E-petitions

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Leader of the House – in the House of Commons at 9:30 am on 27 June 2013.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Andrew Lansley Andrew Lansley The Leader of the House of Commons 9:30, 27 June 2013

The hon. Lady is right. I referred to the petition system advisedly—that is, not just the e-petition system. At the moment the e-petition system is working well and is a significant improvement on what happened in the past. The paper petition system in this House is somewhat anachronistic. What we need—I want to work with colleagues to make this happen—is a petition system that enables our constituents to petition their Parliament but also engages with Government to get a response from Government. The signal improvement, I hope, will be for this House to be able to use the petition system as a basis for demonstrating further improvements in the engagement of the House with the issues that matter to our constituents.