Public Petitions Committee, 23 Jan 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 23, 2001

Official Report 233KB pdf

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Fraudulent Petition Signatures

Agenda item 6 is a paper on fraudulent petitions. We discussed petition PE319, which first came before us when we met in Glasgow on 4 December, at our previous meeting. At the time of submission, it was claimed that the national petition against poverty carried 50,000 signatures. On examination, only 8,000 of those signatures were found to be legitimate. The rest were simply photocopies, blank papers and so on.

The clerks were asked to produce a paper on the matter and to make recommendations. Although we have had assurances from the promoters of the petition that the falsification of signatures was done without their knowledge—we believe that those assurances were genuine and that the promoters were as shocked as we were to discover what had been done—and that they will resubmit the petition in due course in a proper and legitimate fashion, we have been asked to accept two recommendations in the meantime.

The first recommendation is:

"that the Clerks should carry out checks on all signatures submitted in support of petitions to establish that these are not photocopied, contain large numbers of duplicate names or are completed in the same handwriting."

Poor clerks.

The recommendation continues:

"Where there is evidence that an attempt has been made to submit fraudulent signatures, the Committee may wish to consider taking quite a hard line. In such cases, it is suggested that the Clerks would contact the Convener and bring the matter to his attention. If he is satisfied that there has been a clear attempt to mislead the Committee about the level of support for a petition, a letter should be issued to the petitioners informing them that their petition will not be considered by the Committee. The petitioners will be invited to submit comments on the circumstances surrounding the submission of fraudulent signatures, should they wish to do so.

Each case of this nature would be discussed at a meeting of the Committee. Whilst, in general, there should be a presumption that any such petition would not be considered by the Committee—even in a resubmitted form—the Committee may wish to consider the individual circumstances, including the comments made by the petitioner, before reaching a final view in each case."

Do members have any comments on that suggested procedure?

This is a serious matter. Perhaps the Parliament should consider whether the submission of fraudulent petitions should be made an offence.

We would need legal advice on that.

Perhaps we would, but it is something that we could consider.

We could say simply that we will not consider the petition at all. That would put the onus on the petitioner.

I do not disagree with the clerk's recommendations. This case highlights the fact that many people do not understand that just one person can submit a public petition—so why go to all the trouble of having a zillion fraudulent signatures? It does not make sense.

This case perhaps brings to our attention an educational or awareness-raising issue. People ought not to be quite so troubled.

I agree. In addition, if the submission of fraudulent petition signatures were made an offence, that would put the long-suffering clerks under even more pressure. They would have to check out who had learned to write lines at school with two biros simultaneously. We do not want to get into that level of detail. Clearly, the petitioners were going for the macho line of proclaiming that they had the most signatures. As Helen Eadie said, they do not actually need all those signatures. The Parliament should be publicising the fact that a petition with one signature is treated with the same respect as a petition with 25,000.

I was only pointing out that there is no deterrent: if people get away with it and can dupe the clerks, they will do so if they want to.

I think that the view of the majority of members is that we do not want to make the submission of fraudulent signatures a legal offence. That would lead to problems, such as what could be submitted as evidence before a court, and would put tremendous pressure on the clerks. The suggestion is that we consider each case and that we can decide not to accept petitions. If the petitioners submit another petition, the first petition will be held against them—on the record.

The point about individual petitions is not quite so clear cut. The petitioners who submitted PE319 issued a press release and tried to gain publicity for—allegedly—having obtained 50,000 signatures. We have to discourage that kind of thing in a big way.

Can we agree that, in future, the clerks will inform me of relevant cases as they occur and that we will discuss each such petition that we receive?

We must also consider what to do about the national petition against poverty. We have spoken to the principal petitioner, and he has written to the committee, explaining the position. We honestly believe that he did not know what was happening. As a result, it is recommended—exceptionally—that

"the Committee should agree to accept this resubmitted petition in due course but, in doing so, should . . . send a clear message that . . . the submission of any future petitions containing fraudulent signatures"

will be dealt with very severely.

Can we record our appreciation of the clerks' diligence?

Absolutely. They do a marvellous job. They are the real Public Petitions Committee—they do all the work. We just come here and grandstand when the committee meets.

Is the suggestion agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Should the sanction be that we will not allow the next petition from the poverty group to be submitted until the next session of Parliament?

Apparently the new petition will not be ready until the summer anyway. We could consider John Scott's suggestion—it is a possible sanction, but is something of a nuclear one.

I understand, from clarification that I received last week, that the "next session of Parliament", in the Scottish sense, means after the next election for the Scottish Parliament, in 2003. In Westminster, session means something different.

I meant in the autumn.

We can still consider that idea. John Scott has only just suggested it, so we could think about it and return to it at the next meeting.

It is a good idea.

We do have to say that this is a serious matter. We will not accept fraudulent petitions that people have just joeyed.

There should be an onus on petitioners to check the signatures themselves. It should not be left up to the clerks.

It should be made clear to those who take responsibility for presenting the petition that the onus is on them to guarantee it by checking that the signatures are genuine.

We should have a press release, along the lines of "You Don't Need to Fake It." We are still in the early stages.

The guidance that is issued to anyone who is considering submitting a petition indicates that it must be submitted in good faith. When we come to revise that guidance, we should point out specifically that any fraudulent petitions will be dealt with very severely. People should be warned.

The final agenda item is the convener's report, but I have nothing to report. If there is no other competent business, I thank members for their attendance and declare the meeting closed.

Meeting closed at 11:55.