Review of petitioning procedures on hybrid bills
In 2016 the Private Bill Offices of the House of Commons and the House of Lords jointly conducted a review of the petitioning procedure for Hybrid Bills. As part of the first phase of implementation of the review, the Chairman of Ways and Means has published a paper of proposed changes the main objective is to improve the petitioning process from the point of view of the petitioner. The most recent report was published in September 2022 and can be viewed here.
In 2016 the Private Bill Offices of the House of Commons and the House of Lords initiated a review of procedures relating to hybrid bills in order to update, clarify and simplify processes. Following public consultations, two reports have been published by the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons and the Senior Deputy Speaker in the House of Lords, making proposals to the two Houses of Parliament for changes to the Standing Orders and procedural practices.
2017 report
A report on the first stage of the review was published in September 2017, and led to changes to, amongst other things:
- remove the requirement for petitions against a bill to include a signature;
- remove references to “praying”;
- allow the electronic submission of petitions;
- allow bill documentation to be deposited in electronic form;
- enable a minimum petitioning period to be set for hybrid bills;
- clarify the procedure for dealing with late petitions;
- modernise some of the language of the Private Business Standing Orders;
- give certain Members of Parliament the express right to have their petitions considered; and
- abolish the concept of Roll B agent.
The report can be viewed here.
2022 report
Another report was published in September 2022 following the conclusion of the second part of the review, which involved a public consultation held between April and July 2021. Amongst the conclusions of this report were:
- a confirmation that hybrid bill select committees can hear from petitioners remotely;
- a recommendation to retain the £20 fee charged for depositing a petition against a bill;
- a commitment to providing clearer guidance to petitioners;
- a confirmation that compliance with the Private Business Standing Orders relating to the content and publication of newspaper notices may now be satisfied either by submission of a hard copy of the newspaper or of an electronic voucher; and
- a recommendation that the Private Business Standing Orders be amended to disapply the date requirements in respect of hybrid bills.
The report can be viewed here.
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