Greg Knight
Main Page: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)Department Debates - View all Greg Knight's debates with the Department for Transport
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Commons Chamber5. How many e-petitions which have been signed by 100,000 or more people have been debated in the House?
Since the launch of the Government’s e-petitions site, more than 3.7 million individuals have given their support to the 37 petitions that reached the qualifying 100,000 signature threshold for debate. The topics of 32 have been the subject of debate in the House of Commons, most as a direct result of the e-petition.
Will the Minister join me in congratulating the Procedure Committee on its work on this and other issues? Does he agree that the introduction of e-petitions has perhaps done more than anything else to start to reconnect this Parliament with the public?
Yes, I am very happy to join my right hon. Friend in congratulating the Procedure Committee on the work it has done on this issue. It is a fact that since August 2011, more than 10 million individuals have signed one or more of the 30,000 petitions initiated. I, and I hope all Members of the House, look forward to a Petitions Committee being established in the next Parliament, which will allow perhaps a wider range of petitions to come before the House and, for instance, for petitioners to come and give oral evidence to that Committee.