Submitted on Friday 8th May 2026
Rejected on Monday 8th June 2026
Current status: Rejected
Rejection code: no-action (see below for details)
Require petitions to show both support and opposition before debate
Reform the UK petitions system so petitions include both “support” and “oppose” voting. Parliamentary debate qualification should consider overall public opinion, not only signatures in favour, to better reflect the true balance of public sentiment on controversial issues.
The current petitions system only measures support, which can give a misleading impression of public opinion where small but highly organised campaigns gain significant attention. Allowing both support and opposition voting would provide a fairer and more accurate reflection of public sentiment before parliamentary time and resources are allocated to debates.
You can't sign this petition because it was rejected. But you can still comment on it here at Repetition.me!
The Government e-Petitions Team gave the following reason:
We're not sure what you mean by "Parliamentary debate qualification should consider overall public opinion". For example, we're not exactly sure whether you would want to see a certain number of 'opposing' votes to mean that a petition shouldn't be debated.
At the moment, the Petitions Committee considers whether to debate petitions that receive over 100,000 signatures. The petitioning system was designed to allow individuals to raise issues which they feel are important, rather than to allow people to vote for or against the proposals of a petition. People can usually start petitions representing the opposite view on the issues raised by a petition. When this happens, and both gain a substantial number of signatures, these can be debated together.
216.73.217.50 Sat, 20 Jun 2026 21:53:49 +0100
