I WRITE regarding the claim by John Pentland, convener of Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee (Letters, August 28), that I did not "set in context" that a petition, to be accepted, must call for action that is within the Parliament's powers. (“Holyrood petitions call revamp call after hundreds blocked”, The Herald, August 28)
One of the first questions I put to the Scottish Parliament, during a long investigation, was whether or not undevolved issues could be a main reason for the huge number of rejected petitions. The answer was "no".
We don't know what the rejects were because Edinburgh doesn't publish them, unlike the Welsh system.
I am surprised that Mr Pentland is only in "shoot the messenger" mode without any indication that he will act to protect petitioning, the essential value of which I have always upheld. These are not "baseless" assertions; the damning figures are from the Scottish Parliament. The 649 proposed petitions sent in during 2011-15 even exceed the 615 submitted in the Parliament's founding years. But that 615 were admitted, 479 of the recent 649 were rejected. Does that not worry Mr Pentland? What was uplifting for the public was the human concern for petitioners and the value of the petitions system shown by the two MSPs from his committee I quoted. They suggested immediately sensible and public-spirited actions, once they had been informed of the high reject numbers by The Herald. Their attitude reflected well on MSPs - who should never have been kept in the dark.
How does Mr Pentland account for as many as 479 proposed petitions/ideas being rejected and only 170 accepted in the last four years? Why was every MSP on the committee not informed of the reject numbers to give them a chance to challenge? Who decided not to inform all the elected members?
Will Mr Pentland ensure that rejects are published in future, as the Welsh Assembly does? And how does he account for this fourth session of the committee showing the greatest plunge in number of acceptances?
Ultimately, responsibility for what happens rests with MSPs, not the clerks.
Dorothy-Grace Elder,
Turnberry Road, Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel