Political Commentary
Petitioning Parliament
Norman St John-Stevas
The right to petition Crown and Parliament is one of the oldest known to our constitution and has been exercised from the earliest times as a means of expressing grievances. Originally Parliament was a law court and petitions had to do with private grievances but the modern form of petition dates from the seventeenth century when the political and legislative role of Parliament was finally established. The Commons in 1669 passed two resolutions which ever since have governed the presentation of petitions. They declared: First 'that it is the inherent right of every commoner in England to prepare and present petitions to the House of Commons in case of grievance, and the House of Commons to receive the same.' Second 'that it is an undoubted right and privilege of the Commons to judge and determine, touching the nature and matter of such petitions, how far they are fit and unfit to be received.'
From these resolutions the strict rules governing petitions have mostly derived. A petition must include a prayer; if it does not it may not be presented. The petition must be written, which means in practice that the first sheet of the petition must be written out by hand and that all the signatures must be handwritten not printed. The language of the petition must be respectful and temperate and free from disrespectful language to the sovereign or offensive imputations upon the character or conduct of Parliament or the law courts. A petition may be presented to the House of Parliament to which the petitioner belongs, and times are set aside each day when this may be done, but no member can be forced to present a petition. Once a petition is presented to the Commons, a statement may be made by the member presenting it about the aims and views of the petitioner but no debate on the petition is allowed. After presentation the petition is placed in a green baize bag which hangs at the back of the Speaker's chair and from there it is passed to the Committee on Public Petitions which classifies all petitions and may order them to be printed when they circulate with other parliamentary papers. Petitions may be placed informally in the bag at any time but the member placing them there is responsible for any irregularities which they may contain.
Petitioning being such an ancient and well-established right it is odd that it is not more widely used. As soon as the present Education Bill was published with its provisoes for forcing all local education authorities to comprehensivise their schools, it struck me as being admirable subject matter for a petition. The alternative was to Sit down and do nothing and allow the
government with its built-in majority to steam-roller it through Parliament. At the same time I did not know what the reaction of public opinion would be and I did not want to commit myself to organising a petition to which there could have been little response. In fact I need not have worried. As soon as the terms of the Bill were known I was besieged by people wanting to know what they could do to resist the Bill: a petition seemed the ideal response.
The first advantage of a petition is that it gives people with strong feelings about a subject something to do. It acts as a constitutional safety valve. Round the gathering of signatures other events such as public meetings can be organised. It thus becomes a means for citizens to express their minds. It acts as a focus for public opinion, something very much more important than 'a public relations exercise' which was the pejorative term in which one educational correspondent described it. One of the principal functions of Parliament is to express the mind of the people on the major issues of the day, and minds can be wonderfully concentrated by a petition. Furthermore it attracts publicity to a cause. I learned this during the campaign against the Abortion Bill when three quarters of a million signatures were obtained against it and the progress of the petition was followed with close interest by the national and (just as important) the local press.
Petitioning Parliament is however a technical business and language has to be precise. I consulted with like-minded Members of Parliament and we decided that there should not be one central petition but a variety of local ones. Some Members would present their own petitions, and the rest would be presented by me. Although
the petition is being supported by the Conservative Party it is not a party political operation. Many non-party educational organisations, such as the National Educational Association, are supporting the petition, as are Labour and Liberal party members who are dissatisfied with their official party educational policies. My office supplies petition forms, and we want to have the completed forms back by the end of March so that they can be presented in good time before third reading. So far nearly 30,000 forms have been distributed and the demand is high and continuing. At times I wished I had never started it as I contemplate the piles of letters on my desk.
The petition is not of course aimed against comprehensive schools as such. As its wording shows it is a plea for variety of school and for parental choice. What the petitioners are against is the mindless imposition of comprehensive schools everywhere without regard to local conditions, parental wishes or financial considerations. The government Bill deprives local authorities of a long-established right to put forward proposals for the organisation or reorganisation of their schools. The Secretary of State has a veto on such proposals and these two powers together constitute the balance struck between centre and circumference by the 1944 settlement. This balance is now to be destroyed in favour of the Secretary of State. It is not surprising then that the petition is being supported strongly in many parts of the country which have already gone comprehensive because they regard it as a major move towards a state-centred and state-dominated education system which would be wide open to manipulation for political purposes.
As if this were not bad enough, the Bill goes on to deprive the governors of voluntary schools of their even longer established right to put forward reorganisation proposals. The voluntary schools in the inner London area for example have been able to resist a doctrinaire local authority for o long because of this entrenched right. It is now to be done away with and voluntary schools will have to toe the line. Yet another objectionable feature of the Bill is that it makes local education authorities subject to the regulation of the Secretary of State when they wish to take up places at independent schools. This is a further breach of the 1944 settlement which laid on local authorities not the duty to provide schools but the obligation to see that school places were available. The effects of the Bill are already being seen to be likely to be different from what was intended. Banding of pupils to avoid the creation of neighbourhood sink schools will apparently be outlawed, the future of choir and other specialised schools is threatened, the possibilities of innovation in a rigidly controlled system have been drastically reduced. N° wonder parents and educationalists are so busy petitioning against this Bill. I anl happy to continue to do anything I can to help them.
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