History of petitioning
2. The petitioning of the House of Commons has a
long history stretching back at least to the late middle ages.
The Governance of Britain describes the public petition
as 'a historic and fundamental right and an ancient tradition
of Parliament.'[4] Erskine
May's Parliamentary Practice quotes two resolutions
of the House of Commons of 1669 which set out the rights of petitioners
and the power of the House to deal with petitions:
'That it is the inherent right of every commoner
in England to prepare and present petitions to the House of Commons
in case of grievance, and the House of Commons to receive the
same';
'That it is an undoubted right and privilege
of the Commons to judge and determine, touching the nature and
matter of such petitions, how far they are fit and unfit to be
received'.[5]
In 1843, after the House had introduced standing
orders restricting debate on petitions (see paragraph 6 below),
Benjamin Disraeli said—
There is an idea that the presentation of a petition
is an empty form—that it is ordered to lie upon the Table,
and never heard of again. … I believe that at this moment
the right of petition (although it is not permitted to make speeches
on every petition) is a more important and efficient right than
has ever been enjoyed by the people of England in this respect.[6]
3. Originally petitions were overwhelmingly requests
for the redress of personal grievances.[7]
Petitions requesting changes in general legislation or public
policy first come to prominence in the early years of the seventeenth
century.[8] Radical politicians,
such as John Wilkes used them for purposes of national agitation
in the second half of the eighteenth century and it is from that
time that the modern form of public petition, by which matters
of general concern are put before Parliament, may be said to date.
4. The early years of the nineteenth century saw
a dramatic increase in the numbers of petitions presented to the
House of Commons. In the five years ending in 1805, 1,026 were
presented—a figure broadly comparable with the numbers we
experience today some two hundred years later. In the five years
ending in 1831, however, 24,492 were presented.[9]
Many of these petitions related to the need for parliamentary
reform and in particular to the passage of what has become known
as the Great Reform Act of 1832. The petitions presented in support
of that Act were the first example of what became a series of
major campaigns fought during the nineteenth century in which
mass petitions to the House of Commons played a significant part.[10]
In 1843, 33,898 petitions were received, the largest number ever
in a single session.
5. Throughout this period the House wrestled with
how it should handle such large numbers without, on the one hand,
unduly restricting the right of the citizen to petition Parliament,
or, on the other, encroaching to an unreasonable extent on the
time available for the transaction of public business. The Select
Committee on Public Petitions, set up in 1832 under the chairmanship
of Sir Robert Peel, was the first of several to propose ways in
which the time taken up by petitions could be reduced. Its proposals
included that petitions should be presented to morning sittings
of a Committee of the whole House (which did not endure as a solution)
and that
a Select Committee should be appointed whose
duty should be to classify all Petitions presented … and
to make to the House a periodical report …arranging the Petitions
according to the subjects to which they referred; and containing
a general summary of the Prayer of each Petition; and an account
of the number of signatures.[11]
Among the responsibilities of this committee was
to decide which petitions should be printed.
6. One of the major concerns of those who sought
to curtail the time taken by petitions was that they were being
used to obstruct the business of the House, or more specifically
of the Government. Sir Robert Peel, as Leader of the House, secured
the introduction of a series of standing order changes in 1842
which effectively prevented debate arising on the presentation
of petitions.
7. The history of petitions in the twentieth century
was broadly one of decline. After the 1912-13 parliamentary session
(when nearly 10,000 petitions were presented against the Established
Church (Wales) Bill) the number of petitions presented in a single
session exceeded one thousand only once (in 1988-89, when many
were in favour of legislation to protect the human embryo). Nonetheless
petitions with very large numbers of signatures continued to be
presented either from organisations (e.g. motoring organisations
petitioned against motor taxation in 1927 and for the restoration
of the basic petrol ration in 1948) or on major issues of political
controversy (e.g. for the prohibition of atomic weapons in 1950-51).
8. No significant changes were made to the standing
orders agreed to by the House in 1842 until 1974 when the Petitions
Committee was abolished and the standing orders were amended to
provide that all presented petitions should be printed with the
Votes and Proceedings. At the same time the time of presentation
was moved on Mondays to Thursdays from the commencement of public
business to immediately before the end of day adjournment debate.
In 2007, in response to our previous report[12],
the time of presentation on Fridays was brought into line with
that on other days and the publication of petitions (and government
observations on them) was transferred from the Votes and Proceedings
to Hansard, so as to make them more widely available and more
readily accessible.
9. In 1859 a commentator on the British constitution
wrote—
The right of petitioning is a necessary adjunct
of the representative system. It is the mode, and the only mode,
by which people communicate with the parliament; and more especially
with their own house of representatives, to inform them of their
views and opinions on subjects under the consideration of parliament;
or by which they suggest any measure they consider necessary or
advantageous to the public good.[13]
Although, given the revolution in methods of communication
in the 160 years since that was written, petitions are now by
no means the only mode of communication between the people and
their Members of Parliament, in other respects those words apply
as much today as they did then.
10. In this report we have taken that historic understanding,
that the House of Commons should be the primary and natural recipient
of petitions on matters of public concern, as the starting point
for our work of devising a system of e-petitioning appropriate
for the twenty-first century.
Our inquiry
11. We first raised the question of e-petitioning
for the House of Commons in our 2007 report. We noted that—
In preparing petitions Members, and others, have
already started to gather on-line signatures, to combine with
written signatures. They have then either been frustrated at not
being able to present the on-line signatures or have had to find
ways to circumvent current procedures.[14]
We looked briefly at e-petitioning in other Parliaments
and at the No. 10 Downing Street e-petitions system. We concluded—
More work needs to be done on the detailed arrangements
for an e-petitions system for the House of Commons. We do, however,
express our support in principle for an e-petitions system and
we set out now what we believe should be some of its principal
characteristics. These should reflect the procedures for written
petitions:
e-petitions should be sponsored by Members;
they should be open for the addition of
e-signatures for a certain period before formal presentation;
once presented they should have the same
status as written petitions.[15]
In this inquiry we have looked at the practical and
procedural requirements for introducing an e-petitions system
for the House of Commons. We have also attempted to consider some
of the wider implications which such a system might have for how
the House conducts its business and for how it engages with the
public.
12. E-petitioning is not widespread in other Parliaments
or comparable institutions. The German, Portuguese and European
Parliaments each have an e-petitioning system but these are directed
principally at dealing with specific complaints from individual
members of the public. The Scottish Parliament allows e-petitioning,
but requires petitioners to have explored other avenues for redress
before the petition is allowed. They have received 200 since they
first started accepting e-petitions in 2004.[16]
The National Assembly for Wales is planning to launch an e-petitions
system in May this year.
13. The Australian Senate has allowed its members
to present e-petitions for some years, but the Senate itself does
not host or manage e-petitions. Instead a petitioner may set up
an e-petition on their own or some other website, which, together
with the signatures electronically added to it, may be printed
and presented by a Senator and those signatures will be counted
as valid signatures. We return to this system in more detail below
(see paragraphs 44 to 49).
14. We noted in our earlier report that the establishment
of the No. 10 Downing Street e-petitions site had proved to be
very popular. In its first year of operation some 29,000 petitions
and more than 5.5 million signatures were submitted. The site
has been designed to make it easy to submit an e-petition. These
volumes may be partly a result of that approach. They may also
be due to the high public profile of the Prime Minister. At present,
by contrast, around 200 petitions a year are presented to the
House of Commons. The House has not experienced volumes comparable
to the No. 10 website since the late nineteenth century.
1 Public Petitions and Early Day Motions, First
Report of Session 2006-07, HC 513. Back
2
The Governance of Britain-Petitions, Cm 7193. Back
3
Cm 7170. Back
4
Cm 7170, paragraph 157. Back
5
23rd Edition, p 932. Back
6
Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Series, Vol 101, c673 (30 August 1843). Back
7
See Francis Palgrave's evidence to the 1833 Select Committee on
Public Petitions, HC (1833) 2, Q125. Back
8
Public Petitions in the House of Commons, An historical survey
compiled by B J Enright, DPhil, a senior Library Clerk in the
House of Commons. This section draws to a considerable extent
on this unpublished work. Back
9
Report from the Select Committee on Public Petitions, HC (1833),
p 3. Back
10
Others included the Chartist movement and subsequent campaigns
for the extension of the suffrage, and latterly the temperance
movement. Back
11
HC (1833) 2, p 7. Back
12
Public Petitions and Early Day Motions, First Report of
Session 2006-07 (HC 513). Back
13
A Manual of the British Constitution, D Rowland, p 526-7. Back
14
HC (2006-07) 513, paragraph 55. Back
15
Ibid, paragraph 58. Back
16
As at 18 March 2008. The Scottish Parliament started accepting
e-petitions in February 2004. Back
