Whose role? Whose responsibility?
The Director of the Hansard Society’s Digital Democracy programme, Dr Andy Williamson, has welcomed the government’s announcement that online petitions will be debated in Parliament within a year but highlighted some flaws in the plan:
- Assessing e-Petitions on quantity not quality leads to highly populist and unworkable proposals.
- If Parliament is to adopt an e-Petitions system, it is Parliament and not government who must decide.
Dr Williamson concludes: ‘Despite this, I’m pleased to see that the government is being proactive and picking up where Parliament has lost momentum. What I’d like to see is a light-weight system drawing on the useful recommendations of the Procedure Committee around process that avoids the unnecessary over-complication and gold-plating that stymied earlier efforts.’
To speak to Dr Williamson, contact the Hansard Society on 020 7438 1225 or mediaprog@hansard.lse.ac.uk
