Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

1. What steps he is taking to improve the role of the House in scrutinising European Union-level decision making.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

This coalition Government have significantly increased scrutiny of European Union-level decision making through the provisions of the European Union Act 2011. Three Bills were taken forward in the last Session to signal the approval of Parliament under the Act. In addition to that, the Prime Minister has made 16 statements to this House on business at the European Council. The House will be aware that the European Scrutiny Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the European scrutiny system in the House and we await its findings with interest.

[Mr Jones]

What more can the House do to ensure early engagement with the European Union in such matters?

[Mr Lansley]

The Deputy Leader of the House and I visited the European institutions during the Whit recess. It was clear to us that there is more that we can do in this House to improve our engagement with and impact on European legislative proposals, especially through the work of the Select Committees of this House. In my view, which I think is widely shared, this House is the prime source of democratic legitimacy and accountability for law making. We should therefore be taking every opportunity to develop our influence, including in EU law making.

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[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

8. What plans he has to introduce an e-petitions system applicable to both Parliament and Government.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

The introduction of the coalition Government’s e-petitions system has been a successful improvement for public engagement with Parliament. However, it is clear that the public expect to be able to petition their Parliament and seek action from their Government. I want to work with the Procedure Committee, the Backbench Business Committee and interested Members from across the House to develop the current system into something that more fully meets that expectation.

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the Leader of the House for his answer, but can he really assure the House that any changes to the e-petition will not impact on or restrict the work of the Backbench Business Committee?

[Mr Lansley]

I agree that reforms of this House should not have an adverse effect on the successful work of the Backbench Business Committee, which this coalition Government established. It may be possible, none the less, that there is a role for a Select Committee or Committees in examining petitions, taking evidence on petitions, seeking information from Government, and even recommending debates in Parliament. However, I envisage that it would remain for the Backbench Business Committee to consider and schedule debates.

[Simon Wright]

Under the current system, the MP of a signatory to an e-petition is not made aware that a constituent’s signature has been added. Can reforms to the e-petition system take account of the importance of promoting direct engagement between the signatory and their elected representative?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Improving engagement with Parliament and politics must be the focus of any improved system. I am grateful to him for his suggestion on how we can achieve that. However, I alert him to the fact that more than 11 million signatures have been added to petitions in the two years or so since the Government’s e-petitions system was established. I am not sure that hon. Members would welcome an e-mail for each of those signatures, but I do agree that there are ways in which we can open up the data overall to help Members and their constituents to identify and work together on popular petitions.

[Glyn Davies]

In order to increase opportunities for debate on e-petitions with 100,000 signatures, will my right hon. Friend consider bringing forward a motion to reopen Westminster Hall on Mondays?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend may not know this, but I have this week written to the Chair of the Procedure Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), to set out the Government’s response to the Committee’s sixth report of the previous Session, which related to debates on Government e-petitions in Westminster Hall. I hope that we will shortly be able to bring forward a motion to extend the practice of opening up Westminster Hall for e-petitions until the end of this Parliament while we consider longer-term proposals for the petition system in this House.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

When the right hon. Gentleman is looking at the e-petition system and perhaps setting up a Committee to do so, will he ensure that we do not ignore paper petitions and give e-petitions and paper petitions the same status?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady is right. I referred to the petition system advisedly—that is, not just the e-petition system. At the moment the e-petition system is working well and is a significant improvement on what happened in the past. The paper petition system in this House is somewhat anachronistic. What we need—I want to work with colleagues to make this happen—is a petition system that enables our constituents to petition their Parliament but also engages with Government to get a response from Government. The signal improvement, I hope, will be for this House to be able to use the petition system as a basis for demonstrating further improvements in the engagement of the House with the issues that matter to our constituents.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

5. What progress he is making on the introduction of measures to improve financial scrutiny of Government expenditure.