The government’s e-petition site has been seen as ‘misleading’ because MPs aren’t automatically forced to debate the proposals that have gained 100,000 votes, contrary to the impression given at the site’s launch.
The most popular proposals are given to the Backbench Business Committee instead, who have limited power to force parliamentary debate. The flaws have emerged since two petitions have reached the 100,000 benchmark, one calling for the release of the Hillsborough files and another proposing “Convicted London rioters should loose all benefits”.
A spokesperson for the Hillsborough Justice Campaign (HJC) said to Huffington Post UK:
“The process is far from ideal and people have been slightly misled. They think they just need to sign the Hillsborough e-petition and that’s it. In fact all that happens is that politicians will discuss, whether politicians will discuss, the issue raised in the petition. It’s hardly a panacea.”
The Hillsborough e-petition has over 138,000 signatories calling for the release of the files to public, rather than having them viewed first by an independent panel. The proposal calling for convicted rioters to lose their benefits has been signed by over 230,000 people. Earlier this week the government was accused of ignoring the thousands of members of the general public.
Natascha Engel, chair of the Backbencher’s Business Committee spoke to the Huffington Post UK to raise the problems the committee faces with e-petitions:
“The government launched the e-petitions website on the last day of term before we all went into recess, they didn’t consult anybody, there was no debate, there was no vote, they just kind of launched it. They, without really discussing this with anybody, put on a completely arbitrary threshold of 100,000 signatures and said that any e-petition that gets 100,000 signatures get sent to the Backbenchers Committee.
"But if we don’t have a member (of parliament) making a representation with the e-petition to our committee, we cant schedule a debate because....what if nobody turns up for the debate? I mean it would just be terrible.”
Robert Halfon, MP, confirmed the importance of securing an MP’s support for an e-petition. He is the heading up the third most popular petition on the site calling for cheaper fuel and petrol. He told Huffington Post UK:
“I put my name to the fair fuel petition because I knew it would gain more support when it got to parliament.”
The initiative is still supported despite both the Backbenchers’ Committee and the petition leaders acknowledging its structural problems. An HJC spokesperson said that although she wasn’t “singing its praises”, they had used the public forum site to the campaign’s advantage. She told Huffington Post UK:
“We used e-petitions as a process by which we could keep the issue in the media. We set it up when the government decided to appeal the right to release the documents. We were very angry and that’s when we decided to use the government’s own policies to put pressure on them. We used it as a vehicle for gaining publicity. ”
She thinks that parliament, rather than government, should take control of e-petitions. This was backed by Engel, who said of the government and e-petitions:
“I think they thought would be a really quick easy win for them and so they did it without thinking. I don’t think there was any malice in it. I think the intention was good but the execution was very poor....We as parliament need to take complete control of e-petitions rather than government, and look at it as an institution.”
When asked about the call for convicted rioters to lose their benefits, Engels said that this e-petition will be part of wider parliamentary debate, and should be considered as more of an emotional indicator for the general public. She told Huffington Post UK:
“My understanding is there will be a lot of MPs turning up to ask for time to debate the riots and they will see the e-petition as a reason for doing that. Actually there’s a problem of workability with that specific recommendation.... what if you’re not on benefits... why should people on benefits get a double whammy punishment?”
The next time that the Backbench Business Committee can look at these issues is on Tuesday 13 September, a week later than expected, raising questions about the perceived importance of e-petitions. Steve Rotherham, MP, supports the Hillsborough Campaign. He said
“We’ve waited 22 years for these files, we can wait until next Tuesday for the committee.”
However a spokesperson for the HJC told Huffington Post UK,
“I sometimes think e-petitions are a device to give the illusion of democracy. They do it just to keep people occupied.”