Procedure and House Affairs committee  They reply.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Under the system that exists at the moment, the government gives a written response to any e-petition that reaches 10,000 signatures. The system the committee has proposed, with the petitions committee, proposes that the petitions committee might be able to take up any petition,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's the system proposed by the committee. It's not the current system.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The current system is simply a government-run system, so the government has decided that at 10,000 signatures it will make a written response and at 100,000 signatures it will refer it to the backbench business committee that determines things for debate.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There's one more point, which is that a time is set aside, Monday afternoons, for debates on the petitions in Westminster Hall, which is a parallel debating chamber, as the chair has said. That's when most e-petitions get debated, but in the last session there were two e-petiti

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My understanding is that under the legal framework in the U.K., the personal data, such as names of people who have signed petitions, can be kept only as long as is necessary, and then has to be destroyed. So any petition will remain open for six months, and then the text of the

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Under the current situation it stays open for a year. In fact, the government has said that its existing system is going to stop at the election, so it goes on only until the dissolution of Parliament. But under the system proposed by the committee, it will be open for six months

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I thought I would draw your attention to paragraph 41 of the committee's report. It noted: The essence of the system which has already been set up, [the government's system] and on which our proposed system is therefore based, is one of direct access to the institution to which

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My understanding of the system is that a petitioner will be asked for their name, post code, and email address. They will need to supply that information. They then receive by email a message, including a link, which they need to click on to confirm their signature and—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Good afternoon to you. Perhaps I might start just by clarifying that the system that my chair has just outlined to you is the system that is proposed by the committee in the report that was published last week. It's not the system that actually happens at the moment. At the mom

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The backbench business committee requires an e-petition to be taken up by a member of Parliament before it will allocate time for a debate. I believe one or two e-petitions have hung around for a little bit before a member has been found to take them up, but I think I'm right in