Public Petitions Committee, 19 Dec 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 19, 2000

Official Report 253KB pdf

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Convener's Report

I must bring a couple of issues to members' attention. The first relates to petition PE319—the national petition against poverty—which was meant to be on the agenda for this afternoon's meeting. On 4 December, just before our meeting in Glasgow, I was presented with a national petition against poverty, allegedly containing 50,000 signatures.

Following an examination of the signatures, it was established that only approximately 8,000 of the 50,000 signatures were genuine; the remainder were multiple photocopies of the other signatures. I agreed that, under those circumstances, the Public Petitions Committee would not formally consider the petition at this meeting, but that I would bring the matter to the attention of the committee and seek its views on the action that should be taken.

I have since received a letter from the chief petitioner, who states that he was not involved in the administrative organisation of the petition, expressing his concern and regret that the actions of others had resulted in this situation. He has asked that the petition be withdrawn and has undertaken to ensure personally that the petition is resubmitted in the proper way. Members' views are invited on the matter.

This is a serious matter. I am always wary of such fraud, which is why I asked about the 10,000 signatures—I wanted to be sure that they were valid. In a democracy in which people's petitions matter, it is important to establish that people genuinely support the issues, which is why we ask for people's names and addresses. We must act on the petitions, and the number of signatures sometimes—although not always—influences our decision. There is no question but that a fraud has been committed and that someone somewhere along the line has submitted 42,000 invalid signatures.

It looks even worse than that, as so many of them are in the same handwriting.

Even among the 8,000, many are in the same handwriting.

What is the name of the organisation?

The national petition against poverty.

Do we know who the organisers are?

We know which individuals are concerned, although we do not know who they are or whom they represent. They have expressed extreme contrition over this and claim that they were not directly responsible. They thought that all the signatures were valid.

I agree entirely with Pauline McNeill. It is up to those who submit petitions to satisfy themselves, in the first instance, that the signatures that they purport to have received are genuine. Although I accept that fraud may not have been the intention of the petitioner—and it was wise of him to withdraw the petition—we should make it clear that we will automatically throw out petitions when we find examples of fraud.

I do not think that this situation is covered by standing orders. We have no rule, but perhaps we should.

We should create our own.

Should we have a sanction against this type of petition?

The fraud is so serious that we must send out the message loud and clear that this is not acceptable behaviour. It was never envisaged that this would happen. I would like us to find some kind of sanction that we could take.

I propose to consider the form of sanction that may be available to the committee and to report back at the next meeting on what such a sanction might be and how it might be implemented.

Could the clerks investigate a small sample of the signatures? Some people may not even know that their name has been submitted, as many of the signatures are in the same handwriting.

There is a question about organisations that are not known to us. We should perhaps seek information on what else they have been up to. The last thing that we would want would be to consider petitions from invented organisations that do not exist. We recognise most of the names that come before us, as they are either individuals or reputable organisations.

This situation is in stark contrast to the e-petitioner system, in which checks are carried out on all the signatures that are collected. In that system, points are awarded and different criteria must be met before any signature is endorsed. That is a much better system than the one that we have.

The best course of action would be for me to report back to the committee on how we may be able to deal with this situation in future. At the moment, we do not have a sanction at our disposal.

The fact remains that if the person who submitted the petition did so as an individual, it would have been acceptable to the committee. There has been an attempt to deceive the committee. That is the crucial issue.

It has been brought to my attention that a news release was issued—but not covered by the press—to say that a 50,000-strong petition was being handed in to the Scottish Parliament. We have to get the solution right and we should take time to report back.

I agree. This might be my last meeting, but I would be happy to give the committee carte blanche to go public, if necessary, to establish that—in the view of the members who have served on it—this is the most important committee for the general public. No one should think that they can behave like that.

It is to be discouraged.

We will deal with the matter at the next meeting.

Members will be aware that we receive a large number of petitions calling on the Parliament to take action on issues that are outwith its remit. For example, today we considered petitions calling on us to intervene in or overturn local authorities' planning decisions and to reverse the decisions of a health board. Those are technically inadmissible, as the Parliament has no powers to take the action requested.

It is suggested that, in future, rather than such petitions being lodged formally and put forward for consideration by the committee in the usual way, the clerks should circulate details of them with meeting papers, informing members of the nature of each petition and why it is considered to be inadmissible. Members will have the opportunity either to agree with the clerks' recommendation that a petition should be considered inadmissible or to decide that a petition does not fall into that category and should therefore be lodged and considered at a future meeting.

I have to get the 4.30 train, but I want to say that I am in favour of doing the utmost to ensure that we do not discuss such petitions unless there are special circumstances. It is right to move in that direction, although I am happy to be told why petitions have been rejected.

Every agenda would include a list of petitions that are technically inadmissible. It would be up to us to challenge that.

I accept that.

Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Before Pauline McNeill knocks off, I want to say that the work that she has contributed to the Public Petitions Committee since she joined it at the beginning is greatly appreciated. She has been a stalwart of the committee, and one of its greatest, most forthright defenders in the Parliament. If she does not come back after the holidays, we will all be very sad. Thanks again, Pauline.

The next meeting is likely to be on Tuesday 23 January at 2 o'clock. That has not yet been agreed by whoever agrees such things, but it will be confirmed by the clerks as soon as possible.

I thank everyone for their attendance and their patience this afternoon and wish them all the best for the festive season. I look forward to seeing everyone in the new year. A big thanks to the clerks for the massive amount of work that they have put into the committee. Without them, this democratic right would not be available.

Meeting closed at 16:17.