The new House of Commons Petitions Committee has been formed.
One piece of unfinished business is a certain highly-supported petition on banning driven grouse shooting. If (when, surely?) debated this petition will give a DEFRA minister the opportunity to respond to the issue of burning of peatlands and in particular the recommendation by the Committee on Climate Change that burning on peatlands should ceases in 2020.
Chris Packham’s, Wild Justice’s, e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting has the following long drawn out history:
- 4 July: petition submitted
- 5 July: receives the 5 signatures which trigger publication
- 13 August: published (after an unusually long delay)
- 13 August: reached 10,000 signatures
- 1 September: passed 100,000 signatures on Day 20
- 3 September: pitifully weak government response
- 6 November: closes on 111,965 signatures due to general election being called
- 3 March 2020; still waiting for a debate, 6 months after reaching 100,000 signatures …
For a petition that took only 20 days to get 100,000 signatures it has been in the ystem for eight months…
Surely time to get it debated rapidly?
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Perhaps we should be asking our MPs to ask when this petition will be debated, surely cannot do any harm and might give the committee the hurry up they certainly need.