Here is your opportunity to contribute to the debate on the design and significance of e-petitions. The Rt Hon Greg Knight MP, Chairman of the Procedure Committee of the UK Parliament writes:

“Welcome to the Procedure Committee’s eConsultation on e-petitions. The Committee has been asked by the House of Commons to propose an e-petitions system with the following key elements: Members should be engaged with e-petitions as they are with written petitions; e-petitions should be open for the addition of e-signatures for a certain period before formal presentation; once presented they should have the same status as written petitions.

“We are … holding an inquiry on the subject and have set up this online forum to gather the views of the public. We want to know whether you would use an e-petitioning system and, if so, what you would expect from it. More specific questions are set out below. As the inquiry progresses, transcripts of oral evidence, as well as the written evidence, will be available on the Procedure Committee website.”

The forum will run until Friday 15 February 2008, so if you have input to this consultation, do consider submitting your comments as soon as possible. Do participate. The site is at: http://forums.parliament.uk/e-petitions/index.php?index,1