7 Rules on admissibility and content
116. We noted earlier in this report that the experience
of the No. 10 website suggested that rules on admissibility and
content are likely to be tested, sometimes deliberately, and may
well need to be modified as a result. We also noted that rules
designed to exclude the trivial can be difficult to frame and
far from easy to implement.
117. A petition to the House of Commons must address
a case over which the House has jurisdiction and must request
a redress which it is in the power of the House to provide. In
practice many matters which may not appear to be directly within
the House's power to resolve are brought into order by the use
of such devices as requesting the House to urge the Government
to do certain things. Furthermore, as Erskine May states,
'if the prayer of the petition is within the power of the House
to grant, the absurdity of it is no objection to the reception
of the petition.'[100]
To some extent the interpretation of the rules, and more particularly
their application in practice, has become laxer over time as the
perceived importance and effectiveness of petitions has diminished.
It may therefore follow that, if the House decides to take steps
to increase the effectiveness of petitions, through the introduction
of an e-petitions system as proposed in this report, it should,
despite the inherent difficulties, also tighten its rules against
petitions on absurd, irrelevant and frivolous matters.
118. Andrew Miller told us that, in his view,—
the wording of a petition has to have some credibility
in terms of what the petitioners are seeking to achieve. It has
to be written in language that a) is understandable and b) is
meaningful in terms of something that can be delivered. I think
it is the responsibility of the Member who is managing the petitioning
process, as it is now, to be able to stand up in the House and
present their petition and, if necessary, be subsequently challenged
about [that].[101]
Laura Miller stressed that an e-petitions system
could not be a 'free for all'. It had to be 'structured and there
would have to be processes in place which would make sure that
petitions were judged on their merits and then processed accordingly.'[102]
119. We agree and recommend that, in order to
be admissible, e-petitions should clearly and specifically state
what action the petitioners desire the House of Commons to take
to remedy the matter about which they are petitioning. There should
be a mechanism within the system to allow a Member who has been
asked to facilitate a constituent's petition to respond that the
petition is unclear or misdirected and to offer instead to correspond
with the petitioner in order to bring the petition within these
tighter rules.
120. The present rules require that the language
of petitions must be temperate and respectful and free of offensive
expressions. The House of Commons has established rules on appropriate
language in debate and in motions and there is consistency between
these rules and those applying to petitions. E-petitions, however,
will not, in our view, be parliamentary proceedings in the formal
sense until they have been presented to the House. They are therefore
unlikely to be protected by parliamentary privilege from any legal
action (for example on grounds of defamation). The House, as publisher
of the e-petitions, will have a responsibility to ensure that
the language or content of e-petitions does not render it liable
to such actions.
IDENTICAL OR VERY SIMILAR PETITIONS
121. At present, it is not uncommon for national
campaigns to manifest themselves in a series of effectively identical
petitions from individual parliamentary constituencies or communities.
In theory a similar approach could be adopted with e-petitions.
It might be, for example, that many separate e-petitions would
be submitted with identical wording except that each was against
the closure of a different post office. Alternatively many e-petitions
might be submitted on a single subject, such as climate change,
which, although adopting a similar general approach to the subject,
might each take a slightly different line in respect of it.
122. This latter issue was faced by the No. 10 website,
as Tom Steinberg told us—
Number 10 was very concerned that if they deleted
duplicates people would accuse them of censorship. We then got
enormous amounts of mail, please get rid of the duplicates, it
is really annoying.[103]
He argued that the correct approach to this issue,
and to other similar issues, was to respond to the users—
Your users will tell you many, many things if
you let them about how the site would be better.[104]
123. We accept the force of this argument. The precise
rules on duplication will have to be worked out in response to
the use made of the system. But as a starting point we propose
that e-petitions should be accepted which, although in other respects
the same as an existing e-petition, relate to the specific circumstances
in different locations. In other cases similar petitions should
be accepted only where there are substantive differences.
124. The rules for e-petitions would thus be different,
although not significantly different, from the rules governing
traditional petitions. Over time those differences may become
more significant not least because the rules may need to change
in response to experience with the scheme. Our approach has been
that e-petitions are a development of traditional petitions rather
than a totally new procedure. Our recommendations reflect that
approach. It might be that in due course consideration should
be given to amending the rules for traditional petitions to bring
them into line with the rules for e-petitions. We intend to
keep under review the differences in the rules and, if necessary,
will report to the House on any action that may need to be taken
in respect of them.
Petitions Office
125. The initial responsibility for applying these
rules to e-petitions would lie with staff of the House. The Management
Board has estimated that seven staff might be needed in what would
be a new Petitions Office, but has also noted that 'at this stage
any estimate must be hedged with uncertainty.'[105]
That Office would be responsible for passing on requests to Members
to act as facilitators. Therefore Members would normally be contacted
only in respect of orderly petitions. Occasionally Members might
be approached by constituents who believed that their e-petition
had been wrongly rejected. We are confident that the staff of
the House would willingly assist Members to bring such e-petitions
into order. Where necessary a Member should be able to appeal
to the body charged with political authority over the scheme (see
paragraph 148).
100 23rd edition p 936. Back
101
Q 9 Back
102
Q 118 Back
103
Q 106 Back
104
Ibid Back
105
Ev 58 Back
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