Government relaunches e-petition website

Petitions which attract 100,000 electronic signatories will be “considered for debate” by Parliament.

It will be up to the Commons Backbench Business Committee to assess all petitions that qualify. They will then decide whether they should be given time from the 35 days it is allocated each session for non-governmental business.

But this is not a new idea. Tony Blair launched a similar site in 2006, but closed it down before the last general election, and it was shelved when the new administration came to power.

However, not a single petition tabled using the service resulted in new legislation being passed.

But where the previous scheme failed to make an impression in terms of law-making, it succeeded in embarrasing its designers.

A petition calling for Labour to drop plans to introduce road pricing attracted over 1.7 million signatures, but Mr Blair responded by saying: ‘It would not be in anyone’s interests, especially those of motorists, to slam the door shut on road pricing without exploring it further.’

The road-pricing policy was eventually abandoned in 2009.

And also that year, a petition calling for Gordon Brown to resign as Prime Minister, while obviously unsuccessful, caused humiliation and also great levity.

Nevertheless, Commons Leader Sir George Young says the re-launched site will make Parliament “more accessible and transparent”.

Your suggestions

Channel 4 News viewers are generally indifferent to the revised scheme but some say they will consider using it.

Ali Powers said that if she was going to use the new system, it would be to petition for more arts subsidy.

Gordon Pye would try to garner public support to repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act and the Smoking Ban.

Elizabeth Slowinkin would petition for a law ensuring British businesses are held accountable for using suppliers which are held in breach of health and safety and minimum wage laws both in this country and abroad.

And Andrew Owgan would pen a petition to give licence fee payers more of a voice over programming.

But the new system will unlikely afford petitioners with ribald curiosities or predilections for the fantastical a platform from which to articulate their demands of government.

The new system will not publish those petitions not related to government, as well as those deemed to be libellous or offensive.

A shame, online commentators are saying, because the complete transparency of the previous government’s system made every online petition visible to everyone, an openness that frequently embarrassed it.

Amongst the more ambitious petitions submitted under the old system, and subsequently rejected, was one Josephine Martin who petitioned for the use of the Caps Lock key on the keyboard to be criminalised.

Another group of signatories who expressed concern at what it perceived to be an “old fashioned” and “inappropriate” national anthem, petitioned for it to be changed in favour of “Gold” by popular 80s New Romantic group Spandau Ballet.

Adrian Wood petitioned the government to invest in the development and production of mechanised walking tanks, which he envisaged could be used to “blast them [terrorists] apart with plasma dischargers”.

Graham Smith produced a petition for a project to clone and breed extinct species, explaining that he wanted to ensure that humanity is not wiped out in a way similar to the fate of the dinosaurs.

And a Mr Benson’s petition to allow only ginger people to live in the United Kingdom was unsuccessful in changing legislation.

To access the previous e-petition archive, click here