§ 43. Mr. CohenTo ask the Lord President of the Council if he has any plans to introduce a procedure whereby an official response would be presented in respect of all parliamentary public petitions.
§ Mr. MacGregorNo, Sir.
§ Mr. CohenDoes the Lord President realise that more than 900 official petitions submitted last year received the response from the Government, "There is no Government response"? They were not ordinary street-corner petitions; people had to go through a detailed rigmarole to present them to the House. The Government are undermining the British people's traditional right to present a petition to 19 the House. I would have put this complaint in a petition, but I feared that I would receive the reply, "There is no response".
§ Mr. MacGregorThe hon. Gentleman is getting a response from me now. Part of the answer is that there are other ways in which constituents' requests—petitions, ideas and views—can receive Government answers, including the usual means of parliamentary questions. The hon. Gentleman is not quite right. The Government gave their observations on 170 of the 960 petitions in the previous Session. Not all petitions are addressed to the Government; they are effectively addressed to the House. I think that it is right to follow the normal practices.