the petition gets passed to the Prime Ministers office or the relevant Government Department, and is dealt with at Senior Civil Service level – as far as I can see it is up to those Civil Servants as to which Departments they pass it on to. At that point a minister may decide to ask a question in Parliament but there appears to be no obligation for them to do so. There may be an informal agreement that they ask a question if there is a large public interest, but this depends on the Department and ministers involved.
there’s no reason also why a Opposition politician couldn’t pick up on the petition and ask a question themselves, but TBH all questions result in is another formulated response from a Civil Service department (I used to see the replies to then when I worked for a Whitehall department)
The FOI bit associated with this site can be found here as well as where to find what questions have been asked.
Number10.gov.uk Freedom of Information
TBH this site is no more or no less powerful than the traditional written petition to Number 10, which of course can be similarly shuffled around by Whitehall or brushed off/ignored.
Now I’m not a fan of the tinfoil helmet conspiracies, but the e-petitions website does have a flaw that if people use their real name and its in any way distinctive it is easy enough for normal folks (not even feds/MI5) to google them and find out who the “ringleaders” of campaigns are (as their names are near the top!) with the obvious inherent risks.
This can’t actually be done half as easily on a traditional written petition.
if someone asks me to sign a paper petition to save the endangered wurzle-stoat of the Brecklands, the worst that may happen is that Special Branch would check my name to make sure I am not a militant animal rights campaigner, and on finding this not to be the case would take no further action.
However, the president of the local NFU (who may want to extend his farm into the contended habitat area) can’t get this info and decide to boycott my employer due to my political views costing him money.
In the case of a internet petition if I use my real name (it would be pointless otherwise) its fairly distinctive in England and I could be identified by both nosey private citizens and of course the feds would still be able to check me out..
TBH I suspect this particular petition will be thrown back at the citizens who would be simply told that it at present only affects certain areas of the Metropolitan Police force area, and it would be a matter for that police force and maybe the Mayor of London, and if it extends into other constabularies they would argue it wouldn’t be without actual incidents happening.
After all the whole reason the Met did this is they were a tad pissed off with people thinking a nights entertainment involved “merking some mandem because they diss you with some lyrics innit..”
