Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee.
Perhaps I could just explain the Hansard Society's role and interest in e-petitions in the Westminster context. The Hansard Society is a political research and education charity based in London, but we work with registered charities around the world. Fundamentally, I suppose our role is described as Parliament's critical friend at Westminster. We've taken an interest for many years in public engagement with politics and with Parliament.
We regard e-petitions as an important way in which the public can engage with legislatures. But they pose some dangers if the system is not right, if the process and procedure is not right. Back in 2011, when the Westminster Parliament launched, I should say, the British government, really, launched the e-petition system here in the U.K., it did so with very little consultation with Parliament. Yet it is Parliament that has had to manage the problems with it.
As a consequence, back in 2012, the Hansard Society was asked by the backbench business committee of the House of Commons to undertake a study of the petitions system, which we did and which has led to what is now a current procedure committee inquiry into reform of the system here in London.
So that's the background and context. We wrote a paper called “What next for e-petitions?”, which set out many of the concerns with the Westminster system, which may be of interest to the committee in terms of thinking about the issues if you do go ahead and implement an e-petition system.