
QP1 Chairman: Welcome. We are, as you
know, looking at the question of public petitions. At the moment
we have not made any conclusions about what we may or may not
recommend to the House in the future, but we do feel that this
is an area where improvements could be made to our established
practice and we are, therefore, most grateful to the three of
you for agreeing to share with us your views, experiences and
concerns of the public petition procedure which has been with
us, I think, since the days of Richard II. Could I start perhaps
from the Chair by asking each of you in turn if you could give
to the Committee an idea of the use that you as a Member make
of the petitioning system?
Michael Jabez Foster: I think
the petition procedure is a very useful one in engaging with one's
electors. I suppose there are two ways in which it can arise.
Either you have got an idea and you float it and someone comes
up with a petition, or, indeed, it is really grass roots, somebody
is really upset, and you may be the subject of the concern, it
may be your party, or whatever. So, I think it arises in two ways;
either way, it is a useful engagement with the public. It is probably
the lowest level of engagement, and I think that that has to be
recognised. Most people will sign a petition, so it is a bit meaningless
in itself simply asking someone to sign. They will, in the main,
unless they are opposed to the idea, and maybe even then they
will. In fact, I have seen petitions where people have signed
both sides of the argument, so I think it does devalue it a little
bit. What I certainly found helpful is if they are big. They have
to be big to be of any great relevance. Everybody can get a petition
of nine to go to the Planning Committee and make a representation,
to get 40,000; to complain about the local hospital, of course,
is something different; and so I think that size does count when
it comes to petitions, but I am sure you are going to explore
it later. What I think some of us who use the petition process
quite often find is that people are not always impressed by the
outcomes in that they are not certain as to whether either any
effect arose from the petition or, if it did, was it as a result
of the petition or was it going to happen anyway. I think they
are the sort of areas that I would be interested in perhaps coming
back to, if you wish, later on.
Mr Heath: I also occasionally
use petitions. I do not think I have quite the fluency of either
of my colleagues in that respect, but certainly occasionally we
have petitions in my constituency and I am always very happy to
present them to the House when that happens. It seems to me, first
of all, that the right of petition is an important constitutional
facet which enables direct engagement of the aggrieved citizen—aggrieved
in whatever sense—with Parliament, and I think it has importance
in that respect. In terms of the utility of petitions, I think
that falls into three categories. The first is in terms of publicity.
It is undoubtedly the case that it can engender particularly local
publicity for a cause or a grievance. I think a lot of our colleagues
in the House find that to their advantage and also to the mutual
advantage of those who sign petitions, who presumably are wedded
to the cause. The second is giving an opportunity for engagement,
a sense of satisfaction that at least you have had your say as
a citizen. Even if you have not changed the result, you have had
the opportunity to put your point directly, as it were, although
through one removed, to Parliament. I think that that is limited,
very often, for exactly the point that Michael has said, because
the third element is the remedy. If you expect a remedy from a
petition, either in terms of change of legislation or a remedy
of grievance, then I think you will very often be disappointed,
partly because of the procedure that the House adopts, partly
because of the attitude that the Executive inevitably adopt; and
so in terms of publicity, a good thing; in terms of satisfaction,
a moderately good thing; in terms of remedy, really a rather impotent
procedure at the moment.
Bob Spink: I am a great enthusiast
of petitions; I think they are excellent instruments which are
used in Parliament at the moment. They are not a sentimental throwback
to a yesteryear, they have a real purpose, they can deliver the
goods for people, and they do this on a number of fronts. First,
I do agree with what my colleagues have said. Although Michael
said the size is all important, I think if you get lots of small
petitions, if 350 MPs petition the House over a period of time
on a specific issue, the House starts to listen and change its
policy and address its policy in that particular area; but size
is not all important, and it would depend on the particular issue
being petitioned. The closure of an hospital affects everybody
in the community, so you would expect a big petition. On a very,
very important petitioning of, say, a mobile telephone mast outside
half a dozen houses, you could only expect half a dozen people
to petition, but they would still have their constitutional right
to petition and should use that and should be encouraged to use
that. That constitutional right was established by Edward I in
1275 and further codified in the William and Mary Act of 1689,
the Bill of Rights, and has been much used. Edward saw
it as a way of engaging the public with Parliament, and that is
the first time the public were engaged with Parliament, through
petitioning. I think it is a very useful instrument. It tackles,
and helps us to repair, this terrible malaise of the disconnect
and disenchantment with politics and politicians that the public
have because it engages them in politics, particularly if they
get a response, and I think that is where the system falls down.
Only half the departments respond at the moment in some years,
and that is not good enough, even if the response is to take note
because it is not something a department can respond on, and there
are many petitions like that.
QP2 Chairman: In your personal experience,
have the departments, even if it has been later rather than sooner,
always responded?
Bob Spink: No, they have not,
and that has been a problem for me, and I hope we will get down
how we can improve the petitioning procedure: because we may well
set down a procedure that forces departments to make some form
of response that is appropriate and, if they do not respond, then
a Member would have the right to raise it on a point of order
with the Speaker, as one does with a written question, and that
would give us more power in enforcing responses from departments;
but they are an extremely good instrument; I use them often. When
people come to me with an issue that affects a wider community,
I often say, "This is not just you, it is other people. Why
do you not do a petition? Here is a fax sheet from the House of
Commons Library on how to do it. If you want me to present it
in Parliament, I would be happy to do so", and the petition
then becomes a legal document and part of our history.
QP3 Sir Robert Smith: Michael made the
point about nine signatures to a Planning Committee not counting
for very much, whereas lots of signatures—. As Bob is saying,
if people raise an issue, why not do a petition? My perception,
from dim and distant memory of planning, is that the petition
sat there as one submission, no matter how many signatures were
on it, but letters that showed that someone had actually got a
particular personal view counted a lot more. I just wonder, from
what you have both said, whether it is important to remind people
that actually putting an argument together can quite often be
a very powerful way of getting your case across rather than the
petitioning process.
Michael Jabez Foster: I do not
disagree with Bob when he says that lots of small petitions on
the same issue add up to the same effect. We can take, for example,
the health supplements issues where, night after night, Members
stood and presented three or four hundred petitions, or even more,
from their constituents, did have an effect on the Minister. The
Minister, certainly, before any formal response, was making statements
about what she was going to do. So I think that maybe petitions
have much greater effect than the formal response that you get,
but, on the specific point that you raise, I think you are right,
as MPs, I suspect, if we get heaps of individual letters about
an issue, all separately considered, that is much more important.
It is much more relevant than simply either a petition or, indeed,
what is often now used, a standard letter from somebody who is
really interested in rights for everybody else, so I think that
that has a lesser value. I think the point I was making about
planning committees was that it is the hurdle over which people
get in many local authorities to have the opportunity of making
personal representations. So, in that sense, I think nine, but
I obviously do agree with you. I think lots of letters are important,
but many people have not the facility or the ability to put together
those sorts of arguments.
QP4 Chairman: You touched on one of the
weaknesses of our system, which is the lack of duty on a minister
to respond. Could you share with the Committee your views on what
are the strengths and weaknesses of our present system? Michael,
you said you felt in most cases the outcome was rather disappointing,
but Bob gave a more upbeat picture, so perhaps this question is
directed at Bob. Could he give us an example of where he feels
a petition has achieved something as a consequence of it being
presented?
Bob Spink: Petitions serve a number
of purposes. An MP who does not use petitions is missing an opportunity
to engage people in his constituency and to contact them. He can
then, within certain limitations, write to those people and can
make them aware that he is listening to them. Often people know
that they are not going to get everything that they ask for, but
they just want to be listened to, and the MP can let them know
that he is there to listen to them, to pass their message on to
the Government, so they become part of the process rather than
just outside kicking the process, as it were. Petitions can be
valuable. I presented a petition in the House last year calling
for the funding gap in children's hospices to be repaired. I presented
that petition in the House and to 10 Downing Street and, within
a month, the Prime Minister had allocated £27 million for
children's hospices to repair the funding gap caused by that fall-off
in the National Lottery money, and he did so in the teeth of opposition
from his Secretary of State for Health, and I think the petition
of 250,000 signatures—Michael, it makes your point for you—organised
by The Sun newspaper was instrumental in focusing the Prime
Minister's attention on that. I know of many petitions which have
had a positive result and I know many that have not, but people
at least deserve to be listened to, and the petition is a process
by which they can be listened to.
QP5 Chairman: Michael and David, do you
want to add or subtract anything from that—I am particularly
thinking in terms of what you see as maybe a strength in our system—or
are there any other weaknesses that you see in it apart from the
one we have touched on, which is the lack of ministerial responses
in cases?
Mr Heath: Bob mentioned a constitutional
right to petition, but actually that is mediated at the moment
by the Member of Parliament, and I understand, and I may be incorrect
in this, that there is a precedent suggesting that the Member
of Parliament can refuse to present a petition. Rarely does that,
in my experience, happen. People have the opportunity of presenting
it either formally or informally, and it really seems a very small
duty to perform to present informally a petition on behalf of
your constituents. Nevertheless, I think some means of direct
access to the petition might be appropriate. If we believe that
there should be a constitutional right to petition, then, although
the Member of Parliament acts as the filter for that which is
clearly out of order, or, frankly, practically mad, in the same
way that the Member of Parliament does for the ombudsman case,
nevertheless, I think there is an argument that there should be
some avenue by which you can avoid a recalcitrant Member refusing
to pass it on. In terms of the wider feelings for the system,
I am very attracted, I have to say—and I believe the Committee
have been looking at this—to the process in the Scottish
Parliament and their attitude to the right to petition and the
Standing Committee which they have set up for that purpose, which,
as I understand it—and this is purely from the contact with
Scottish colleagues and others—seems to be deliberately
setting out to engage with the public and actually encouraging
them to use it as a process of contact with Parliament. I do not
think we have anything other than the endeavours of individual
Members of Parliament that relates to the UK Parliament in that
way, so something along those lines. The last point I would make—I
am sure, again, you will be coming back to this—is to revisit
the recommendation of the Power Commission in terms of a citizen's
initiative, and that is also tied up with the power of petition.
It is something the Government appear to be nibbling at in terms
of local government, but I have seen nothing in real terms for
a national equivalent and it would be interesting to see what
the Committee's view might be on that.
Michael Jabez Foster: All I would
add is that I think the business of an obligation on the part
of an MP to offer a petition is a difficult one. I presented a
petition of several odd thousand names anti-National Front a few
years ago. If the BNP asked me to present a petition on their
behalf, I should find it difficult to do. They maybe ought to
have an opportunity to put that in some way, but not through me,
thank you. I think there is an issue there about access to Parliament
beyond the Member. The other issue raised—the suggestion
that I did not think they were effective—I think they may
be effective, but I do not know how you measure the effectiveness
in all ways. I am sure in Bob's case it was because of his petition
that the Prime Minister took the view he did, but, of course,
the secret of politics always is to do something you know is going
to happen anyway and campaign for it vigorously. I am sure that
is not the case in Bob's case, but there is always that issue.
The other thing about size: I think that if there is to be a procedure
whereby there has got to be a proper consideration, the right
to recall, I think I used to discuss when I was a young socialist:
there had to be so many members of the nation who signed the petition
to recall the government. In a sense, I think that there may be
a case, if enough people sign a petition, that there is a higher
level of response required than if a few sign. That is an issue
you may want to explore as well.
QP6 Mr Chope: I was interested to hear
that your petition, Bob, actually went both to Parliament and
to Number 10?
Bob Spink: Yes.
QP7 Mr Chope: Why were you not content
with just presenting it to Parliament, and then allowing the consequence
to flow through from that? Surely by presenting it also to Number
10 you were undermining the Parliamentary process?
Bob Spink: I think not. I was
using all facilities available to me to draw national attention,
and it did receive national attention. It was covered in The
Sun newspaper and was on TV, and so I was helping to create
a swell of public opinion that, in fact, did change the Prime
Minister's mind. It was not going to happen anyway. The Prime
Minister took a very courageous and very right decision and did
what was right, and I congratulate him for that. Could I comment
on one other thing, Chairman? About three months ago I was asked
to present a petition because another Member had refused to present
it on behalf of his constituents. It was a petition drawing attention
to bad behaviour on London transport because of certain changes
that had taken place in giving cheap or free tickets to young
people. I presented that. It was an electronic petition of 6,000
names. I presented it in Parliament by way of the device of a
front sheet, and there was no acrimony between me and the other
Member of Parliament, although I will not name them. So, petitioners
have got options, and I think that you cannot remove from a Member
of Parliament the right that they have to decline to present if
for any reason they wish to decline to present.
QP8 Rosemary McKenna: I think you have
answered the first question I was going to ask. Does it matter
whether it is the constituency Member who presents it or another
Member on his or her behalf?
Mr Heath: I think it does actually
matter. I am going to disagree slightly with Bob there because
I think the constituency link with the Member of Parliament is
important. What I was suggesting is that when a Member of Parliament
did not feel it appropriate to present a petition, either informally
or formally, there ought to be at least some way that those constituents
have an avenue to present that petition to Parliament, but what
would worry me was if all our constituents just hawked around
their petitions until they found some gullible Member, or perhaps
some Member who took a contrary view in order to raise it, or,
worse, just looked for someone of a similar political persuasion
to the petitioners in order to do so. I think that would be entirely
inappropriate.
QP9 Rosemary McKenna: I can see that.
It is interesting, because the role of the Member in this place
is very important in terms of petitioning. In the Scottish Parliament,
the German Bundestag and in the EU Parliament, a citizen, can
present a petition. That requires a Petitions Committee to sift
and do a lot of things. Do you think that would be a good thing
for this Parliament to consider or would you see problems in terms
of exactly the point you were making about opposition, different
political persuasions?
Mr Heath: Having looked at the
Scottish Parliamentary system—and I am conscious I am speaking
to Scots MPs—it does seem to me that there are a lot of
advantages in the way the Scottish Parliament has chosen to arrange
it. I think that there is virtually a guarantee that a petition
will be properly considered by Members of Parliament, who will
then dispose of it on its merits either by moving it, as I understand
it, to a select committee or directly to the Executive for consideration
and can, indeed, bring it to the floor of the Chamber for discussion.
I think that is a much better disposal of a petition than we have
currently in our situation. What I said earlier about the relationship
between the Member of Parliament and the petitioner clearly was
in the context of our present system. If we move to a select committee
system, it would be a different way of doing it. I think the danger,
first of all, again, is raising levels of anticipation of remedy.
I know that there has been some concern about that in Scotland,
and there have been a couple of cases where legislation or policy
has changed directly as a result of the Petitions Committee. I
think the other serious issue which this Committee will have to
look at, if it wishes to go down that route, is the problems of
scale: the fact that when you scale up from a population of five
million to a population of 10 times that, are we going to see
a major industry dealing with petitions and a large department
and a select committee in permanent session in order to deal with
it? I think that is a real problem, and I cannot offer you a solution
to that, were you minded to take that route.
Michael Jabez Foster: I do not
have a lot to add. I do not think it matters so much what procedure
is pursued, but I do think it would be helpful if there was a
more structured responding than the way that happens now. As I
say, it is unclear as to whether or not any outcomes are the result
of petitions or not. Simplistically, I would think that, again,
it does not matter on numbers—I do not think you can clutter
Parliament with hundreds and hundreds of small petitions—but
if there was a limit, if there was a sort of hurdle in terms of
numbers, I think it would be possible for select committees, without
a separate Petitions Committee, to directly have assigned to them
the opportunity of looking at petitions on particular subjects
in which they had an interest and to make a recommendation to
government on such petitions. I think that would be a very simple
way of dealing with it, again, if one had a relatively high level
of numbers before one were burdened with that.
Bob Spink: I feel that establishing
a specific Petitions Select Committee might give a problem. The
petitions are many and varied; they can be very small or they
can be massive petitions. I think that it is really the issue
that the petition is about that gives it validity, not necessarily
the size of the petition. Fixing a size will be very difficult.
It would have to be fixed on the proportion of the population
that was affected, or something. You may have a small village
with only a few people in it who feel sincerely about a most important
issue, like, for example the LNG plant for Canvey Island which
affects only a few people but has the potential of affecting the
whole nation in the future, so you would have to be very careful
about how you did that. At any time an MP can send a copy of a
petition to a committee chairman and ask them if they are interested
in looking at it and taking up the issues. We have that ability,
and select committee chairmen can do that if they wish. We used
to have, of course, a Petitions Committee, but that Committee
just sorted the petitions, it did not actually make any judgment
about the issues raised by the petition. I think the main problem
is not getting petitions presented, the problem is getting departments
to respond appropriately to petitions, which may be to not make
comment on them but to have a reasoned argument for doing that,
and to enable Members to communicate back to the petitioners that
they have been listened to and that this is or is not going to
take place. I think that is what people really want, and I think
that is a trick that Parliament is missing at the moment.
QP10 Rosemary McKenna: Basically, rather
than a whole new system, improve the current system?
Bob Spink: Exactly.
QP11 Rosemary McKenna: Particularly the
response end!
Bob Spink: Yes, and to free up
the system to enable ways for electronic petitions to be brought
forward. I have presented several electronic petitions on the
floor of the House by way of a device that I have developed myself,
as it were, and so far I have got away with it.
QP12 Chairman: If our Parliament was
to allow direct petitioning without the need for a Member, whether
or not we had a Petitions Committee, do you have any concerns
that this may, in marginal seats, result in candidates opposing
the sitting Member by deliberately organising petitions, giving
the impression locally that they were involved in some Parliamentary
activity and, therefore, that they ought to be the next Member?
Mr Heath: Yes, that is clearly
a concern. Whether it is a concern that outweighs the access that
they would provide, the engagement it would provide for the public,
I think is a matter of judgment.
Michael Jabez Foster: I do not
think it is so much a concern, it is a certainty. I think that
it would simply be another part of hustings, and I think one has
to be very careful before one opens it up to that extent. I think
that what has been said already today, of which I was unaware.
I know a Member can present the petition, but I think that may
be subject always, I suspect, to the constituency Member having
the opportunity to present the petition perhaps, and if he or
she refuses, then, of course, that may be the option.
QP13 Chairman: It is also the case under
our system that the Member presenting the petition does not thereby
necessarily have to agree with it. You can present a petition
without agreeing with the content of it?
Michael Jabez Foster: Yes.
QP14 Chairman: To clarify, Michael, are
you saying that, in your view, you would not want to see direct
petitioning?
Michael Jabez Foster: I would
not want to see direct petitioning. What I do think could be helpful
would be the procedure I suggested earlier, large petitions. I
do understand Bob's point about small petitions also being important,
but I think there has to be some limit. The scale does matter
in terms of what you do. I think that if select committees were
to take on the role of considering petitions, then, of course,
they would have the opportunity to call witnesses, which could
include petitioners, or anybody else for that matter, and that
would go beyond the parliamentarians.
QP15 Chairman: On this point, David,
are you saying you take the other view or that your jury is out?
Mr Heath: As I said earlier, Chairman,
I am attracted to the Scottish Parliament model simply because
I think it does provide a dimension which our present system does
not and a greater level of engagement. I have my concerns about
whether it can be easily translated into the scale of the UK Parliament,
but I think there is a wider context to this that individual concerns,
whether they be reflected by Members of Parliament from the back
benches or members of the electorate, members of our community,
are translated into Parliamentary activity. I know this Committee
has looked before at the subject of Early Day Motions, for instance,
and whether an Early Day Motion that is actually signed by more
than half the Members of the House can reasonably be ignored by
the Government—which it can be, and has been recently—in
terms of debate, whether that is a realistic way of organising
our business. I feel the same about petitions. I think, if there
is an issue which is of concern to a significant part of our community
which is not being given Parliamentary time or consideration,
or a matter of huge importance to a smaller part of the community,
and I take absolutely Bob's point—I can think of many communities
in my constituency which would amount to very few people in terms
of population but who might have a significant grievance that
they would like to put—then I think there should be some
mechanism for taking that beyond a simple statement and, with
all due respect to Bob, a photo call at Number 10. That is one
way of doing it, but what I want is the opportunity to debate
that in the House or in a committee of the House and the opportunity
to get a proper answer from ministers, either in a written form
or in the form of a direct answer in the Chamber, and that is
the missing element at the moment.
QP16 Chairman: Before we move on, Bob,
on this point about perhaps destroying the link with the Member,
do you want to say anything?
Bob Spink: Yes. First of all,
I do not think that direct petitioning is a runner for us. I do
not think there is a need for it, I think it would be extremely
dangerous, as you have explained, and I agree with my colleagues,
and particularly Michael, on that. When I was asked to present
a petition because a Member had refused, it was a petition that
affected all of London, 30 or 40 constituencies. I would always
apply normal parliamentary courtesies and discuss it with a Member.
If it was controversial or in any way compromised that Member,
I would not become involved in that. The other Member was perfectly
happy for me to present that petition; they just did not do petitions.
I found that a bit sad, but it was not a controversial matter.
I just make that quite clear. I think that you would need to have
the normal Parliamentary courtesies apply where you discuss things
with other Members before raising them in Parliament.
QP17 Ms Clark: Currently petitions are
presented to the House just before the end of the day on Mondays
and Thursdays and before public business on Fridays. Do you consider
that to be the right timescale in terms of the presentation of
formal petitions?
Bob Spink: Perhaps I will kick
that one off as the one who does it mostly. Yes, I think it is
perfectly fair. I think it does not intrude on the House's other
business or take time away from anyone. The one point I would
like to make there is that the convention has normally been—and
it is set out in the House of Commons Library Note on Petitions—that
in presenting a petition you can speak for normally not longer
than two minutes. The Deputy Speakers sometimes jump on you when
you are on your third or fourth sentence after only 30 or 40 seconds,
and I think that that is an area that needs to be clarified perhaps,
but, apart from that, I think the procedure for presenting it
is absolutely right.
Mr Heath: I think the timing of
presentation of petitions is there for a very good purpose: to
prevent abuse of process by preventing people deliberately obstructing
government business, and I think that is a perfectly proper procedure.
I have no problems with it.
Michael Jabez Foster: I cannot
see a problem, especially now that we have early finishes. I think
it was a problem when it was always 10.30, because sometimes people
want to come along and watch the presentation of their petition,
and to expect people, especially from out of London, to be around
at 10.30 at night is a difficulty, but Members can choose the
day that they seek to present the petition, and it can be an early
one, and, therefore, I think that is sufficient.
QP18 Chairman: There are those of us
in this room who remember petitions being presented at dawn in
the days before regular timetables.
Mr Heath: I did one at about three
o'clock in the morning in my time.
QP19 Ms Clark: At the moment the rules
in relation to what a petition can cover seem to be quite generous.
Do you think they are too generous? Do you think there should
be any restrictions or more strict rules in terms of what petitions
can be about?
Bob Spink: No, I think the rules
are right. I do not think you should restrict petitions at all.
I think they are a constitutional right established time immemorial
and I think we dabble with that at our peril. I think we want
to increase public engagement with politics. I think any MP worth
his salt will look carefully at his petition and will try to guide
petitioners to make sure that they are rational and reasonable
and to avoid bad petitions, but in presenting a petition a Member
can make comments anyway and disassociate or associate himself
with it.
Michael Jabez Foster: I agree.
Mr Heath: I think within the present
system there is not a great deal of need for change. If we were
to move to a Petitions Committee, which would allow for a closer
examination of the merits of petitions, I think that there are
areas which are not within the powers of this House, including
those things which are probably the province of local authorities
and which actually ought not to be given further consideration
by the House and possibly should be immediately committed to the
appropriate authority for the task. I am particularly thinking
about issues of planning. I think it would be quite wrong for
the House to consider matters of local planning when there is
a local planning authority.
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