Jamie Stone – the Petitions Committee chair – reflects on why the committee matters
Jamie Stone is the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and the chair of the House of Commons Petitions Committee.
Almost exactly 25 years ago, Charles Kennedy and I stood waiting outside the front door of HM Treasury in Whitehall. We knocked and waited, and waited… In our hands we had a petition that we had gathered arguing the case for the Government to step in and do something about the fact that petrol and diesel for motor vehicles back then was far more expensive in the Highlands of Scotland than in the rest of the UK.
The door opened, and our petition was taken hastily and, dare I say it, disdainfully.
“Well…”, said Charles. “I hope that’s not going into the nearest bin.”
Charles was always a man of a bon mot. As we walked up Whitehall in search of lunch, I hoped fervently that our petition would be taken seriously. After all, we’d spent a lot of time and trouble gathering the signatures.
I thought about this memory recently when, slightly to my surprise, I was unanimously elected to be the Chair of the House of Commons Petitions Select Committee. This committee considers e-petitions and public petitions which are presented to the House, and decides what further actions to take on the issues. Importantly, it is a means of engaging with the public, and a reminder that all forms of public participation – big or small – are intrinsic to the proper working of our democracy in the UK. In short, it is an immense honour.
While a given Chair is allocated to a particular political party, it is only MPs from that same party who can stand for the Chair – and, aha, the sting is in the tail! This is because the whole of the House of Commons, all 650 members, choose the winner. Whats more, it’s a secret ballot – so you could argue that seeking a Select Committee chairmanship is something of a popularity contest. Perhaps I was more than fortunate that no one decided to stand against me…
As I walked down Whitehall this week, past the very same Treasury a quarter of a century later – older, and a lot greyer than the young MSP I once was – a very curious idea came to me. I thought about the fact that Charles Kennedy’s words were probably truer than they had first seemed to me. After all, we had heard precisely nothing of our petition for fairer fuel prices ever again. The parabolic flight of all the signatures straight into the nearest bin might have been every bit as quick as Charles had suggested. Why? Because until 2015, the Petitions Select Committee – as we know it today – simply did not exist. This takes me to the crux of my strange idea.
What if today, I had a DeLorean car, Doc Emmett Brown at hand, and a handy overhead cable for me to scorch up Whitehall and go back 25 years. Why, I might have met myself and done something about that petition which still rankles with me today. Besides, it would be nice to have seen Charles once again. I miss him yet.
Image credit: Diliff – Creative Commons
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