Wed, 05 Nov 2008
Early Day Motion 2141
Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from Free Our Bills, a campaign run by MySociety to encourage Parliament to publish our laws in a format more amenable to real people looking at, and using, them. This email concerned Early Day Motion 2141. The EDM is very short and readable, so I suggest you look at it yourself. In fact, to make that easier, here it is:
That this House believes it has a duty to publish Bills in such a fashion that they can be accessed as easily and as early as possible by the public; notes that the non-partisan Free Our Bills campaign is urging the House to publish bill texts in a new electronic format to improve accessibility and public scrutiny of legislation; further notes that the changes requested would have no impact on the content of Bills, nor upon the process by which they are currently made; considers that the new format could be delivered cheaply and quickly; acknowledges that the Leader of the House's office did not accept a prior request for new formatting from mySociety, nor provide an explanation of why the changes could be made; and calls on the Leader of House to ask House of Commons Clerks to work with Free Our Bills campaign staff to commence publication of Bills in the new format.
Anyhow, the point of this email was to ask me to write to my representative and ask them to consider signing the Early Day Motion. As a student, I have the privilege of two MPs: Jim Cunningham for Coventry South, and Stewart Jackson in Peterborough. I sent them both a letter, via WriteToThem expressing my opinion on the matter, urging them to sign the EDM.
This morning, I woke up to find a letter from Jim Cunningham, MP waiting for me. He informed me that he agreed with my position, and has put his name on the EDM (as you can see if you look at the list of signatures). Needless to say, I was rather impressed with this one-day turnaround, and am feeling that I have done my part to keep this country from sinking. All I can say is:
Democracy. It works, bitches.
Posted: Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:47 | | Comments: 1 |