OVER the weekend a petition calling for a UK General Election gained huge traction online and has now reached a whopping two million signatures.
The petition, created by Michael Westwood on October 31 – just one day after the Budget was delivered – calls for there to be “another General Election” with Labour facing massive criticism for policies such as means-testing the Winter Fuel Payment and bringing in a new inheritance tax for farmers.
But what happens when a petition gains this many signatures?
100,000 is the magic number
Once a UK Parliament petition hits 10,000 signatures, the UK Government is required to issue a response to it.
But once a petition hits 100,000 signatures, it is almost always debated in Parliament. The Petition Committee will consider whether to put a petition forward for debate.
There are no other parameters set out for action on a petition. So whether you have 101,000 signatures or five million, the process is the same.
A petition may not be put forward for debate if the issue has already been debated recently or there is a debate scheduled for the near future. If that is the case, information will be given to the creator about these debates.
There is also a chance MPs could consider the petition before it hits 100,000 signatures.
The Petitions Committee
This Petitions Committee is set up by the House of Commons and comprises up to 11 backbench MPs from the Government and opposition parties.
The number of committee members from each political party is representative of the membership of the House of Commons as a whole.
The committee may invite the creator of the petition to talk about it in person, ask for evidence from the Government or other relevant people or organisations, press the Government for action, ask for another parliamentary committee to look into the topic raised, and put forward a petition for debate.
You can find out more about how petitions debates work here.
Why are petitions rejected?
There are dozens of reasons why a petition could be rejected but some of them are:
- It calls for the same action as a petition that’s already open
- It doesn’t ask for a clear action from the UK Government or the House of Commons
- It’s about something the UK Government or House of Commons is not directly responsible for.
- It calls for action at a local level
- It’s defamatory or libellous, or contains false or unproven statements
- It refers to a case where there are active legal proceedings
- It contains material that could be confidential or commercially sensitive
- It’s nonsense or a joke
- It contains material that it wouldn’t be appropriate to publish as a parliamentary petition
