Guy Aitchison (Bristol, OK): The Downing Street e-petitions site has been a neat and popular little tool for people to voice their concerns on all sorts of issues and, though constitutionally toothless, it has caused at least one embarrassment for government over fuel pricing. Historically, however, Westminster has been the proper site for petitioning and since we're still pretending we have a sovereign parliament (rather than an executive monarchy) it seems only right we should be able to petition and embarrass them too. Well, pretty soon we'll be able to do if the Commons Procedure Committee has its way. They have just published a report recommending the introduction of e-petitioning through the Parliament website. They recommend that the constituency link be retained with the petitioner's MP acting as a "facilitator". The e-petitions would be presented in Hansard and sent to select committees and Government would be expected to reply within a few months. They also suggest that three times a year certain e-petitions would be debated in the Commons in Westminster Hall.
Our Kingdom has of course been running its own debate, Networking Democracy, on the potential for the internet to improve representation and it's good to see MPs joining in. But I was struck by one phrase in the report which suggests they may not be fully embracing the spirit of the venture: "If e-petitioning is to be successful it must deliver outcomes which meet public expectations. Partly that will involve explaining to the public what those expectations should be." I would expect e-petitions to make Parliament more responsive. Is that unreasonable?
