Business of the House

Robert Syms Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I am getting e-mails from people who think that the fair fuel motion on the Downing street website is what we are debating next Tuesday, but of course we are debating a different fair fuel motion. Is not this misleading people that they are getting something that they are not, and should not we review the whole e-petition process and perhaps the way that the Backbench Business Committee gives out business?

[Sir George Young]

There is a commitment to review the work of the Backbench Business Committee, which could embrace the issue of e-petitions. It is the case that an e-petition will not be debated, either here or in Westminster Hall, unless it is adopted by a Member, and the Backbench Business Committee then has the freedom, along with the Member who has presented the petition, to decide on what basis the debate should take place; and it might then be, as my hon. Friend said, a different debate. When we review e-petitions and the Backbench Business Committee, we could see whether there should be the latitude that we have at the moment or whether an e-petition should be debated automatically, regardless of whether any Member of Parliament wishes to put the motion forward.