Public petitions website goes live
A new website that lets you petition the government online has gone live. External site: [e-petitions - create and sign petitions online](http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/index.html)
e-petitions are a way for you to influence government policy in the UK. You can create an e-petition about anything that the government is responsible for.
Commons Leader Sir George Young said any campaign on the site that was backed by 100,000 signatures would trigger consideration for debate in Parliament.
Sir George said it was a “step towards a more accessible and transparent” Parliament.
He said:
In recent weeks, Parliament has been at the centre of public interest, by leading the debate on phone hacking allegations.
But this shouldn’t mean that Parliament becomes complacent. There’s much more that we can do to build confidence in the work of the House of Commons and we should continue to find new ways of encouraging people to engage.
The public already have many opportunities to make their voices heard in Parliament, and this new system of e-petitions could give them a megaphone.
Of course, parliamentary time is not unlimited and we want the best e-petitions to be given airtime - so we will monitor the site closely over the coming months to assess whether the 100,000 figure is an appropriate target.
Government departments will moderate the petitions, with oversight from the office of the leader of the commons.
Any petition deemed to be libellous, offensive, duplicates existing open petitions or is not related to government will be rejected.