BRIEFING PAPER Number CBP 8620, 11 July 2019 By Philip Loft Petitions in the UK Contents: 1. UK e-petitioning prior to 2015 2. UK Parliament e-petitioning post-2015 3. Largest UK e-petitions 4. Public Petitions to the UK Parliament 5. Largest UK Public Petitions to Parliament/Number 10 6. Time spent debating petitions in the UK Parliament 7. Petitions to other institutions 8. Appendix 1: UK Parliament e- petitions receiving over 100,000 signatures in 2019 9. Appendix 2: UK Parliament e- petitions receiving over 100,000 signatures since 2015 www.parliament.uk/commons-library | intranet.parliament.uk/commons-library | [email protected] | @commonslibrary 2 Petitions in the UK Contents Summary 3 1. UK e-petitioning prior to 2015 4 1.1 Number 10 website (2006- 2011) 4 1.2 Cabinet Office website (2011-15) 4 2. UK Parliament e-petitioning post-2015 5 2.1 The current e-petitioning system 5 2.2 Number of petitions and petitioners 5 2.3 Who participates? 6 3. Largest UK e-petitions 8 3.1 Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU, 2019 8 3.2 EU Referendum rules triggering a 2nd EU Referendum, 2016 10 3.3 Prevent Donald Trump from making a state visit to the UK, 2016 12 3.4 Road pricing, 2007 13 4. Public Petitions to the UK Parliament 14 4.1 Procedure 14 4.2 Historic Trends 14 5. Largest UK Public Petitions to Parliament/Number 10 15 5.1 Pensions, 1945 15 5.2 Pensions, 1939 15 5.3 Ambulance dispute, 1989 15 5.4 Pensions, 1943 15 5.5 Chartists, 1842 16 5.6 Increase in entertainment duty, 1951 16 5.7 Sub post offices, 2000 16 6. Time spent debating petitions in the UK Parliament 17 7. Petitions to other institutions 18 7.1 Scottish Parliament 18 7.2 Profile of petitioners to the Scottish Parliament 19 7.3 Welsh Assembly 20 7.4 Northern Ireland 21 7.5 Local authorities 21 8. Appendix 1: UK Parliament e-petitions receiving over 100,000 signatures in 2019 22 9. Appendix 2: UK Parliament e-petitions receiving over 100,000 signatures since 2015 28 Contributing Authors: Thanks to the House of Commons Petitions Committee for help with data. Cover page image copyright: © UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor 3 Commons Library Briefing, 11 July 2019 Summary The presentation of petitions to Parliament has a ‘[Nothing shall] debar or hinder long history, though before the Civil Wars of the any person or persons… to 1640s petitions generally dealt with personal present any public or private grievances. Since the later eighteenth century, grievance or complaint to any radicals and reformers used petitions to make Member or Members of demands on parliamentary reform, the abolition of Parliament…or to the slavery, and religious toleration. These movements Kings Majesty for any remedy’. culminated in the mass-petitions of the Chartists in the 1830s and 1840s. Tumultuous Petitioning Act, 1661 People have continued to use petitions to express their opinion: the Hansard Society survey of political engagement in 2018 estimated that 28% of the population had signed at least one e-petition in the previous year.1 There are several institutional petitioning systems that currently operate in the UK. In the UK Parliament, Public Petitions may be presented to both the House of Lords and House of Commons in paper form, in line with historic traditions. In 2006, the Labour Government introduced e-petitioning to the Number 10 Website, which was replaced in 2011 by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government by an e-petitions system shared between Government and the House of Commons. In 2015, a new e-petitions system, run collaboratively between the Government and the Commons, was established. This sees the House of Commons Petitions Committee examining both paper and e-petitions, debates held in Westminster Hall, and responses being provided by the Government. In the Scottish Parliament, a paper petitions system was set up in 1999 and an e-petitions system introduced in 2004. An e-petitions and paper system were introduced to the Welsh Assembly in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Since 2002, paper petitions have been submitted to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and plans were submitted in 2016 to introduce an e-petitions system. Local authorities also receive petitions from the public. 1 Hansard Society, Audit of Political Engagement 2019 4 Petitions in the UK 1. UK e-petitioning prior to 2015 The development of e-petitioning and debates over their introduction in the UK Parliament may be found in the House of Commons Library Briefing Paper E-Petitions (2015) 1.1 Number 10 website (2006- 2011) In November 2006, the Number 10 website was launched. Each petition that gained over 200 signatures received a government response. Within its first year of launch, 29,000 petitions had been created and 5.5 million signatures collected.2 By the time of the 2010 General Election, over 12 million signatures had been added to petitions begun on the website.3 From November 2006 to November 2008, half of petitions were rejected outright, in attempts to avoid duplication or offence.4 From February 2009 to March 2011, 94% of petitions received less than 500 signatures.5 Of issues receiving over 30 petitions on the Number 10 website from November 2006 to November 2008, 35 related to Zimbabwe, 39 called upon the PM to resign or hold a general election, 40 were concerned with the EU, 41 made suggestions for honours, and 43 dealt with fuel duty and road pricing.6 1.2 Cabinet Office website (2011-15) The new site from August 2011 to February 2013 received 19,789 petitions and saw 7 million signatures collected.7 By March 2015, the number of petitions had reached 60,818.8 Between August 2011 and February 2013, 5% of petitions obtained 500 signatures (c. 1000 petitions), whilst 0.7% attained the 10,000 signatures required to receive a Government response (c. 140). Only 0.1% of petitions attained the 100,000 necessary for a parliamentary debate (c. 20).9 2 House of Commons Procedure Committee, ‘E-Petitions’ (2008), 8. 3 MySociety, ‘What we learned from e-petitions’, August 2011. 4 Laura Miller, ‘Hansard Society: E-Petitions at Westminster: the way forward for democracy?’, Parliamentary Affairs (2008), 167. 5 Scott Hale, Helen Margetts, Taha Yasseri, ‘Understanding the Dynamics of Internet Based collective action using big data: analysing the growth rates of internet-based petitions’, Political Studies Association (2013), 7. 6 Laura Miller, ‘Hansard Society: E-Petitions at Westminster: the way forward for democracy?’, Parliamentary Affairs (2008), 168. 7 Taha Yasseri, Scott Hale, Helen Margetts, ‘Rapid ride and decay in petition signing’, Data Science (2017) 8 Catherine Bochel, ‘Process Matters: Petitions systems in Britain’s legislatures’, 3 9 Hale, Margetts, Yasseri, ‘Understanding the Dynamics’ , 10. 5 Commons Library Briefing, 11 July 2019 2. UK Parliament e-petitioning post-2015 2.1 The current e-petitioning system In 2015, Parliament established a Petitions Committee to consider e- petitions registered on a system for petitions shared between Parliament and the Government. Petitions receiving more than 10,000 signatures receive a response from the Government, and petitions receiving more than 100,000 signatures are considered for debate in Parliament. The Petitions Committee can also decide to inquire into topics raised in petitions, take evidence from expert witnesses, and produce reports. Petitions may also be rejected by the committee for several reasons, including that they do not relate to an issue for which the UK Government or House of Commons has responsibility, call for the same action on an already-open petition, or are offensive or libellous.10 Some 16,137 petitions have been rejected, as of July 2019.11 In order to sign a petition, subscribers must provide an email address and confirm their name, country, postcode, and that they are a UK resident. The same email account may be used up to twice to subscribe to a petition, but no more than this. The Petitions Committee of the House of Commons stated around 1% of signatures come from an email account that is used twice.12 As of July 2019, 66 petitions have been debated in Westminster Hall under the current system.13 2.2 Number of petitions and petitioners According to data from the House of Commons Petitions Committee, from July 2015 to July 2019, 99,031 e-petitions have been submitted, collecting more than 55.3 million signatures.14 The largest number presented in any full calendar year to date was in 2018, when 27,656 were begun, whilst the lowest full-year of petitioning was 2017, when 15,559 petitions were begun. These years also saw the highest and lowest numbers of signatures: there were 18.8 million signatures in 2016 and 7.9 million in 2017. The average number of signatures to a petition has fluctuated between 422 per petition (2018) to 933 (2016). Total number of petitions for 2017 are slightly lower than other years due to the General Election halting the petitions process. 10 House of Commons Petitions Committee, ‘How Petitions Work’ (accessed 11 July 2019) 11 House of Commons Petitions Committee, ‘Rejected Petitions’ (accessed 11 July 2019) 12 Full Fact, ‘Is it possible to repeatedly sign a Parliamentary Petition using the same email address?’ (25 March 2019) 13 House of Commons Petitions Committee, Petitions debated in Parliament (accessed 10 July 2019) 14 Data Parliament, E-petitions (accessed 3 July 2019) 6 Petitions in the UK NUMBER OF E-PETITIONS TO UK PARLIAMENT NUMBER OF SIGNATURES ON E-PETITIONS TO UK PARLIAMENT 35,000 20 31,035 18 30,000 27,656 18.8 Millions 16 25,000 14 20,170 20,000 12 15,559 10 11.7 11.2 15,000 8 9.7 10,000 6 8.0 4,611 5,000 4 2 0 0 Jul- Dec 2015 2016 2017 2018 Jan-Jul 2019 Jul- Dec 2015 2016 2017 2018 Jan-Jul 2019 Note: includes rejected petitions.