Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

1. What recent assessment he has made of the Government’s e-petitions website.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

Since the launch of the site, more than 3.2 million signatures have been submitted. The signatures and the debates that have stemmed from them have shown that we are indeed building a successful bridge between people and Parliament. Last Wednesday, I gave evidence to the Procedure Committee on the e-petitions system. I look forward to reading the views of the Committee when it publishes its report.

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank the Leader of the House for that answer. Will he outline how the Government are taking account of views in forming policy from the e-petitions, particularly given the excellent news in the autumn statement following the fantastic campaign run by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on fair fuel prices?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Six petitions have gone through the 100,000 threshold, of which four have been debated. The Hillsborough debate, one of the best that we have had this Parliament, obliged the Government to clarify their policy on the documents that they held. My hon. Friend referred to the autumn statement following shortly on from the debate on fuel, secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). We have also had two debates on extradition and the Government have undertaken to have a look at their policy on extradition.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I joined the Leader of the House in giving evidence to the Procedure Committee investigation into e-petitions and their short-term future. The Committee will shortly produce a report on the future of e-petitions. Will the Leader of the House guarantee that any short-term proposals for e-petitions will not be imposed on the House without a debate and vote, to avoid the problems that we had in introducing e-petitions in the first place?

[Sir George Young]

It was a pleasure to give joint evidence to the Procedure Committee last week with the hon. Lady. The Government would not want to impose any new arrangements on the House without going through the usual process of consultation. I await with interest, as I am sure she does, the outcome of the Committee’s deliberations, when we will see its proposals about how we handle e-petitions in future.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The Leader of the House and you, Mr Speaker, will know that the big green bag on the back of your Chair is for citizens of this country to petition their Parliament to do something. Given that precedent, should not the e-petitions initiative be to Parliament, and not to the Government?

[Sir George Young]

That question was put to me by the Procedure Committee last week; my hon. Friend might like to read the response that I gave. The coalition Government made a commitment to introducing an e-petitions system. At the moment, it is run by the Government and the moment a petition reaches 100,000 signatures, I transfer it to the Backbench Business Committee, which considers whether the petition should have an opportunity for debate. That can take place only if the petition is then sponsored by a Member of Parliament. We have a system unlike the previous one, which ended at No. 10 and went nowhere. The system that we now have ensures that the petition does reach Parliament once it has gone through the threshold.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

2. What representations he has received on whether correspondence between hon. Members and their constituents is subject to parliamentary privilege.