Standards for petitions
Petitions must call for a specific action from the UK Government or the House of Commons.
Petitions must be about something that the Government or the House of Commons is directly responsible for.
Petitions can disagree with the Government and can ask for it to change its policies.
Petitions can be critical of the UK Government or Parliament.
We reject petitions that don’t meet the rules. If we reject your petition, we’ll tell you why. If we can, we’ll suggest other ways you could raise your issue.
We’ll have to reject your petition if:
- It calls for the same action as a petition that’s already open
- It doesn’t ask for a clear action from the UK Government or the House of Commons
- It’s about something the UK Government or House of Commons is not directly responsible for.
- That includes: something that your local council is responsible for; something that another Government (such as the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government or the Northern Ireland Executive) is responsible for; something that is an operational decision for a government or parliamentary body, and something that an independent organisation has done.
- It calls for action at a local level
- It calls for action relating to a particular individual, or organisation that the UK Government or Parliament is not responsible for – except where the organisation’s role or powers are set out in law, and the petition is to amend that law.
- It’s defamatory or libellous, or contains false or unproven statements
- It refers to a case where there are active legal proceedings
- It contains material that may be protected by an injunction or court order
- It contains material that could be confidential or commercially sensitive
- It could cause personal distress or loss. This includes petitions that could intrude into someone’s personal grief or shock without their consent.
- It accuses an identifiable person or organisation of wrongdoing, such as committing a crime
- It names individual officials of public bodies, unless they are senior managers
- It names family members of elected representatives, eg MPs, or of officials of public bodies
- It asks for someone to be given an honour, or have an honour taken away. You can nominate someone for an honour here: www.gov.uk/honours
- It asks for someone to be given a job, or to lose their job. This includes petitions calling for someone to resign and petitions asking for a vote of no confidence in an individual Minister or the Government as a whole
- It contains party political material
- It’s nonsense or a joke
- It’s an advert, spam, or promotes a specific product or service
- It’s a Freedom of Information request
- It contains swearing or other offensive language
- It’s offensive or extreme in its views. That includes petitions that attack, criticise or negatively focus on an individual or a group of people because of characteristics such as their age, disability, ethnic origin, gender identity, medical condition, nationality, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation
- It contains material that it wouldn’t be appropriate to publish as a parliamentary petition
We publish the text of petitions that we reject, as long as they’re not:
- defamatory, libellous or illegal in another way;
- making false or unproven statements;
- about a case there are active legal proceedings or about something that a court has issued an injunction over;
- about an individual person, or organisation that the UK Government or Parliament is not responsible for;
- offensive or extreme;
- confidential or likely to cause personal distress. That includes petitions that could intrude into someone’s personal grief or shock without their consent;
- a joke, an advert or nonsense; or
- containing material that it wouldn’t be appropriate to publish as a parliamentary petition.