Parliament Explained
A podcast from the UK Parliament
Episode 6 ‘Get Involved’
Script
<MUSICAL INTRODUCTION>
MEERA:
Welcome to the final podcast in this series, “Parliament Explained”.
I’m Meera Syal and in this series I’ve been exploring exactly what happens in Parliament.
To make sure you never miss an episode, you can subscribe to the programme on your podcast app so that it downloads automatically every Monday.
Last time we learned about the different types of Bills, and how they pass through different stages of changes, debate and scrutiny in each House before becoming Acts of Parliament - the laws of the land.
Today, we’re going to look at how you can take an active part in Parliament’s work and have an influence on the decisions that are made.
<MUSIC ENDS>
To start us off, we asked a few people what they thought their role was in how the UK is run. You may have thought about this yourself before.
VOX POPS:
- “I vote and sign petitions”
- “If you want a proper democracy you’ve got to encourage people to get active in it. You can’t just sit on the couch and throw your dinner at the telly and stuff”
- “I’m too young to vote, I’m only 16. It’s quite annoying that I don’t get a say in what happens in the country. I’d love to have votes at 16”
- “I do vote in local elections but I don’t vote for the national one”
- “I regularly vote but that’s all”
- “I always vote, especially as a woman”
- “I think our role in general is to vote and look at what the Government are doing, keep an eye on it and if you don’t agree with something then write to your MP or protest it in some way”
- “I’ve voted, I’ve signed e-petitions as an artist and a performer”
- “I’ve signed many petitions asking the Government to provide answers, to be held accountable to debate certain issues in Parliament”
- “I’m certainly more engaged when there’s an election or referendum so I do always vote, not that the vote has ever actually gone my way when I have voted!”
- “I vote and I basically work and act every day in a way that I think contributes to society, so if everybody does a little bit then society works”
- “I’ve signed petitions and I think the use of social media is getting them a lot more out in the public eye. I’m certainly not one of those people who signs everything – it has to be important to me”
- “I do care and I think it’s really important for people to vote because they can’t have a moan if they’re not even going to bother voting. People have fought and died for us to vote so I think it is important”
MEERA:
Let’s start with an overview: first of all, you can have a say in who represents you by voting when there is a general election. Once they’re elected, you can contact your MP and ask them to take up an issue on your behalf in the House of Commons. You can also contact a member of the House of Lords to do the same.
You can keep up with news and debates on the Parliament website.
You may wish to share your experiences with a select committee in either House. And you can create or sign a petition to raise awareness of an issue and call for action.
But perhaps the most basic way you can have a say in how the UK is governed is by voting.
In the UK something pretty special happens every five years[1]. We hold a general election. On this one day every eligible person in the UK can place a vote and be part of electing their local representative to Parliament. Parties and candidates campaign to win votes by visiting constituents door-to-door, holding debates, and publishing manifestos - a bit like a shopping list of what they plan to do if they're voted in. But how does the election work?
Let’s ask LYNN HOBSON, Regional Outreach Officer for the Houses of Parliament.
LYNN HOBSON:
The UK is divided into 650 local areas called constituencies, each of which is represented by one Member of Parliament. Voters register to make sure they can take part. On election day, polling stations are open from dawn till dusk.
And if a voter can't make it along, there are other ways to make sure they can take part including voting by post. Once every vote has been placed, the ballots are counted to find out which candidate has come out on top in each area. This is called first past the post. The elected MPs enter Parliament to sit in the House of Commons and represent everyone in their constituency. The political party with the most MPs - the majority - is invited by the Queen to form a government. And if there's a hung Parliament, where there's no clear winner, then a minority government or a coalition government may be created, or a fresh election held.
So on this one day, a little piece of paper with your mark plays a big role in deciding who leads our country. Don’t forget, to vote in a general election you need to be registered to vote, which you can do online or by post.
VOX POPS:
What do you think are the pros and cons of the first-past-the-post and proportional representation electoral systems?
- “It’s very confusing because you assume that the person with the most votes is going to win, not the person who’s got the most votes at a certain point…I think it’s confusing, it needs to be made a little bit more transparent and clear for people to understand”
- “For me personally I think we should have proportional representation. I think that would be fair…(You would get) a better view then of the views of all the people”
- “I’m mixed in my opinion because I support a party which doesn’t really (get) a large proportion of the votes made. I’m a bit worried about more extreme parties becoming more vocal in the public sphere, and certainly the first-past-the-post system does deter that from happening”
- “(Under) proportional representation,smaller parties would have more of a say, which maybe is fair but isn’t something I would want”
- “Proportional representation I think is very important”
- “I think the first-past-the-post system is really good because it allows us to have that constituency link”
- “I think if we moved to other things like Additional Voting or Single Transferable Vote, I don’t think we would necessarily have (the) strong outcome that first-past-the-post gives you, so I’m for it really”
- “The idea of it is quite traditional because you want strong government, but its relevance in today’s society is questionable”
MEERA:
Both the MP in your area and members of the House of Lords work for you. To help get in touch with them, many will list phone, email or post details as well as social media on the Parliament website. Just search for “find a member of the Lords”, or “find my MP”. Here’s Gary Hart, another of the Houses of Parliament’s Regional Outreach Officers.
GARY HART:
MPs and peers will try to help with issues that are important to you, so long as they are the responsibility of the UK Parliament, rather than, say, your local council, or the Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish governments.
So, for example, you can ask them for advice or assistance on issues related to pensions, benefits, UK-wide taxes and national insurance, immigration, energy, defence, and data protection.
Both MPs and Lords can write directly to a government minister on your behalf and obtain information for you or, in some cases, speak directly to officials about your concerns.
Lords and MPs can also represent you by raising matters in each House on your behalf. They can do this in a number of ways, including asking questions in the Chamber or in writing, participating in debates and introducing or changing legislation.
They can’t, however, interfere in court decisions and they can’t help with private disputes.
You can find your MP using your postcode on the UK Parliament website.
Members of the Lords don’t have a geographical constituency that they represent; instead they will often have a topic of interest or background in a particular area of policy. To help you choose which of them to contact, lets you filter the list of members of the Lords by interest.
As we learned in the last episode, if you want to influence a specific Bill, you can also use Parliament’s website to follow events and contact members in each House at important stages of the Bill’s progress. This is even more important in the Lords, where there is not one individual representative for your area. By checking who gets involved with a draft law you’re interested in, you can see which members of the Lords are likely to want to get your opinions on it.
MEERA:
In news reports we often hear about people ‘lobbying their MP’ or ‘lobbying Parliament’. Lynn, what does lobbying mean?
LYNN:
Lobbying is when an individual or a group tries to persuade someone in Parliament to support a particular policy or campaign. It can be done in person, by sending letters and emails or through social media.
Anyone can lobby their MP or a member of House of Lords but it is usually more effective if you can find other people who share your concerns or experiences to lobby with you as a group. People who often lobby Parliament and its members include businesses, charities, pressure groups, trade unions and representatives of various sectors of industry.
One of the best ways you can get involved with Parliament is to keep in touch with what’s going on. And there are lots of ways you can do this. Because Parliament works on behalf of all of us, it’s really important that it’s open and accountable. To make sure it is, Parliament publishes detailed information about its work online and both Houses post updates on the Parliament website, as well as their own Facebook and Twitter pages.
First of all, everything that happens in each House’s Chamber, and many of the committees, is streamed live online at parliamentlive.tv. You can watch live or stream later.
If video isn’t your thing, Hansard is the official written record of Parliament. Everything that’s said in Parliament is written up word for word and published online in three hours flat.
MEERA:
How about those changes to draft laws? Each proposed change is published online, as well as the stage of each bill and the time and date of the next stage.
And you can visit in person to watch the business of the Houses - the Chambers and committee rooms are open to the public to attend free of charge when the Houses are sitting. You’ll need tickets for Prime Minister’s Questions as it’s so popular, but otherwise you can queue up on the day.
<MUSICAL INTERLUDE>
MEERA:
Next up, we’re going to talk about a way for members of the public to get an issue raised in Parliament without necessarily needing their MP or a Lord to do it for them. Lots of people have issues they are passionate about, such as...
VOX POPS:
What would you like theGovernment to take more notice of in your area or on a national scale?
- “My mum’s a teacher and she teaches 80 kids, it’s ridiculous. I think more money should be spent on teachers”
- “The NHS is a massive issue for me. I know that’s a national issue but on a local level I’ve got friends who work in the NHS, so I hear stories on a weekly basis of the struggles they’re going through and the problems they’re having, and that can only be magnified on a national level”
- “The homeless, people with drink and drug…problems, and housing is horrendous at themoment. Just to get somewhere to live – my friend has 5 kids in a 2 bedroom flat and there’s no way they can get out of it”
- “For me probably house prices and…renting for younger people”
- “Schools, schools. I’m worried about my child because we’re not able to find the right school for my child right now”
- “From my point of view, the NHS in my area. I mean, for goodness sake I had to wait six weeks for an appointment one time”
- “We pay a lot of road tax and there’s a lot of roads that are still rubbish, particularly where I live”
- “Come up with a policy on immigration that people are more happy with, because something needs to be done to help people who are coming into the country”
MEERA:
In the digital age, it’s easier than ever to get the word out and encourage others to support a particular cause.
Starting a petition is one way of getting your voice heard in Parliament. A petition is a written request asking Parliament or the Government to do something specific, for example making or changing a law, or to take action on a particular issue. You can invite other people to add their support by signing their name to your petition if they agree with its aims. In this way, petitions can be used to demonstrate the strength of public support for your cause.
To tell us more, we’re joined by Helen Jones MP, chair of the House of Commons Petitions Select Committee.
HELEN JONES MP:
The Petitions Committee is a cross-party group of MPs whose job it is to look at all petitions that come to Parliament and to decide which of them should be looked into further.
They might, for example, want to ask the petitioners for more information, or to speak to experts or to the Government about the issue raised; they sometimes decide to ask a select committee to look into it and, where the issue is of real public interest, they can arrange for a petition to be debated in the House of Commons.
MEERA:
There are two types of petition – ‘paper’ petitions, and online e-petitions. So what’s the difference?
HELEN JONES MP:
Both types of petition can be used to call on the Government to do something about a particular issue. But Public or ‘paper’ petitions need to be hand-signed by people supporting your issue. For this reason, people tend to do these on a smaller scale, in their local area.
MEERA:
So, once you’ve collected all your signatures, how would you present a paper petition to Parliament?
HELEN JONES MP:
For paper petitions, you still need an MP to present it for you in the House of Commons. With online e-petitions that isn’t the case – any member of the public can simply submit the petition online themselves. And if you are concerned about a national issue, rather than a local one, e-petitions can make it easier to collect signatures from around the country, as you'll be putting your petition up online for anyone to sign.
MEERA:
All Government and Parliament e-petitions can be found online at petition.parliament.uk. You can see the petitions that other people have created on the site, and sign any which you strongly agree with.
We’ll have more details on where to look, as well as numbers you can call for more information, at the end of the episode. So what happens to your petition once it has been presented on paper or submitted online?
HELEN JONES MP:
Most paper petitions will receive a response from the Government, as do all e-petitions which receive 10,000 signatures or more. If your e-petition receives over 100,000 signatures it will definitely be considered for a debate in the House of Commons.
But as we’ve mentioned, the Petitions Committee can also decide that an issue raised in a petition should be investigated in other ways, by a committee, for example. And all petitions are recorded in the official record of Parliament.
MEERA:
Petitions can be an effective way to get an issue onto the agenda and can lead to real action by the Government. So let’s look at an example. Maria Lester is a journalist who lost her brother Stephen Realf, aged just 26, to a brain tumour.
MARIA LESTER:
I was inspired to start a petition when I was writing an article about losing my brother. In my research I spoke to a charity called Brain Tumour Research who told me a statistic that really shocked me. I found out that brain tumours were the biggest cancer killer of children and the under 40s but were only receiving 1.5% of the money spent on cancer research. I ended my article by launching a petition to increase funding into brain tumour research and just a couple of months later I was contacted by the Commons Petitions Committee.
MEERA:
So where to start? Maria found her answer online.
MARIA (direct transcription):
I had heard of other people staring petitions online, but I didn’t really know how to go about it or how complicated it was, so I was pleasantly surprised to find it was easy. I launched the petition at home and it was very easy to do, I just went online and filled out the things. I had to get some friends to second it and support it, and then I think it was checked and it took a few days to get up and running. I included the link at the end of my article, which was the first time I really put it out there and I had no idea what to expect, but within about a week we had about 10,000 signatures which was just fantastic and we just kept on campaigning from there…I gather (that) is one of the biggest responses (the Petitions Committee)had had to anything like that. The Petitions Committee got involved when we were at around 14-15,000 signatures, so quite early on. I think they perhaps thought we might not get to the 100,000 signatures level, but they obviously thought it was a topic that was worth investigating further, so they decided to have this enquiry to look into it.