Hansard

Thank you for inviting me and the Public Petitions Committee to give evidence to the inquiry. The Public Petitions Committee has submitted a paper as its formal response, but I would like to take this opportunity to add a few comments of my own.Citizens' ability to petition the Parliament was a significant plank of the all-party consultative steering group's vision of public access, openness and accountability. The establishment of the Public Petitions Committee as one of the mandatory committees of the Scottish Parliament was intended to ensure that petitions would be treated in a manner that is consistent with that vision. It was also an early indication that the Scottish Parliament was determined to do things differently from its predecessor, the House of Commons.As members of the Procedures Committee will know, the House of Commons does not allow any right to direct petitioning by members of the public. Only members of Parliament may present petitions to the Parliament. They are allowed two minutes at the end of any business day to state what a petition is asking for and how many people have signed it. The petition then disappears into a green bag behind the speaker's chair and goes directly to Whitehall without any further involvement of the Parliament. The establishment of the Public Petitions Committee was a clear indication that the Scottish Parliament intended to do things differently.Since 1999, 398 petitions have been submitted to the Parliament and considered by the Public Petitions Committee. Those petitions have covered a wide range of subjects. It is the Public Petitions Committee's role to ensure that appropriate action is taken in respect of each admissible petition. That committee considers the issues that are raised by each petition and whether those issues carry sufficient weight to merit further parliamentary consideration.In many cases, in which it is agreed that further action is required, other committees of the Parliament might be asked to carry out further consideration of the issues raised by the petitions. In 1999-2000, about 57 per cent of the petitions that were considered by the Public Petitions Committee were referred formally to subject committees. However, in 2000-01, that figure dropped to 17 per cent. That followed the introduction of more detailed initial scrutiny of petitions by the Public Petitions Committee, which takes great care to satisfy itself that further consideration of a petition is merited before referring it to a subject committee.In other cases, the Scottish Executive, local authorities and other public bodies are asked to take action or to provide information to petitioners. In certain cases, although the committee might agree that no further action should be taken on a petition, it might nevertheless agree to send a copy to the relevant subject committee for information only, in order to make that committee aware of the issues raised. The Public Petitions Committee also monitors the progress of petitions that have been referred to other committees, or elsewhere, to ensure that petitioners receive a response on the issues that they have raised. We try to ensure that petitioners are kept informed of progress at every stage of the Parliament's consideration of their petition.The Public Petitions Committee believes that liaison with petitioners is extremely important. We have produced a comprehensive guidance note on the submission of petitions, and a summary leaflet that provides basic details. Those materials are regularly updated and distributed to citizens advice bureaux throughout Scotland and to the Parliament's partner library network and they are published on the Parliament's website. The clerks offer assistance and guidance to petitioners on drafting and redrafting of petitions so that they comply with the terms of guidance and with the admissibility rules.The Public Petitions Committee allows petitioners to make presentations at meetings, although we must often limit numbers in the interests of efficient management of meetings. We find that many petitioners welcome the opportunity to speak to the committee and to answer members' questions.We are enthusiastic about the use of videoconferencing facilities in appropriate circumstances to allow petitioners in remote locations to address the committee and to be questioned by members. Recently, we linked up successfully with petitioners from Shetland.In an effort to increase accessibility to the petitioning process, the Public Petitions Committee is keen to allow electronic submission of petitions. We have a limited system on the Parliament's website, but it is far from ideal. The committee has a partnership agreement with Napier University's international teledemocracy centre, which allows electronic submission of petitions to the Parliament through the use of the centre's e-petitioner system. The system hosts petitions for those who wish to petition the Parliament, while providing advice on content and format in line with the Public Petitions Committee's current guidance. To date, we have been satisfied with the integrity of the e-petitioner system and we hope that it will be possible soon to hold discussions that are aimed at bringing that technology in-house, which would result in e-petitions being hosted on the Parliament's website.The Scottish Parliament is unique in having a petitions committee that actively uses technology to that extent, with the aims of improving public participation and assisting the committee in processing petitions. The e-petitioner system has attracted great interest from the petitions committees of other parliaments throughout the world. However, we are alive to the fact that there will always be a significant number of petitioners who do not have access to the internet. Electronic petitioning will only ever be an additional option for petitioners and will run in tandem with conventional methods of petitioning.A significant number of petitions have resulted in outcomes that the Public Petitions Committee considers positive. Many petitions have served to inform subject committees of the views of interested organisations and individuals as part of the inquiries or legislative scrutiny that committees have undertaken. When the Social Justice Committee conducted its inquiry into housing stock transfer, it received a number of petitions on that. When the Rural Development Committee scrutinised the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Bill, it received a number of petitions that informed the committee of petitioners' views.Other petitions have been considered in detail by subject committees, leading in some cases to the publication of reports that have been debated during meetings of the Parliament. The report—published today—on victims of hepatitis C who contracted the disease from blood transfusions originated from petitions that were submitted to the Parliament. Legislative change—albeit relatively minor—has been brought about as a direct result of petitions that were submitted to the Parliament. Those examples give us clear evidence that the system is an effective means of allowing direct public participation to achieve change where change is justified.The feedback that the Public Petitions Committee has received from petitioners has been generally positive. The overwhelming impression is that people value the opportunity of being heard by the Parliament, even in cases in which the petitioner's preferred outcome was not achieved. The media have also made several favourable comments about the work of the Public Petitions Committee.Our petitions system has attracted interest from parliaments throughout the world and it is notable that there appears to be a shift in Westminster's approach to handling petitions. The Leader of the House of Commons, Robin Cook MP, recently hinted strongly that he would like to introduce a petitions committee at Westminster. That approach was also recommended in a recent report by the Hansard Society's commission on the scrutiny role of Parliament.There is always room for improvement. I am aware that subject committees often find it difficult to allocate time to deal with petitions because of work-load pressures. Committees have asked whether the Public Petitions Committee could do more of that work because, in many cases, the subject committees are unable to devote the resources that would be required to consider petitions further. That is unfortunate; perhaps we should give more detailed consideration to how we as a Parliament handle petitions.A delegation from the Public Petitions Committee visited Berlin last week to see how the Bundestag deals with petitions. The Germans give petitions a particularly high profile—the Bundestag deals with 20,000 petitions a year. Its Petitions Committee has 29 members and is supported by more than 80 staff. Although that is on a massively different scale to and bears little comparison with our system, the most important point to note is that the Bundestag's Petitions Committee deals with petitions itself: it conducts inquiries and produces reports and recommendations and does not refer petitions to subject committees, other than to inform them that it is undertaking inquiries in those committees' areas of interest. That system is replicated in the federal states, or Länder. We visited the Berlin Land, which serves 3.8 million people, where we heard about a system that is similar to the Bundestag's system.We should consider whether we could learn from the German system of handling petitions. That would require much more detailed thought, but I believe that it is worthy of serious consideration, especially if it results in a more effective system with more public participation and involvement in the work of the Parliament. In the meantime, we will continue to review our procedures and to examine how we might improve and develop the petitions system.Finally, I draw the committee's attention to the summary and conclusion of the Public Petitions Committee's submission, which highlight the committee's view that to date the petitions system has been a success—indeed, it has been one of the notable successes of the Scottish Parliament—and that it operates in a manner that is consistent with the CSG's vision. I am certainly of the opinion that the petitions system is one of the Parliament's success stories and that we should do all that we can to build on that success. I hope that the Public Petitions Committee's work will continue to be supported by the Parliament and, in particular, by colleagues on other committees.