House of Commons - Procedure

Select Committee on Procedure First Report

2 Arguments against e-petitioning

15. In approaching this inquiry we have been conscious of a number of pressures in favour of the introduction of e-petitioning. On 25 October 2007, the House welcomed our report of May 2007 in which we expressed support in principle for an e-petitions system for the House of Commons. In The Governance of Britain, the Government stated that it believed that the House should have 'up-to-date procedures for considering petitions' and that 'people should be able to petition the House of Commons with as much ease as they are currently able to petition the Prime Minister' (i.e. by means of an e-petition on the No. 10 website).[17] In its response to our report the Government repeated its support for an e-petitions system and looked forward to our intended further report (i.e. this report) on this subject 'as soon as reasonably practicable.'[18] The Hansard Society, in its memorandum to our earlier inquiry, stated, 'If the House were to decide not to make use of electronic petitioning, this would in itself send a signal that it was rejecting the advantages that new technology can bring.'[19] It repeated the point in its evidence to this inquiry.[20]

16. There are, however, arguments against e-petitioning, which the House should take into account in coming to any decision. Some of these arguments address the principle of e-petitioning; others may be met, or mitigated, by the design of any specific scheme.

Volumes

17. The risks that these arguments illustrate would, in many cases, increase according to the volume of e-petitions received. We cannot predict with any certainty how many e-petitions a House of Commons system would receive. The best estimates of our witnesses were that the figures were likely to be fewer than had been received by No. 10, but possibly not substantially fewer. The House of Commons Management Board told us—

We cannot say that a House of Commons e-petitioning system would be as heavily used as the No. 10 site has been, but it would be unwise to assume otherwise.[

18. The precise design of any scheme can be expected to have a significant effect on the total numbers. In reaching our conclusions on an e-petitions scheme we have made the broad assumption that the number of petitions submitted would be substantially closer to the figures for the No. 10 website than those the House currently experiences.

Trivial or mischievous petitions

19. When the No. 10 website was first set up, there was no rule against humorous petitions. This was because initially it was felt that to ban them would seem unnecessarily po-faced and stuffy. But very quickly it became apparent that the lack of any restriction was acting as an invitation to certain people to submit e-petitions which were simply and only jokes. There is now a rule which states 'petitions which are intended to be humorous, or which have no point about government policy' will be rejected. Nonetheless many petitions which might be felt to have no serious or useful purpose are submitted and accepted. One of the five most signed petitions in the first part of 2008 was a petition to make TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister.

20. The House could of course introduce rules designed to limit such petitions, but one of the lessons of the No. 10 website is that such rules can be difficult to frame and far from straightforward to implement. We encountered a similar problem in our consideration of Early Day Motions. We were encouraged to consider a rule against trivial EDMs, but after careful thought we concluded that such a rule was probably impracticable and might well be counter-productive. What appears trivial to one group of people may be very important to another and a rule which in the end depends for its implementation on largely subjective judgements can easily become not only discredited but grounds for suspicion of a deliberate campaign to exclude particular groups or issues.

21. We were also warned that any e-petitioning system would attract attempts to test its capacity or exploit it in unexpected and unforeseen ways. Mr Richard Allan, Government Affairs Director, Europe, Cisco, and a former Member, told us—

any system you put up there people will work out the best way to game it in order to achieve the objective they want. Or you submit 2,000 petitions to [a particular Member] one week because he refused one so you get a whole lot of people to submit lots and lots[

These sorts of mischievous use at the very least could create significant extra work for Members and House staff. At worst they could undermine the system as a whole.

22. Alongside the relatively frivolous and the mischievous, however, there may also be e-petitions with a more mischievous or even sinister purpose. There is a risk that people may attempt to use e-petitions to demonstrate support for offensive or even illegal causes. In principle, of course, such petitions should not be allowed, and various elements of the possible scheme which we describe below should help to prevent them. But, if the House received anything like the volumes of e-petitions submitted to the No. 10 website, there must be a risk that, despite the best efforts of all concerned, not every such e-petition would be spotted and rejected.

Public expectations

23. One of the reasons that led us to undertake our original inquiry into public petitions was our recognition of a widespread feeling amongst Members and others that petitions were not currently an effective procedure and that many petitioners were disappointed with the outcome of their efforts. An assessment of the Scottish Parliament's petitions system, commissioned by the Parliament, drew particular attention to the challenge of managing public expectations in the context of the deliberate policy of the Scottish Parliament to give petitions a much more central and prominent role than they have in the UK Parliament.[23] Richard Allan told us that, if we were to set up an e-petitions system—

The problem is, however, that the introduction of a new system of e-petitions is likely to lead to increased public expectations regardless of what efforts are made to provide clarity and transparency about what it is intended to provide. It is very possible that, if those expectations exceed what the House is prepared to offer, the consequence will be that the system is discredited and undermined and the reputation of the House, in particular in respect of its commitment to improving its engagement with the public, will be damaged.

24. It is at least arguable that recent experience points in that direction. Our previous report recommended that there should be a dedicated slot in Westminster Hall to debate petitions, but this was rejected by the Government on the grounds that—

We also recommended that petitions, which were already being sent to departmental select committees, should be put on their agendas, in the hope that they would be encouraged to look actively at least at some of them and the issues they raised. There is very little evidence, however, that committees have responded to the spirit of this recommendation.

25. Although it is still less than six months since the House debated our report, it would be rash to conclude that there is clear evidence of an appetite among Members or the House at large to meet the increased expectations in terms of parliamentary consideration which the public might have of an e-petitions system.

Implications for Members' workload

26. As we stated in our earlier report, one of our starting points for this inquiry was that 'e-petitions should be sponsored by Members.'[26] We have tested this view with our witnesses and found general support for it. We set out in more detail how this link could work in practice, but we should note at this point that it may well create significant extra work for Members and their offices and therefore may have resource implications for them.

27. Firstly, on the basis of the increases in volumes described above, Members could expect to be approached to take on a petition more frequently than they currently are. Mr Allan estimated that if the volumes were comparable with those on the No. 10 website, a Member might typically be asked to take on one or two petitions a week,[27] which may not at first sight seem too demanding. However that figure is based on an annual figure spread evenly over 52 weeks. In practice the workload is likely to be considerably heavier when Parliament is sitting than when it is not. Furthermore, although the amount of work created by each petition will depend considerably on the details of the scheme, it may well be more than is involved in a traditional paper petition.

28. Secondly, it is likely that an e-petitions scheme will lead to an increase in other communications. Members in charge of e-petitions may be sent emails in support of and opposing the petition outside the petitions system. Petitioners may follow up e-petitions with continuing communications urging the Member to pursue the issue involved in particular ways. Mr Tom Loosemore, Digital Media Adviser, argued that e-petitions would be a good thing not least because they gave the public 'the opportunity to start an engagement.'[28]

Costs

29. We consider the possible costs of an e-petitions scheme in paragraphs 134 to 141 below. At this stage we simply note that the costs will be considerable, not only to set up the system in the first place but also to run in future years. In both cases this is money which might otherwise be spent on other ways of improving the House's engagement with the public.

Consequences of failure

30. As we noted above, there are relatively few e-petitions systems currently established, and none, as far as we are aware, with the features we might be looking for. If the House introduced a system which then went wrong, it could do significant reputational damage. Our witnesses agreed that failures in the ICT systems, so that the public could not access or submit e-petitions, would undermine public confidence in the system as a whole.[29]

31. The ICT systems must also be able to guarantee the security of the information (much of which will be personal information) which they hold. It is not, however, only (or even primarily) because of weaknesses in the systems that such information may be inappropriately released. As Professor Jonathan Drori CBE, Director, Changing Media Ltd, told us—

32. We have already mentioned that e-petitions are likely to add to Members' workloads, not least because we envisage a system in which they would have a central role, as they do with petitions currently. We have also noted that for many Members petitions are an obscure and unproductive procedure with which they have no great desire to become more involved. But to be a success the system will depend on the active involvement of all Members whose constituents submit e-petitions.[31] If even quite a small number of Members decided that they would not take part, the whole system could be undermined or even discredited. If we cannot be confident that we can establish an e-petitions scheme which Members and the public find easy to understand and straightforward to use, which is responsive and meets their reasonable expectations and which is reliable and technologically robust, we might be better not proceeding with a scheme at all.

17 Cm 7170, paragraphs 158 and 161. Back

18 Cm 7193, paragraph 3. Back

19 HC (2006-07) 513, Ev 14. Back

20 Ev 29 Back

21 Ev 56 Back

22 Q 19 Back

23 The Assessment of the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions System 1999-2006, Dr Christopher J Carman, SP Paper 654, 2006, p 79. Back

24 Q 4 Back

25 Cm 7193, paragraph 14. Back

26 HC (2006-07) 513, paragraph 58. Back

27 Q 32 Back

28 Q 54 Back