I think it's a very attractive idea. It helps to encourage the whole notion that we live increasingly with the digital world, with the ambition of enhancing our participatory democracy.
One of the real differences, which goes to Mr. Simms's question about the level of support required, is that when you're doing this on paper, you're actually doing it very physically, using your time, and you're geographically constrained. You have to take it to the shopping centre and hope that people will sign it. Once you launch it onto the website, it's actually nationwide and it's accessible 24-7.
I remember one MP from way back when, in the old days, who remarked how his life was changing dramatically because he was getting tons of correspondence from people but could no longer rely on knowing that they were his constituents. They were people from across the country who had complaints to raise with the member, or issues to raise, and they wanted them addressed.
With petitions, clearly, if citizens in vast numbers want to participate, that's something that I suppose Parliament would want to take note of. The idea of having a further debate to have an exchange of views among the membership of the House would not necessarily be a bad thing, to acknowledge that in fact the signing of these petitions in vast numbers made a difference in terms of the agenda of the House.