Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

5. What recent progress he has made on the Government’s plans to link petitions to debates in the House.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

6. What recent progress he has made on the Government’s plans to link petitions to debates in the House.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

As the Leader of the House has said, the Government will move the online petition system to the Directgov portal soon—certainly before the summer. Officials are now working on an effective verification system to ensure that petitions become a useful tool for engaging with the Government, in contrast to the gimmicky approach of the previous Government’s No. 10 petition site. My briefing notes say that, at this point, I should use the pseudo-word “clicktivism”, a neologism as ugly as it is unintelligible. I have no intention of associating myself with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

Well, the petitions will be to the House of Commons, but the Government’s site will be used simply because it is there. The “Directgov” site is the common site for connexions via the internet to Government. I believe that the address is www.direct.gov.uk, so the hon. Gentleman might like to look at it and see whether it is a sensible portal to use—if he accepts the word “portal” at all.

[Henry Smith]

What will be the role of the Backbench Business Committee in government e-petitions?

[Mr Heath]

The Committee itself made it clear in its first special report that in determining what business should be taken, it would consider

“public petitions recently submitted to the House and petitions published on the Downing Street website—until such time as a system for electronic petitions to the House is implemented”.

We very much welcome the Committee’s continued interest in e-petitions as a source of debate, and we will work with it and with the Procedure Committee in making sure that we have a proper procedure for linking petitions to Parliament.