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Petitions UK Government and Parliament

Learn the principles behind parliamentary petitions wording and signatures. Find extra information on submitting a request to your Member of Parliament or Government.

PARLIAMENT PETITION RULES: This section provides help and advice on starting a petition in the UK and having it ruled upon.

Find out how to sign a plea that already got submitted and lobbied. Or, check how to search for someone else’s lodged solicitation.

UK Government aside for a moment. By comparison, a supplication is a form of prayer which got petitioned to a deity.


Parliament Petitions UK

As a rule, a parliament petition is a formal written request or document. It gets signed by many individuals who are making an appeal for someone, usually in authority, to do something.

Some applications resemble a ’round robin’ in many ways. But ‘colloquially’, parliament petitions get addressed to a government official or a public entity.

How to Start a Government Petition

Creating a new petition, and getting enough signatures to have it seen and debated, can be a challenging process. UK importune laws are very stringent. The country’s democratic regulations need recognising and following at all times.

Nonetheless, you could gather or beseech enough support for your cause. Follow these few basic rules for petition signatures and you may well get your imploration considered for debate in UK Parliament.


Parliamentary Petition Service

Note: There are some issues to understand before petitioning Parliament or presenting your plea to government.

To appeal for a change to the law or official policy, you must have British citizenship, or a UK resident, to create or sign it. Petition rules forbid the creation of an application that is:

  • About a topic that Parliament or the government is not responsible for.
  • About something for which the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly are responsible.
  • About an active legal case in the UK courts.
  • Naming people who are working in public bodies (except for senior management).


Rules of Petition Signatures

Once you have created a petition you get five people to support it. The text gets published after getting checked, unless it gets rejected for not meeting the required standards. For example if it is offensive or illegal.

The Petitions Committee review every publication. They may select solicitations of interest to find out more about the issues raised. The Committee also has the power and ruling authority to press for action from government or Parliament.

The rules dictate that the number of recorded signatures determines the results of ‘formally’ lodged petitions.

After 10,000 Signatures: The appeal receives a response from the government.

After 100,000 Signatures: It will get considered for debate in Parliament (some conditions apply).

MPs may consider your plea for a debate even before it reaches 100,000 names. You can also choose to submit a petition through your Member of Parliament instead.

They may contact you about the issue you cover. If so, you could get an invitation to take part in a discussion with MPs or Government ministers. They may ask you to give evidence to a select committee. In some cases, they will write to other people or organisations related to the topic of the issue raised in the petition.


Parliament Petitions in the United Kingdom