E-petitions to the UK Parliament from 2011 to 2019: Volume, Dynamics and Contents of Responses

Abstract

The first petitions to Parliament recorded in the United Kingdom date back to the fourteenth century. The right to petition has been recognised ever since and has been used vigorously throughout the country's history, particularly in the nineteenth century when it reached its peak. The number of petitions submitted and signatures collected then fell sharply after the First World War. However, the introduction of digital alternatives at the turn of the twentyfirst century has given new life to this practice, which has regained considerable popularity but has been the subject of relatively few studies about the British platform.

Thus, little is known about responses to petitions submitted to the British Parliament between 2011 and 2019, which this article proposes to address. To do so, this paper will analyse both rejected and published petitions. It will first focus on rejected petitions to measure their overall volume, the evolution of the rejection rate of petitions over time as well as the motives for rejection. It will then consider the responses provided to petitions reaching the 10.000 and 100.000 signature thresholds. For replies supplied when petitions collected over 10.000 signatures, length and contents will be examined. For those achieving over 100.000 signatures, whether debates were organised or not will be checked, and in case no debate was held, reasons for this choice will be explained. Remarks about the reliability of data and functioning of the system will close the conclusions.