Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 9th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Let's go ahead and call ourselves to order.

We have some guests online here. You may not be able to see them during some of this committee, as we're having some technical difficulties. The other side can see us, so be on your best behaviour please.

They will be able to see us; we may not always be able to see them. They will attempt to identify themselves when they're speaking.

Mr. Walker and Mr. Yardley, are you there?

[Charles Walker, Chair, Procedure Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons]

Yes, Chairman.

How are you?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'm doing great.

We're going to go right into it today. With technical difficulties, we like to get going in case we lose total control here.

Mr. Walker, will you go first? Do you have an opening statement or do we want simply to go to questions?

[Charles Walker]

No. Since I'm talking to a fellow select committee, and fellow select committee chairman and members, I thought we would dispense with the formal part of it, and just crack on and see if I can answer your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay.

Then we're going to go to questions by members and see if we can get answers. That's fantastic

I think, Mr. Lukiwski—

[Charles Walker]

You'll get answers, you just may not like them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Isn't that the case of our lives.

[An hon member]

Here in the opposition we're used to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We don't have any fun at committee by the way, just in case you're wondering.

Mr. Lukiwski, we'll give you seven minutes to go first.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you very much.

Thank you both, gentleman, even though I can't see you. Thank you for being here.

I have a couple of questions just about the process, and correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that once a certain threshold of signatures or an e-petition has been received, then there is a committee that determines whether or not that petition is debated. Is that correct?

[Charles Walker]

To some extent it is. I might revert to my clerk on occasions, just to make sure that I'm giving you the correct information.

In the report we've produced, which basically takes the government's e-petition system and brings it into Parliament to a joint system so it will be shared between the House of Commons and Parliament, there is going to be a threshold of 100,000, but that won't necessarily guarantee that it gets debated.

What we are very keen to avoid is well-funded pressure groups basically hijacking the system, so that you get a lot of well-supported petitions coming in but really it's questionable whether they're actually grassroots driven.

We're going to have an e-petition select committee that will actually help to ensure that perhaps smaller petitions with many less signatures, but those that the committee feels are important, also get their chance to be debated in the House of Commons.

That was a very inarticulate response for a very straightforward question. I do apologize.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

No, that's fine.

But I'd like to explore that just a little further. You say that there may be sometimes, on occasions, smaller petitions, or at least petitions that garner fewer signatures, that the committee determines have merit to be debated.

This committee, is it an all-party committee?

[Charles Walker]

Yes, the plan is that it will be a select committee. The way we run the majority of our select committees in this country is that the chairman is elected from across the House. The chairman of the committee will be elected by Labour and Conservative MPs, and in fact the franchise is every MP in the House.

At the start of Parliament, the usual channels, which are the whips' offices, decide how many committees will have a Labour chairman or a Conservative chairman. Once that's decided, for those committees that are going to be chaired by a Conservative, it will be an open competition amongst Conservatives to put their names forward, and the whole House, from across the political parties, will vote on that individual.

Firstly, we will have an elected chairman, and it's not sure whether it will be from the main party or the main party of opposition, that is still to be decided. The members will be drawn again from across the House. The balance will probably be slightly in favour of the party of government. They will be elected by their own parties.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

All right, there are some similarities, some commonalities, to how we form committees here, but there are also some distinctions that I find interesting.

Let me go back to the threshold of 100,000 signatures. Can you tell me in the last 12 months, the last year, how many petitions received at least 100,000 signatures, and of those, how many were debated and by default how many were not?

[Charles Walker]

Yes. Let's bring my clerk in, Mr. Yardley, who is probably more up to date on the immediate statistics.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Okay. Thank you.

[Huw Yardley, Clerk, Procedure Committee, United Kingdom House of Commons]

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 moment the House of Commons itself has no e-petition system. The government runs an e-petition system, and when an e-petition reaches 100,000 signatures, it will send a letter to the backbench business committee inviting it to consider allocating time for a debate.

So there's no automaticity there. It's at the discretion of the backbench business committee, and the threshold is set by the government. It's the government's decision when an e-petition reaches 100,000 signatures that it will then ask the backbench business committee to allocate time for a debate.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you for the clarification.

What I'm more interested in is of all of those e-petitions that received a minimum 100,000 signatures, how many were actually debated, and how many were determined by the backbench committee not to merit debate?

[Huw Yardley]

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 saying that all the petitions that have been referred to it have been debated, or at least there are a couple that have been scheduled for debate. The debate hasn't actually taken place yet.

In the current parliamentary session there have been three debates, with the two further debates scheduled. In the previous session there were five debates, and in the session before that, which is pretty much the start of this system, there were four debates. So it's about five on average a year.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Okay. Thank you for that.

The last question, then, just for clarification. Of those, say, roughly five debates held each session, were all of them e-petitions that had received the minimum 100,000 signatures, or were there some smaller petitions that the backbench committee determined would still be worthy of debate?

[Charles Walker]

No, they were all 100,000 plus. The new system we're coming up with, with a specialist petitions committee, will inject more flexibility into the process.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski.

We'll go to Mr. Scott for seven minutes.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I'll cede my time to....

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Sorry. We'll go to Madame Latendresse for seven minutes.