Some people claim  Parliamentary petitions don’t work, are they right?

Or in fact, is the right to petition one of the last democratic routes forward left to us?

By Alex Hicks assisted by, Anthony Webber and Axel McFarlane, two other resolute expert petitioners.

I have come to the conclusion that they are, but that we need to press for their reform to make them more effective.

The sad fact is that critics of petitions are correct in their claim that the government do not have to take any action on the request of petitions, that debates on them are often poorly attended and take place in a side chamber, not the main Parliamentary debating area and, worse, that there can be a decision can not to debate at all.

However their benefits and possibility they create for public debate (and indeed for highlighting government over reach)  means they should be taken very seriously indeed. Take these in order:

• Written statements: if petitions reach 10,000 signatures, the government are required to provide a written response – which in turn becomes a point of debate an publicity while enabling further actions
• Debates:footage from debates, that by law have to be agreed to, can be used to challenge misleading and factually incorrect statements by Ministers
• Access to MPs:Petition debates are an effective way of engaging MP involvemwent – MPs who are in fact grateful for this ‘excuse’ and will continue to engage with the petitioners   after the formal debate
• Public Awareness:Petitions can go and have gone viral ( see below*), giving the creator support far beyond their normal social network
• Network building: Petitions can help people network to bring people together that want to enact change
• Influence on change: Government have changed legislation after heavily supported petitions, as referred to below **

 The government is required to provide a written statement that responds to all petitions that reach 10,000 signatures.These statements can give people information to enable action, provide openings to direct FOI (Freedom of Information) requests, or potentially may provide evidence that can be used for future legal claims.

The written statement for “Remove indemnity from the manufacturers of covid-19 vaccines” for example made people aware that the “Consumer Protection Act” could be used to make claims against vaccine manufacturers, many people were not aware of this exemption to immunity.

The petition seeking to “Launch a Public Inquiry into the approval process for covid-19 vaccines” provided much more clarity on the approval of covid bivalent boosters than I was able to achieve from FOIs to MHRA; it enabled me to find the minutes for the “Vaccines Benefit Risk Expert Working Group” and gave information that helped me to raise several FOIs.

If government written statements do not properly address the petition, the Petitions Committee require a re-write, for example the response to the first petition for peace in Ukraine (Referendum on whether the UK should be neutral in the Ukraine/Russia conflict) and the petitions committee requested the government to make a second response.

The second response provided useful information that was used by Anthony Webber to create a second petition Referendum on ending government’s economically costly Ukraine/Russia policies

 It is pretty clear that without these petitions it is highly unlikely any of recent Westminster Hall debates would have taken place at all

All debates are videoed and a full transcript is made available online, any inaccurate claims made by ministers can be used to challenge Ministers at a later stage in Parliament or by the media. Debate footage is shared extensively on social media.

Some petitions can be debated without even reaching 100k signatures if they have sufficient broader support. Five petitions are currently awaiting debate with less than 100,000 signatures including “Make it unlawful for shops to refuse cash payments”, one of these petitions only has 11k signatures “Do not require parents to register home educated children with local authorities”.

Petitions give another reason to engage with MP’s on particular issues and often a letter/email to a MP with a petition link can achieve results.

MP’s will often speak with a petitioner and supporters both before and after a Parliamentary petitions debate, thanking them for bringing about the debate and agreeing to an further action needed on the issue.

A member of the Petitions Committee is tasked with leading the petition in the debate and normally such an MP meets with and communicates with the petitioner

*Without doubt they can trigger ‘Viral reach’. I have a relatively small social media network but “Do not Reform the Human Rights Act” allowed me to reach 231k people, including many that sit outside of my normal network.

It even gave me the opportunity to positively engage with some people with very different political views, who have proactively shared both the original petition and several subsequent petitions.

This in turn faciliates network building for support for further initiatives. A number of people took interest in the research I had done to create a Public Inquiry into the approval process for covid-19 vaccines, this opened the door to my building a network with a number of experts in their field and people with (alternative) media presence with the petitions featured in several articles.

This expanded network has allowed me to take part in other projects that I believe will make a real difference to tackling government failure on covid.

For example the petition “Open a Public Inquiry into Covid-19 Vaccine Safety” (Axel McFarlane), which achieved 107,123 votes, enabled Andrew Bridgen to debate vaccine safety along with other MPs and opened the door for more speeches and disclosures on the issue.

 ’38 degrees’ claim that several petitions they have hosted have resulted in real change including the government stopping the sale of Channel 4 and energy suppliers no longer breaking into people’s homes to fit pre-paid meters, though these were non Parliamentary petitions which have less chance of success than Parliamentary ones)

**Whilst there is not a direct link between petitions and change in legislation it is highly probable that petitions debated such as Prohibit employers from requiring staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19 , Do not rollout Covid-19 vaccine passports,(by two other petitioners) did help to put an end to covid-19 vaccine passports and mandates.

Also, that the petition: Referendum in the United Kingdom to abolish the Coronavirus Act (by Anthony Webber) did help to put an end to most of the provisions of the Coronavirus Act, the reason given by the government for not debating it.

However, all is not right with Parliamentary Petitions:

• Petitions do not require direct action by the government, there is no requirement for them to make any change to legislation
• Debatesare up to the petitions committee deciding on when a petition will be debated.
• It is very difficult to get petitions approvedinitially.

-Character limits make articulating complex issues very challenging

-The petition must clearly define what you want the government to do, slightly challenging given the restriction above

-The petitions must be for something “the government is directly responsible for” which makes tackling arms length agencies such as MHRA or Ofcom very difficult

-There is a strong burden on validating any claims made in the petition, information that cannot be evidenced is removed by moderation

-The approvals process often results in severe dilution of the initial request.

The current situation is that debates“are to be considered” by the petitions committee at 100k signatures. Interestingly the longest wait for a debate are these petitions “Make it a criminal offence for MPs to mislead the public” (waiting over 700 days) & “Make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence” both of which reached the 100,000 requirement. “Do not sign any WHO Pandemic Treaty unless it is agreed via a public referendum,” has been waiting for a petition debate date for 290 days!

The petitions committee has also set limits on the wording of petitions – they are limited to 80 characters for the title and 880 characters in total. It is a serious challenge to articulate a complex issue within such small character limits.

For example it prevented me from quoting the relevant section of Ofcom guidelines in full that I wanted to include in the “Public Inquiry into Ofcom broadcast standards during the coronavirus pandemic” petition.

These limits often result in petitions requests being vague, I have had over 10 petitions rejected “because it is not clear what I am asking the government to do”, I could have made a really clear request with 1 or 2 more sentences in each case.

Despite the fact that the government can influence any public body in the UK through legislation, petitions are only allowed to be created for areas under Government Direct responsibility. This resulted in the strong “Require Ofcom to withdraw “Broadcast standards during the coronavirus pandemic” wording being diluted to the very weak “Public Inquiry into Ofcom’s guidance on broadcast standards during the pandemic” after two rejections & final moderation.

 Even naming public bodies appears to be an issue. “Open a Public Inquiry into MHRA approval of covid vaccines” got renamed to “Launch a Public Inquiry into the approval process for covid-19 vaccines”, though I specifically wanted to name MHRA as this ties into some wider work I am taking part in, but it was not allowed.

In my petition Launch a Public Inquiry into the approval process for covid-19 vaccines I tried to state that “MHRA only provided Public Assessment Reports for the bivalent boosters when an FOI was escalated to the ICO”. I provided clear evidence of this, but apparently it was insufficient to make the claim, so it was reworded to “Public Assessment Reports for bivalent boosters have only been published months after the boosters were approved”.

Finally you may not accuse the government or anyone of breaking the law. So I was not allowed to state that the “The Government have implemented the draconian Coronavirus Act which breaches our Human Rights” it was moderated to a much weaker “The Government have implemented the draconian Coronavirus Act which restricts our personal freedoms“ (Call an immediate general election due to authoritarian Coronavirus measures).

So what needs to change?

Whilst the British petition process does raise awareness of an issue, it does not directly result in legislative change. I propose the UK moves to something closer to the Swiss Direct Democracy Model: In Switzerland a petition that receives over 100k signatures results in a binding referendum

There is some debate as to whether a referendum should be binding or not but generally Parliament goes along with implementing non binding referenda.

I have created a petition to suggest this change “Reform e-petitions – votes at 500k, no word limits, immediate publication”

In addition I proprose that:

• Petitions should be published immediately as the creator intends, without moderation (excluding offensive material)
• There should be no word limits
• Awareness of petitions could be increased by allowing signatories to subscribe to notifications of all new petitions, petitions that reach a certain thresholds or petitions with a similar theme (Change.org and 38 Degrees do this very well)
• Sufficiently supported petitions should result in a vote by MPs (or a referendum)

How can we achive these changes?

1. Sign my petition to get the process changed
2. Write to your MP to request their support for change. *Proforma text below*
3. Don’t be put off signing petitions due to lack of action, the government makes the process difficult to put people off of signing. Keep signing petitions, but don’t just sign them:
4.     Share the petitions as widely as you can
5.     Remind people of the benefits
6.     Push for media coverage

*Reform the parliamentary petitions process

Dear MP

The Parliamentary Petitions Process must be reformed, currently the government is not required to take action on petitions, regardless of the level of support.

If an issue is highly supported by the population, people need a means of collectively influencing policy, before the next general election. The e-Petitions process gives a pretence of Direct Democracy, but does not result in government action.

Problems with the currently e-Petions process include:

• Stringent character limits that make it difficult to articulate more complex petitions, petitions are often rejected on grounds of lack of clarity
• Petitions are regularly rejected on grounds “It’s not about something the UK Government or House of Commons is not directly responsible for” this is often used to reject petitions relating to public bodies, the government can influence anything that happens in this country

• • Rewording petitions to comply with this rule often result in significant dilution of the initially requested action

• A written response is required at 10k signatures, but these often do not directly address the petition
• Debates only need to be considered at 100k signatures, many highly supported petitions are not debated for example “Make it a criminal offence for MPs to mislead the public” amassed 111k signatures and has been waiting over 700 days for a debate & “Make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence” has 133k signature & has been waiting over 500 days.

Over 75% of petitions are rejected outright and many petitions go through 2 or 3 rounds of resubmission to comply with the “standards”, this often results in the initial request being significantly diluted. I am not aware of a single petition that has resulted in change of legislation.

I signed the following ePetition “Reform e-petitions – votes at 500k, no word limits, immediate publication” please can I ask for your support for this petition and for you to raise a “Private members bill” to “Reform the e-petitions process”. This very petition was moderated and re-written by the Petitions Committee.

I have proposed that word limits and moderation are removed (other than removing offensive content), and petitions that get support of over 500k signatures result in a vote by MPs.

I personally support a more Swiss Style, Direct Democracy that enables petitions to result in a referendum vote, I do however understand that the UK is not ready for such drastic change and this proposal is a good middle ground.

Thank you in anticipation of your support.

Kind regards

Name

Address

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