Do Petitions Work? Inside the Commons Petitions Committee — 10 Years On, with Four Former Chairs — How 100,000 Signatures Become Westminster Debates & Real Political Pressure- Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 114

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Do petitions work? Inside the Commons Committee that actually decides - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 114

11 Nov 2025

Ten years after the House of Commons Petitions Committee was created – does it actually work? Does it genuinely shift policy? Or is it an emotional release valve? In this special anniversary episode, we bring together four Chairs of the Petitions Committee – one current, three former – for a candid conversation about what happens after hundreds of thousands (or sometimes millions) of people click “sign”.

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The House of Commons Petitions Committee is the place in Parliament where ordinary people set the agenda. Now, a decade after it was created, is it actually the most powerful pressure valve in UK politics?

In this 10th-anniversary episode we trace the origins of the Committee – from the early battles with government and the breakthrough on brain tumour research – to the Covid era when petitioning briefly became the country’s primary political participation channel. And we revisit the petitions that blindsided even the MPs in the room.

To mark ten years, the current Chair — and three former Chairs — answer directly:

what really happens when a petition passes 100,000 signatures;
which petitions genuinely changed government thinking;
do ministers watch the queue of petitions nervously;
should petitions now get votable time in the main Chamber;
how the pandemic supercharged petition culture;
why petitions debates are the most watched debates after PMQs; and
whether petitions amplify the already-loud or give voice to the unheard.

This isn’t a theoretical seminar about “democracy”. This is the Committee inside Parliament where the public decides the agenda. After a decade, what’s the verdict?

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Our guests

Helen Jones

Helen Jones

Helen Jones was the Labour MP for Warrington North from 1997 to 2019. She served as a Government Whip from 2008 until Labour lost power in 2010, then became a shadow minister until 2015 when she was elected by MPs to be Chair of the new Petitions Committee. She continued as Chair until her retirement as an MP. In 2016, she published a book, How to Be a Government Whip.

Catherine McKinnell MP

Catherine McKinnell MP

Catherine McKinnell has been the Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne North since 2010. She was a shadow minister from 2010 until 2016, when she first became a member of the Petitions Committee. In 2020 she was elected Chair of the Petitions Committee following the retirement of Helen Jones. She remained as Chair until being appointed a shadow education minister in 2023. She went on to be Minister for School Standards at the Department for Education from July 2024 until her return to the back benches when she resigned in September 2025. She is now a member of the Public Accounts Committee.

Cat Smith MP

Cat Smith MP

Cat Smith is the Labour MP for Lancaster and Wyre, previously Lancaster and Fleetwood, having been first elected to the House of Commons in 2015. She became a shadow minister under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, remaining in the Shadow Cabinet under Sir Keir Starmer until her resignation from the front bench in 2021. She went on to be elected Chair of the Petitions Committee in 2023 until the general election in 2024, after which she was elected Chair of the House of Commons Procedure Committee with a commitment to stop the “nonsense” of “overexcitable” MPs campaigning too much in committee elections.

Jamie Stone MP

Jamie Stone MP

Jamie Stone has been the Liberal Democrat Member of the House of Commons for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross since 2017, having previously been a Member of the Scottish Parliament for the same area from 1999 until 2011. He served as the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Defence from 2019 to 2022 and for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from 2020 to 2024. He was elected unopposed as Chair of the Petitions Committee in September 2024.

Resources

Parliament

10-Year Anniversary of E-petitions in Parliament, Petitions Committee webpage (UK Parliament, July 2025)
Petitions in the UK, House of Commons Library research briefing (UK Parliament, July 2025)

Hansard Society

What's the point of petitioning Parliament? Parliament Matters podcast (Hansard Society, November 2024)
What’s the point of petitions? What the last century reveals about petitioning and people power in modern Britain, report by Dr Anna Bocking-Welch, Professor Richard Huzzey, Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Dr Henry Miller (Hansard Society, October 2024)
How is the Petitions Committee representing the public amid the procedural and practical restrictions of the Covid crisis? article by Catherine McKinnell MP (Hansard Society, August 2020)
What next for e-petitions (Hansards Society, 2012)

Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira, University of Leeds

Breaking barriers to engagement with parliaments project (2022-2024 in partnership with the UK Parliament and the Welsh Parliament)
Petitioning the UK Parliament leaflet
Petition platforms must reach beyond the usual suspects, Cristina Leston-Bandeira & Blagovesta Tacheva, 7 February 2024 (LSE Politics and Public Policy blog)
Petitions and Citizens' Initiatives 2025, Guide on Citizen Engagement for Parliaments (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN))

Transcript

Please note, this transcript is automatically generated. There may consequently be minor errors and the text is not formatted according to our style guide. If you wish to reference or cite the transcript copy below, please first check against the audio version above.

Intro: [00:00:00] You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm.

Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy. And in this special edition, we are focusing on the work of the Commons Petitions Committee, 10 years old now, and we are talking to an eminent panel of four former chairs of the Committee, Cat Smith, Catherine McKinnell, the current chair Jamie Stone, and the founding chair Helen Jones, no longer an MP, but joining us today down the line from her home.

So first of all, Cath, Cath McKinnell. Can I ask you, as an ex Minister, does the work of the Petitions Committee kind of impinge on your ministerial [00:01:00] radar? Were you conscious that there's a petition on something in your particular policy patch that you would have to respond to? Did it have any influence or traction?

Catherine McKinnell: So as a very proud former chair and member of the Petitions Committee, I would never use the word impinge. I would say that what comes through the petitions system is really valuable and really powerful, and some of our best debates that we have in Parliament come on the back of petitions. As a Minister, I responded to a petition on grief awareness. Now these are issues that I don't think get enough time talked about, they're often cross party agreement, they're not party political issues, so they don't get the attention maybe that they should, but actually they're really profound conversations that I think genuinely change lives and change the way schools operate, making sure that children get the support they should, and they do change legislation as well. So I definitely think they do not impinge, but they do impact.

Mark D'Arcy: And Jamie Stone as the current chair, do you have the [00:02:00] sense of Government ministers paying a lot of attention to the decisions you make about what petitions go forward for debate and when they're scheduled and things like that? Full transcript →

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