Modernisation Committee
Oral evidence: Backbench Business Committee and Petitions Committee Debates, HC 152
Tuesday 9 June 2026
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 9 June 2026.
Members present: Sir Alan Campbell (Chair); Wendy Chamberlain; Daniel Francis; Paulette Hamilton; Rachel Hopkins; John Lamont; Jesse Norman.
Questions 33-61
Witnesses
I: Natascha Engel, Chair of Backbench Business Committee 2010-2015, and Ian Mearns, Chair of Backbench Business Committee 2015-2024.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– Natascha Engel: Written evidence - BBB0013
Examination of witnesses
Witnesses: Natascha Engel and Ian Mearns.
Q33 Chair: Welcome to today’s session of the Modernisation Committee. This is the second oral evidence session in the Committee’s inquiry into Backbench Business Committee and Petitions Committee debates. We are delighted to welcome two witnesses today: Natascha Engel, who was Chair of the Backbench Business Committee between 2010 and 2015, and Ian Mearns, who was Chair of the Backbench Business Committee between 2015 and 2024. You are both very welcome; thank you for coming.
I am going to start with a question to you, Natascha. Can you tell us about the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee and the early aims of the Committee?
Natascha Engel: Thank you very much for the invitation. This is quite a niche inquiry, but it is very important.
When the Backbench Business Committee was set up, the Standing Orders were really basic; they were really just about how many people were on the Committee and its composition, and the only thing we were not allowed to do was table motions that impacted on the Backbench Business Committee. Beyond that, there was no guidance and no real idea about what the Committee was supposed to do. Also, we were just going into the 2010 coalition Government, so while the Committee was being established, there were still lots of negotiations going on, and there was quite a large new intake in 2010. Nobody really knew what the Backbench Business Committee was; they kind of thought it was a business Committee, as in DTI. There were very few people who really understood what it was and what its potential was.
One of the big debates at the beginning was about whether the Committee met in private or in public. I had been on the Wright Committee, which brought the Committee into existence, and one of the reasons why I put my name forward to chair the Committee was that the initial idea was that you would have seven or eight senior Back Benchers sitting in private to decide what got debated on the Floor of the House for 27 days in a parliamentary Session and for—whatever—seven days in Westminster Hall. One of the first things we did was make sure that the decisions were not down to the Committee members, but should be led by Back Benchers. We opened it up to Back Benchers coming to ask us for debates. We invented the rules, really. For us, it was really important that applications were topical and cross-party and—what was the third one? Topicality was the really important one. Oh, the third was that there was a particular reason why the debate could not be held in Government time, or a reluctance by the Government to hold a debate. Those were the three rules.
At the time, the way for Back Benchers to apply for things was through a ballot—and that still exists for Westminster Hall debates and so on. This was distinct from that process: people had to demonstrate merit and that there was a reason why the debate had to be held. The example that was used was that during the miners’ strike, there was no debate in Parliament on the strike, because neither the Conservative party nor the Labour party had an interest in exploring views on it. While there was civil war raging out in the country, Parliament was silent on the matter. The primary driver of the Backbench Business Committee was to make sure that there was an avenue for Back-Bench MPs to hold the Executive to account.
Chair: Thank you for that. There was a lot in there that I am sure we will want to tease out.
Q34 Wendy Chamberlain: Thank you both for being here today. Natascha, having been on the Wright Committee, do you feel that those early aims that you outlined met the spirit of what the Wright Committee was looking at? How did you approach that?
Natascha Engel: I think so. I think the driver behind the Backbench Business Committee for the Wright Committee was to give Back Benchers an opportunity to raise issues that they would otherwise not be able to raise. Before the Backbench Business Committee existed, it was ten-minute rule Bills, private Members’ Bills, parliamentary questions—those are all random ballots. Alternatively, you could make a point of order, but they were not really opportunities to raise issues that were really important and were not being debated. One of the really important early ones was the contaminated blood scandal.
Wendy Chamberlain: Which is still a live topic today.
Natascha Engel: Absolutely. What was so interesting was that when the Health Minister was at the Dispatch Box—the reason why Government after Government did not want to address the contaminated blood scandal was that it was prohibitively expensive to pay the victims—it turned out that the numbers that the Department of Health had produced were wrong. That would never have come to light unless there had been a debate—a very well-attended debate. I am sorry to hear that it is still going on.
Q35 Wendy Chamberlain: Well, we are getting updates on compensation and the scheme, and I am sure we are all hearing from constituents as well. When the Committee came to a conclusion in 2015 with the general election, what were your reflections on whether your three rules had been achieved?
Natascha Engel: One thing that I thought was really interesting was that making the submission to the Backbench Business Committee was often enough. That was televised, and people could use that on their social media. That was enough to raise an issue and to say to constituents that that issue had been raised. That was something that we had not really thought about when the Committee was first set up. So meeting in public was, I think, the most important thing for us.
Q36 Wendy Chamberlain: Ian, you were Chair of the Committee in more recent years. What are your reflections on the aims of the Committee that you chaired?
Ian Mearns: To reflect what Natascha said, it was there so that Members, on behalf of their constituents, could raise and have a debate on an issue that might not otherwise get an airing in either Government or Opposition time. I think that was vital. A whole range of subjects came to us that probably would not have got parliamentary time but which proved to be popular and important. From that perspective, the Committee has given that opportunity. Let’s not forget: MPs are not just MPs; they are here representing their constituents and their constituents’ concerns. It was about bringing up constituents’ concerns and getting groups of like-minded MPs, with similar constituency concerns, together to have a debate, to raise issues and to get a governmental response, which is important.
Q37 Wendy Chamberlain: This question is to you both. What, if any, challenges are there in terms of how the Backbench Business Committee operates and should look to operate, going forward?
Ian Mearns: An awful lot of onus seems to be put on to the Backbench Business Committee in relation to the time that is allotted. For instance, before the Backbench Business Committee existed, there were annual defence debates. Then the Government response to Members wanting to have a defence debate became, “Well, go and apply to the Backbench Business Committee for time to do so.” That was an unintended consequence possibly—I don’t know—but it seems that things of that importance may have slid down the political agenda, because, for instance, we could not allocate a three-day defence debate but you could get an afternoon on a Thursday.
Wendy Chamberlain: Which is not quite the same. Natascha, what are your views?
Natascha Engel: One thing, certainly in the first couple of years of the Backbench Business Committee, was that it was very successful because it provided a forum that had not existed before. Certainly the 2010 intake made very good use of it as a way of showcasing what they could do. In that sense, it was very successful. But one thing that we found was that people started to try to get us to do too many other things, and extend the powers of the Backbench Business Committee. First, e-petitions, which we will come on to, were given to the Backbench Business Committee, which was a very poor fit, but also there was lots of, and there still is, discussion about whether private Members’ Bills should be selected through the Backbench Business Committee rather than by ballot. I think you have to be so careful about loading too many powers on to it. Private Members’ Bills are definitely better chosen by random ballot than by merit, because who can judge other Back-Bench MPs on whether their ideas are good or bad? You just can’t do it. Also, you would please one person; you would be the world enemy of everyone else. So I would warn against loading too many powers on to the Backbench Business Committee.
Q38 Chair: This is in the context of how we use time in this place. Clearly there is a distinction between the time that the Government get and the time that the Opposition have a right to, and the rest of the time, on which Back-Bench business has a great claim. To go back to what Ian said, it is interesting that there is a counter view, I think, from within Government, where there was an expectation that the Backbench Business Committee would pick up those defence debates and maybe pick up national day debates, which were invariably in Government time and very popular. That has not always happened, so I think there is a bit of a gap between what the Backbench Business Committee has gone off and done by popular demand and what the expectation is, not just in Government but among people looking across the piece at what Parliament actually is there for and what it delivers. And that is what we are looking at.
Ian Mearns: But to respond to that, Alan, it is the “Backbench” Business Committee. It is not the Government’s Committee to dictate to; it is there for Back Benchers to put applications in and show support for a debate so that an issue can be aired.
Natascha Engel: One thing is that, if the debates are owned by Back Benchers, they are far more likely to turn up and speak in the debate. It would be interesting to compare how many people took part in those more regular defence or fisheries debates, and how well represented some of those other debates led by the Back Benchers themselves were. That would be quite an interesting piece of research.
Chair: I am sure that is part of—well, that is part of what we are doing. I want to focus on the question of time now and go to Paulette.
Q39 Paulette Hamilton: My question is around allocation. I will start with Ian, then, if you have any other reflections, Natascha, just jump straight in. What do you think about the Backbench Business Committee and how it should allocate time? Should allocations be pro rata or, as it is currently done, a specific number of days?
Ian Mearns: One of the problems that the Committee has always had is that it would never know what other business was going to come up on the days that it had allocated for Backbench debates. On a number of occasions, debates that we thought were important had to be conflated because of urgent questions, statements, and so on, on a Thursday. That has happened.
On a number of occasions, I, as Chair of the Committee, was doing a lot of shuttle diplomacy, sort of running around the building, trying to get hold of people to say, “Look, there is too much time elapsed here; can we hold your debate over to another week?” or, “Can we have two 90-minute debates instead of two three-hour debates?” Although we never actually got two three-hour debates on a Thursday anyway—or very, very rarely. That was part of my role: actually running around trying to appease people because too much time had been taken up by other business in the House before the time allocated for Backbench Business Committee debates. That is about putting your question into context, Paulette.
In terms of trying to prioritise, honestly, we would take applications on their merits: how many Members had signed them and how many had said that they wanted to speak in those debates. Quite often, we found that the number of people who had signed an application was quite different from the number of people who actually turned up for a debate, but part of the problem with the process is that, when Members sign an application, they do not know what date or time it will be allocated. They are signing in good faith, by and large, but they will not know exactly when the scheduling is, so they cannot commit automatically to being there. But we tried to take that on good faith and allocate from that perspective.
Paulette Hamilton: Do you want to add anything, Natascha?
Natascha Engel: Yes, definitely. There is the formal and the informal allocation of time. You have the formal 35 days per Session. We found that there was a big difference between the first Session and the last Session. Certainly, the enthusiasm to get involved in everything in Parliament when people are first elected is much greater than towards the end of the Parliament, when they are keener to be in their constituencies to campaign. It was therefore quite handy to have that flexibility, as the Chair of the Committee.
That flexibility was also handy for the Government, certainly in that coalition period, where they found it very difficult to get any legislation through Parliament at all. That meant that there was a lot of spare time floating around, so actually having the Backbench Business Committee schedule debates that were interesting to people was really useful.
That informality depends on the relationship between the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the Leader of the House, and, to a certain extent, the Chief Whip, but having that as an informal and good relationship really works. Whether you have pro rata or that definite numbers of days, it all depends on personal relationships.
If you asked me to choose one or the other, I would definitely go with pro rata. Our first Session was almost two years, and I think this last Session ran to nearly two years. Then you are relying on the good will of the Government, and that may not work.
Q40 Paulette Hamilton: Following on from that, to round this part off, you have talked about informally being given extra days. What was your experience of actually having those informal days thrown at you at the last minute? How did you find that?
Natascha Engel: Our system was slightly different. When you took over, Ian, it definitely changed—I am sure that we will get to that. Members would come in on a Tuesday to schedule a debate for Thursday of the week after, so they always knew when the debate was going to be. We did not have the issues that your Committee and subsequent Committees have had in scheduling debates for maybe six months down the line, when people are not here or the topicality is gone. People applied for a debate, and if they failed, they would have to come back again. It was very different. That also meant that, if there were things that were really burning and pressing, I could easily ask the Government for extra time, and they would give it. We had far more time, even pro rata.
Q41 Paulette Hamilton: It sounded quite gentlemanly back then. Ian, could you say what is happening now?
Ian Mearns: I know I am a very familiar face, but I haven’t been here for two years!
I remember times when Governments were going through periods of difficulty, and the Leader of the House would announce the next week’s business with three out of four days for Backbench Business—that did happen—so we became a useful tool for filling parliamentary time, and that helped to clear the backlog. Having said that, there were also times when we got allocated 27 days in the Chamber, and over a two-year period we were begging for additional time that was quite often not forthcoming. I believe that prorating should be built in there.
When the thing was invented, it was anticipated that a normal parliamentary Session would be about a year, and you would get 27 days in the Chamber within that.
Q42 Jesse Norman: What you are saying is very interesting. If you have 35 days and the Session is two years, you are at 17.5 days per year, not 27, which is a material difference. Will you both reflect a little on how the prorating might work? Should there be 20 or 25 days a year, or should it be run so that there is a certain number of days for every three months? How would it work?
Ian Mearns: I think it could something on a quarterly or six-monthly basis, done by negotiation between the Backbench Business Committee and the Leader of the House, quite possibly, to organise it.
Q43 Jesse Norman: So a rebuttable expectation that goes into a debate between the two, and they say, “Well, over the next two or three months, we think we should have 10 days”, or whatever it might be?
Ian Mearns: I think it depends on how much time the Government have allocated in the previous three to six months, and you can take it from that experience.
Natascha Engel: There is an argument for the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee and the Clerk to be a bit more involved in the day-to-day business management, so that they can also see what the Government have to deal with—I know this is very thin ice here.
I think that would help the Backbench Business Committee to understand the kind of pressures and challenges that the business managers face on a weekly basis. It would also mean, to go back to that informality, much more give and take, where the Backbench Business Committee could sometimes help out, and understand when there is a very heavy pressure on parliamentary time from the Government. For every new Government, the time after the first King’s Speech of a Parliament will always be very busy, while the fourth and fifth years are not.
Jesse Norman: Yes, but by the same token, demand for back-bench time will be bigger earlier on for the same reason.
Natascha Engel: Absolutely.
Ian Mearns: Additionally, what I always tried to do as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee was make sure that Members put in applications for debates regarding anniversaries or commemorations well in advance, so that we could give advance notice to the Government that those commemorations and anniversaries were coming up. That helped the Government from a business management perspective as well.
Chair: Talking about the management of applications, I want to bring in Daniel.
Q44 Daniel Francis: Natascha, could you tell us about how the Committee managed applications when you chaired it?
Natascha Engel: To go back to the earlier point, very differently from how Ian’s Committee managed it. At first, it was difficult; we were not really on anyone’s radar because we had not existed before, so it was a lot of going around and explaining to Back Benchers that this is what they could do and what that might look like. People got the hang of it quite quickly, but it was hard work at the beginning just to get people to put in applications.
We created a format where we needed to have a cross-party group. They could disagree—they could be for or against an issue—but they all had to be cross party and bring that debate to the Committee. We eventually had written applications, but they came a bit later; I do not think we started with them. Again, we were very clear that we would allocate either two half days or one whole day. We occasionally had three debates, but that was very rare. Westminster Hall was slightly different. I am sure we will come on to the difference between the Chamber and Westminster Hall, but it was very much Chamber-focused, and the allocation of time was mainly Chamber-focused.
It was very straightforward. It was just a written application, and people would have to put their names to a motion. The Clerk’s role was very important in terms of helping Back Benchers to put motions together and of explaining what the effect of those motions would be. We had one issue, as you will remember, Chair. Because it was so new, people would put their names to motions that they did not realise were controversial, and the Whips were not too pleased with them. They would then want to withdraw their names from the motion. That was a big issue for a while. Certainly, when you were Chair, Ian, there were fewer votable motions than there were in our day when we had a lot. That was the point: we could have votes on motions.
Ian Mearns: We would give priority to votable motions that came forward for a debate, because we thought it was important to use Chamber time in that way if we could.
Daniel Francis: Ian, is there anything you want to add?
Ian Mearns: The whole process evolved over time. We ended up with an application form on which Members would write the text of the motion or the subject matter that they wanted to discuss, and Members could sign that so you would have an idea of the support for a particular debate application just by the number of signatures. Having said that, some Members had good networks and could get lots of people’s signatures quite easily. That did not mean that it was a better or more important subject matter, but you had to have a radar for that, which we did.
Q45 Daniel Francis: Were either of you rejecting applications?
Natascha Engel: We were definitely rejecting applications. Well, it was not rejecting applications; it was more that the applications were unsuccessful, which certainly happened at the beginning when there was quite a lot of Whip involvement. That was very clear early on, but it stopped quickly. We would not reject a debate in the way the Petitions Committee might reject a petition on technical grounds. That did not really happen; there were no technical reasons why we would not schedule a debate.
Ian Mearns: Very occasionally we would get very badly written applications, and we would reject them on that basis.
Q46 Daniel Francis: I have one more for Natascha. I understand the Committee was picking one debate at a time at that stage, which was arguably more time consuming than adding all the eligible debates to a waiting list. Could you outline the advantages and disadvantages of that approach?
Natascha Engel: The advantages were that we definitely had topicality in a way you would not have now. We did not schedule fewer debates; we just did not have a waiting list. If you have fewer debates being put forward than you have time to allocate, that is a problem and then a waiting list makes sense, but we just did not have that issue in that first period. I can see why there is a waiting list, but we just found it easier. Topicality was very important to us at the time.
Ian Mearns: When we talked about the waiting list as a Committee, we would quite often rejig the waiting list depending on the importance of newer applications. If a new application came in and it seemed very topical, important and well supported, we would bump it up the list.
Q47 Chair: Did the waiting list come in when you were Chair?
Ian Mearns: Yes.
Q48 Chair: And has it continued?
Ian Mearns: As far as I know.
Chair: Interesting, thank you. I want to move on to something we have not talked about a great deal yet. This session is not just about Backbench Business; it is also about petitions. Let us go to Rachel.
Q49 Rachel Hopkins: Natascha, you mentioned your experience as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee and the poor fit of allocating e-petitions prior to the Petitions Committee being established. Could you give us a bit more of your take on that?
Natascha Engel: It was very interesting. All these things were new. I do not know whether you remember, but in the Gordon Brown Government, there was a No. 10 petition that drew more than 1 million signatures for Jeremy Clarkson to become Prime Minister. One of the first things the Cameron Government did was to take down that website. They obviously had to replace it with something else that was a bit more meaningful.
They came up with the idea of petitions. To make it more meaningful, if it reached 10,000 signatures, the Government would provide a response, and if it got 100,000 signatures, there would be a debate. Nobody thought that through or what the mechanism would be. This is a piece of public engagement; it is about the public, not about Back Benchers or Parliament.
Petitions are enormously important for democracy and how Parliament was set up. Jesse will know much more about that than I do. It is very important, but they did not know where to put petitions, so they put them with the Backbench Business Committee. I can see the logic of that, but there was no debate about it at all; it just got given to the Backbench Business Committee. It was even more awkward for us because we were still trying to establish what the Backbench Business Committee was for—for Back Benchers to have a platform to scrutinise Government and hold them to account. This was not the vehicle to do that.
The first petition to reach 100,000 signatures demonstrated the problems of this. It was that all Manchester rioters should have their benefits withdrawn. That is a quite problematic motion, because nobody had worked with the person who was doing the petition, but it became very popular. We were then in a position where we had to schedule a debate on it in Westminster Hall, which nobody wanted to lead. We then tagged a report on the Manchester riots, where there had been an inquiry, so it became about the inquiry rather than people having their benefits withdrawn.
Of course, what happened was inevitable and I know the Petitions Committee now has the same problem. If you raised public expectations that something will happen, people thought there would be a debate, a vote and a change in the law. They got really cross when that did not happen. The Manchester rioters did not have their benefits withdrawn—it might have surprised the petitioners that some of the rioters were not even on benefits—and that was a real disappointment.
We went up to Scotland to see how the petitions committee there worked. I do not know whether you are doing anything on that, but it was really interesting. They had started in the same way we had started and realised early on that the gateway process was the important thing. Anybody who wanted to raise a petition worked with effectively the Clerks in the Scottish Parliament. It was a two-way conversation about, “What are you trying to achieve? Because a petition might not be the best way to do that. It may actually be making an appointment to see your MP, or writing a letter of lots of different ways to achieve what you want that may not be anything to do with an e-petition.” They had a huge number of e-petitions to start with, but that reduced the number quite dramatically.
They had the petitions committee, but they did not have any numbers. The numbers 10,000 and 100,000 are completely arbitrary and no indication of whether an issue is important, topical or any of those other things. As long as there were six signatories on the petition, they were eligible to bring it forward to the petitions committee. The same as with our Backbench Business Committee, often the need was satisfied by just making a representation—people going to the Scottish Parliament to explain their issue, but not really needing a debate, because they just needed that platform, which was enough. We should be looking more at what people are trying to get out of the petitions in the first place. It is an awful lot more work for the Clerks, but in the long term it may be less work overall. The distinction that one is internal parliamentary scrutiny and the other one is external public engagement is really important.
Ian Mearns: On reflection, part of the whole process is having a Member of Parliament who wants to lead the debate on that particular subject—and that does not automatically materialise. It did not back then, and I remember that because, before I became Chair of the Committee, I was on the Committee with Natascha from November 2010, and we worked together for quite a few years before.
Q50 Chair: Before we look at the question of where petitions might be heard, let me return to this question of how it all started and was then developed. My understanding is that you got petitions and there was no discussion about it. Then over time, there came the Petitions Committee—we have discussed some of the merits of that. On reflection, where is the best place for petitions?
Natascha Engel: Definitely the Petitions Committee. The setting up of the Petitions Committee was great. I think it was a great innovation. However, we should look at how the application process works, and at the arbitrary setting of 10,000 and 100,000 signatories. Big newspapers, large charities and religious organisations can get 100,000 signatures very easily. That is not necessarily a reflection of the importance of a debate. We should look at the gateway, filter and triage.
Q51 Chair: Nevertheless, there is competition between petitions and Backbench Business for time and space.
Natascha Engel: Definitely. It gets into the tension around what Parliament is for. We have a highly representative system. Each Member represents their constituents and that is the avenue through which representation happens. A petitions system bypasses that. I know that with the petitions you can see which of your constituents have signed a petition, which is great, but it is a bit the other way round.
Q52 Chair: As an MP I can see the number. As far as I know, we cannot see anything else.
Natascha Engel: Sorry, you are right. I meant that you can see the popularity of a petition in your constituency.
I think that in a modern Parliament, you cannot not have that kind of public engagement. We have tried it with public second readings of Bills and they were all really unsuccessful. The number of people who are signing petitions and getting involved in the petition system is really impressive. I just think it needs to be a bit better so that people’s expectations are better managed.
Q53 Wendy Chamberlain: On the topic of better managing expectations, there is absolutely no doubt that some petitions, particularly those with over 100,000 signatures, are very popular. That is not only in terms of attendance by MPs because of the high numbers, but also by attendance of people who come to see the debate in Westminster Hall, which can sometimes be quite difficult to manage. In relation to how often they are viewed on Parliament TV, there are also quite high numbers. That has led to some saying that those petitions should be in the main Chamber rather than Westminster Hall.
I think I know the answer to my second question—or, at least, what I think your answers will be—on where the allocation of time should come from. But I will come to Ian for my first question: do you think there is a case for some Petitions Committee debates to be held in the main Chamber?
Ian Mearns: I think I do, but holding petition debates in the Chamber will actually begin to extend an expectation that all petition debates should be held in the Chamber, so that could create its own demand. Part of the problem is who decides that and how, and what rules they use to decide which ones remain in Westminster Hall and which go into the Chamber. All petitions are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Q54 Wendy Chamberlain: It could be the speed of numbers, for example, because I suppose that would increase the topicality. Natascha, do you have any thoughts?
Natascha Engel: I have been thinking about this since we discussed the efficient use of time. First, on the 100,000 signatures, my old constituency had about 74,000 people in it, and there are 650 constituencies. Relatively speaking, 100,000 signatures is not that many, yet the expectation is that it is a big number, so therefore, if Parliament does not do something, it is not listening to the people. I think that kind of messaging is problematic.
Also, going back to what Ian said about having an e-petition but not having someone who wants to lead the debate on it, that makes it quite difficult under our system. You cannot have a debate not being led, whether it is by a Minister or a Back Bencher. I watched the evidence session with Bob and Jamie, and one of the ways to guard against that is an MP taking a petition to the Backbench Business Committee and asking for time in the Chamber, which gets around it. You have the same rules—it has to be cross-party, topical and whatever—but that would get around it.
I take your point about time being precious, and if you just add however many more days of Chamber time on to what is already quite a lot of time—the 27 days—you really start eating into Government time. Those are balances and priorities. Again, I think that having a closer relationship between the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee and the House business managers could probably get around that, and that seems quite a sensible way to do it.
Q55 Wendy Chamberlain: I am hearing from you both quite strongly that giving just some petition debates Chamber time is not the answer, and that it needs to be considered in the round. As I said, I think I know your answer to this, Natascha, but should the Petitions Committee have its own allocation, if that were to be the case, or should it come from BBCom?
Natascha Engel: Definitely not from BBCom, but I do not mind where they get it from.
Ian Mearns: I agree.
Q56 John Lamont: I just want to follow up on Wendy’s point about using the main Chamber of the House of Commons for a Petitions Committee debate. I say this as a member of the Petitions Committee, but is it not the case that the Petitions Committee can bid into the Backbench Business Committee for Chamber time, and the expectation is that, if it does so, it will get it? That certainly seems—
Ian Mearns: There might possibly be an expectation from the Petitions Committee that it will get it, but I am not certain that is reflected by the Backbench Business Committee—I would have to talk to the members now to find out what their current thinking is. By and large, the Petitions Committee would make applications to the Backbench Business Committee if it really thought that a petition merited that attention.
Q57 John Lamont: Did that happen when you were chairing it?
Ian Mearns: Yes, it did.
Natascha Engel: We did not have the Petitions Committee when I was Chair, but I just think it would be quite a neat way of dealing with something that is a problem in the way our Parliament works. It is just not set up to receive public petitions, or for the public petitions to be automatically debated when they reach an arbitrary number, and I think that is the issue.
Q58 John Lamont: I think there is a misunderstanding that once you reach 100,000, there is automatically a debate, but the Committee has a discretion. We have an informal rule: if the Chair takes it, it is guaranteed there will be a debate.
Chair: I want to open this up to anybody else, particularly if they have not asked a question. Has anybody got any burning questions that they want to ask?
Q59 Daniel Francis: Can I ask about multiple applicants to the Committee? Did you experience having multiple applicants and did you have a way of dealing with that?
Ian Mearns: Yeah. [Laughter.] From my experience, you would get an application on something that might have been regarded as a contentious subject, looking at it from one particular angle, and within a matter of days you would get another application from another set of MPs looking at the same subject from a different political angle. This is where our safeguard of having topicality and cross-party support came in. Quite often you would get one application that had one group of parties and another application with another group of parties. We would then say, “Can we get the groups together and have a subject? A debate is a debate. There will be people who are in favour and people who are against a subject.” So we did try and do that, but sometimes it was difficult to get the two opposing groups to come to an agreement.
Natascha Engel: Again, going back to Bob Blackman’s evidence, there were definitely serial applicants, but they were just very engaged with Backbench debates and interested in policy development, so we were not very strict about that, and what they brought was generally very interesting and a genuine debate. Some debates were about cancer, for example. There were opportunities for people to raise lots of constituency issues and they were mainly charity-focused, but we also had heated debates on continued membership of the EU and Israel-Palestine. We had really serious debates in that time. It tended to be the same people coming back, but we did not mind.
Ian Mearns: We did on occasion get very similar applications and we just said, “Rather than having a number of applications, can we just get people together, agree the form of words and the motion that you want, and all get in the same tent?” That quite often happened.
Q60 Chair: This is the last question from me, but first of all, thank you for what you have said. It has been fascinating. Is there anything else that you want to add, reflecting on your time as Chair, that we have not covered today that you think is important?
Natascha Engel: I just go back to what the role of the Backbench Business Committee is and the role of the Petitions Committee. Being really clear about what you are trying to achieve is important in driving the evolution of them. I definitely think the petitioners need to be triaged before they post their petitions. That would be important in expectation management, because it can be quite damaging if people are expecting a change in the law and they do not even get a debate. That could be quite corrosive.
The Backbench Business time, the opportunity and the platform are precious. It is good for the Government to see, without it being a crisis, that a head of steam is building up. That opportunity changed the dynamic in Parliament. It made Back Benchers realise that, if you give them the power of tabling votable motions, that comes with a responsibility. They can no longer hide behind the Whips and say, “I am not allowed to do it.” It has been a great innovation, and the Petitions Committee has also been fantastic for Parliament.
Ian Mearns: Briefly, by the time I retired, the Backbench Business Committee had been in existence for 14 years, but we were still coming up against things that were unprecedented. We evolved over time to try to cover all the bases, but we still occasionally came up with issues and situations we had not covered before. Some measure of understanding has to be given. Despite the fact it has now been going 16 years, unusual things come up from time to time.
Q61 Chair: That brings us to the end of our session. I thank both of you—it has been fascinating and informative and will help us a great deal. Our next session is on 23 June when we will continue to look at Backbench Business Committee and Petitions Committee debate inquiries, hearing from academics and experts, from whom we have also heard this morning, though slightly different ones.
Ian Mearns: Can I thank you very much, Chair, for the invitation? This happens to be the 16th anniversary of my maiden speech.
Chair: You’ve spoilt the surprise—we’ve got a party for you. Thank you very much.