Revisiting Rebuilding the House: the impact of the Wright reforms

WR 07

Written evidence submitted by Catherine Bochel, Principal Lecturer in Policy Studies, University of Lincoln

To what extent have the Wright reforms succeeded in giving the public a greater voice in parliamentary proceedings? Which reforms have been most significant in this context?

This response focuses on petitions and e-petitions discussed in paras 246-267 of the report.

Executive summary

1. The existence of the e-petitions system is to be welcomed. From the number of petitions submitted it is clearly a popular development with the public.

2. Responses to e-petitions that exceed the 10,000 signature threshold and the possibility of debates on those that exceed the 100,000 signature threshold are a useful starting point. However, the actions taken for the vast majority of petitions are limited. Both the e-petitions and the House of Commons paper systems appear to be giving petitioners the opportunity to air their views, but with little or no real participation, empowerment, or prospect of bringing about change.

3. The purpose of the e-petitions system is unclear both to policy-makers and to members of the public. There is also the risk of a degree of confusion among the public about the difference between  the ‘Government’ and the ‘House of Commons’ or ‘Parliament’.

4. The ownership of the e-petitions system should be resolved, and should ideally rest with the House of Commons.

5. It is possible to learn lessons from the systems in the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales to apply to the Government’s e-petitions system [1] . Whilst not all of the practices in relation to petitions are transferable, for example because of the much greater numbers of petitions received by the Government’s e-petitions system, there are a number of possible recommendations which are set out below (paras 16-20).

My research

6. I have been undertaking research into petitions systems in the UK for a number of years. In particular, I have been examining the petitions systems in the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales. I have published a number of articles on petitions systems in the UK and I participated in the seminar co-hosted by the Hansard Society and the Backbench Business Committee to discuss how the Government’s e-petitions system could be reformed to improve public engagement with Parliament.

Existing petitions systems and the extent to which they are giving people a greater voice in parliamentary proceedings

7. The statements on the e-petitions website have been and are misleading, and serve to raise expectations among the public that e-petitions are an easy way for them to influence government. The initial statement on the website said ‘e-petitions is an easy way for you to influence government policy in the UK’; the current statement says ‘e-petitions are an easy, personal way for you to influence government and parliament in the UK’.

8. In practice, for the vast majority of petitioners this means that they are able to express their views to government, but there is little or no opportunity for real participation or empowerment. Indeed, 97.7% of petitions have less than 1,000 signatures (Hansard Society, 2012, p.20), but it is not until they reach the threshold of 10,000 signatures that they receive a response from Government. Thus the vast majority of petitions receive no response at all. Those that exceed the 100,000 threshold are passed to the Backbench Business Committee to see if any MP is willing to sponsor a debate on the issue raised in the petition. By September 2012, there had been 16,000 admissible petitions and 11 debates had taken place.

9. The hybrid nature of the existing system is also likely to reinforce any confusion that might exist among petitioners and the public, for example, about the distinction between ‘Government’, ‘Parliament’ and ‘House of Commons’, and the roles and responsibilities of each. While clear ownership of an e-petitions system by the House of Commons would not entirely remove such problems, it might provide greater clarity than at present.

10. In addition to the Government’s e-petitions system there is the long-standing paper petitions system in the House of Commons, which is primarily a way for petitioners to ‘mobilise opinion’ and attract publicity for an issue they are concerned about (House of Commons Information Office, 2010, p.2). While it is widely recognised that submitting a petition to the House of Commons paper system has little effect in terms of outcomes, petitioners may see their petition presented on the floor of the House, in addition to which they are printed in Hansard and thus remain as a permanent written record. Petitioners only need one signature on such a petition in order to receive a response from the relevant government department. This is in contrast to the Government’s e-petitions system where 10,000 signatures are required in order to receive a similar response.

Possible lessons from the petitions systems in the devolved legislatures

11. It is important to take into account the process by which petitions are considered, and here it is possible to draw lessons from the experiences of the devolved legislatures. In both the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales each petition, regardless of the number of signatures, is considered on its merits by a Petitions Committee and receives a response. Responses can include inviting the petitioner to give evidence to the Petitions Committee, requesting further information from relevant bodies and organisations (the most common form of action), requesting a debate in the chamber of the Parliament or Assembly, holding roundtable evidence sessions, commissioning inquiries, requesting that Ministers attend the Petitions Committee to give evidence in respect of particular petitions, agreeing to the petitioner’s request, or taking no further action and closing the petition. The actions that the Petitions Committees can take enable different outcomes, levels of participation and influence. Clearly most petitioners are not going to get a debate in the chamber, or an inquiry, but at a minimum they will have had the opportunity to have their petition discussed by a Petitions Committee and thus the opportunity for their voices to be heard.

12. For any petition, how a successful outcome is defined is likely to depend on the expectations of petitioners, but it will also relate to whether the petitions system has a clear statement of purpose setting out what petitioners can and cannot achieve by submitting a petition. All of the actions listed above (para 11) may be outcomes in themselves. For my research I interviewed a small sample of petitioners and most were realistic about what they could expect to achieve. Clearly most are not going to get what they have asked for in their petition, but it was clear that if they feel that they have been listened to and treated fairly then they are more likely to accept the outcome, even if it was not what they had asked for originally. Process and fairness are therefore arguably key to any petitions system, and indeed this may impact on how petitioners feel about the wider political system.

13. In comparing the different types of petitions systems, it may be helpful to distinguish between ‘descriptive’ systems, such as the House of Commons paper system and the Government’s e-petitions system, which for the most part tend to just accept and record petitions and where there is little or no action resulting from petitions, and more ‘substantive’ systems, such as those in the devolved legislatures, where the emphasis is on the content of the petitions, which consider each petition, which are able to act upon them, and which therefore have the potential to influence policies.

14. It is also possible to identify what Sartori (1987) refers to as ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ characteristics of participation. These may not map easily or directly onto ‘descriptive’ and ‘substantive’ types, because some attributes may be found in both, but drawing on my research strong characteristics of petitions systems might include: a clear statement of purpose; direct access to the petitions system; a mechanism such as a Petitions Committee to consider each petition on its merits and to decide how to progress the petition; specific feedback to the petitioner on the petition topic; the opportunity to engage with the political system and perhaps to learn about how it works; the opportunity for the petitioner to receive advice and guidance on their petition before it is submitted; a low signature threshold and the integration of the petitions system into the broader system of the elected body within which it operates.

15. Not all of the lessons from the devolved legislatures are transferable to the Government’s e-petitions system, not least because of the much greater numbers of petitions submitted to the system. However there are a number of possible lessons, and these are set out below along with some general recommendations:

Recommendations

16. The Government’s e-petitions system should have a clear statement of purpose and set out what petitioners can and cannot achieve by submitting a petition. This would help manage expectations. It would also make it clear whether the system is enabling real participation or whether it is just a mechanism for people to communicate their views to government.

17. The ownership of the system should be transferred to the House of Commons. The current hybrid system is confusing, and because the e-petitions website is the responsibility of government it means that the Backbench Business Committee and the House of Commons have no control over the potentially misleading statements on it. Indeed, the transfer of the system to the House of Commons, along with appropriate resourcing, would enable the House to consider the aims and purposes and working methods of the system.

18. Learning from the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament, a mechanism such as a Petitions Committee, supported by a Petitions Office (Hansard Society, 2012, pp.19-20), should be introduced to decide how to progress each petition. This would involve the commitment of resources, but would enable the creation of a system that would have greater meaning for petitioners, and potentially for the House, including through links with the public and outreach activities.

19. There should be greater flexibility in decisions about how to respond to petitions. While there might continue to be a need for thresholds, there might, for example, be a variety of different signature thresholds to trigger different actions/responses, so that the Hansard Society report, What next for e-petitions? (2012, p.21), suggests that petitions with lower levels of support could, where appropriate, be ‘tagged to debates, that MPs are made aware of their existence, and petitioners receive some form of feedback’. Consideration should be given to whether the current focus on the number of signatures attached to petitions, is appropriate, rather than, for example, a focus on the content of petitions, as is the case in the devolved legislatures. It may be possible to adapt some of the responses currently used by the petitions systems in the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales to the needs of Westminster.

20. Consideration should be given to how any reforms to the e-petitions system will fit with the existing paper system in the House of Commons. It is important that people who do not have access to the internet continue to be able to submit paper petitions. However, the extent to which the purposes of the systems are similar or different should be considered.

February 2013

Bibliography

Bochel, C. (2012) 'Petitions: different dimensions of voice and influence in the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales', Social Policy & Administration, vol. 46, No. 2, pp.142-160. Accepted, 18 October 2011.

Bochel, C. (2012) ‘Petitions systems: contributing to representative democracy?’, Parliamentary Affairs. Accepted 20 February 2012. Available at:

http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/05/29/pa.gss005.full.pdf+html

Hansard Society (2012) What next for e-petitions?, Hansard Society, London.

House of Commons Information Office (2010) Public Petitions, House of Commons Information Office Factsheet P7, House of Commons, London.