Wonderful energies and initiative Alison thank you. MPs are paid servants of the people they are supposed (and elected) to represent, via taxation of the people. The fact that a petition like this has not emerged successfully ever before is evidence that it is needed. The facts that: only a very a tiny minority of people are aware of the Nolan Principles; the vast majority of young people leave school and further education without knowing about the Nolan Principles; and the Nolan Principles do not feature in BBC and mainstream media, are all further evidence that this petition is badly needed. I've signed the petition. Love, gratitude, peace, Alan
Thank you for your petition - 711463 - Require electoral candidates to disclose interests in their election address.
Before we can accept your petition, we’ll need to make a few changes, to ensure your petition meets our standards. If you accept our changes, your petition will read as follows:
Require electoral candidates to declare interests in their nomination papers
Require candidates to declare their current and past interests in their nomination papers. We think this change could enable voters to make more informed decisions and could better integrate the Nolan principles into our electoral process. We believe this could help enhance electoral transparency.
The declaration should include, but not be limited to:
Family connections to relevant industries or political entities
Professional qualifications
Disqualifications and criminal convictions
A standardised format for declaring interests should be implemented to help ensure consistency and ease of comparison for voters.
If you are happy to accept that suggestion, let me know and I will publish your petition. If you would like something different, let me know and we can discuss the wording.
Kind regards,
Ben Petitions Committee Team
House of Commons, Palace of Westminster, London SW1A 0AA"
I replied:
"Dear Ben,
Thank you or your suggested changes, which improve the petition.
Please consider adding a provision for addressing incorrect declarations by candidates. This could include:
A process for public enquiries to be addressed before the election.
An opportunity for candidates to correct unintentional errors within a specified timeframe with public disclosure of the error and correction
A mechanism for voters to be informed of any significant changes or corrections to a candidate's declared interests before the election.
The petition has the needed initial 5 signatures. Please hold off trying to sign it until the Petitions team have checked it and opened it again for the next 21 signatures.
"Dear Alison Marie Wright, Your petition is nearly ready to go. 5 people have supported your petition, “Require electoral candidates to disclose interests in their election address”, so far. We’re checking your petition to make sure it meets the petition standards. If it does, we’ll publish it. We have a very large number of petitions to check at the moment so it may take us longer than usual to check your petition. Thank you for your patience. Once your petition has 21 signatures it won’t be able to add more until it’s been checked. So, please wait until it’s been checked and published before sharing it with lots more people. Find out how we check petitions before we publish them:
Wonderful energies and initiative Alison thank you. MPs are paid servants of the people they are supposed (and elected) to represent, via taxation of the people. The fact that a petition like this has not emerged successfully ever before is evidence that it is needed. The facts that: only a very a tiny minority of people are aware of the Nolan Principles; the vast majority of young people leave school and further education without knowing about the Nolan Principles; and the Nolan Principles do not feature in BBC and mainstream media, are all further evidence that this petition is badly needed. I've signed the petition. Love, gratitude, peace, Alan
Thanks Alison. It’s a sad commentary on openness and honesty of MP’s that these disclosures aren’t already in force. Petition signed.
You're welcome and thanks for signing. I've submitted the idea to the Electoral Commission, too.
Good news on the petition front:
"Dear Alison,
Thank you for your petition - 711463 - Require electoral candidates to disclose interests in their election address.
Before we can accept your petition, we’ll need to make a few changes, to ensure your petition meets our standards. If you accept our changes, your petition will read as follows:
Require electoral candidates to declare interests in their nomination papers
Require candidates to declare their current and past interests in their nomination papers. We think this change could enable voters to make more informed decisions and could better integrate the Nolan principles into our electoral process. We believe this could help enhance electoral transparency.
The declaration should include, but not be limited to:
Financial interests (investments, directorships, significant shareholdings)
Political affiliations and donations
Memberships of organisations or lobbying groups
Family connections to relevant industries or political entities
Professional qualifications
Disqualifications and criminal convictions
A standardised format for declaring interests should be implemented to help ensure consistency and ease of comparison for voters.
If you are happy to accept that suggestion, let me know and I will publish your petition. If you would like something different, let me know and we can discuss the wording.
Kind regards,
Ben Petitions Committee Team
House of Commons, Palace of Westminster, London SW1A 0AA"
I replied:
"Dear Ben,
Thank you or your suggested changes, which improve the petition.
Please consider adding a provision for addressing incorrect declarations by candidates. This could include:
A process for public enquiries to be addressed before the election.
An opportunity for candidates to correct unintentional errors within a specified timeframe with public disclosure of the error and correction
A mechanism for voters to be informed of any significant changes or corrections to a candidate's declared interests before the election.
Kind regards,
Alison Wright
The petition has the needed initial 5 signatures. Please hold off trying to sign it until the Petitions team have checked it and opened it again for the next 21 signatures.
"Dear Alison Marie Wright, Your petition is nearly ready to go. 5 people have supported your petition, “Require electoral candidates to disclose interests in their election address”, so far. We’re checking your petition to make sure it meets the petition standards. If it does, we’ll publish it. We have a very large number of petitions to check at the moment so it may take us longer than usual to check your petition. Thank you for your patience. Once your petition has 21 signatures it won’t be able to add more until it’s been checked. So, please wait until it’s been checked and published before sharing it with lots more people. Find out how we check petitions before we publish them:
https://petition.parliament.uk/help#standards Thanks,
The Petitions team
UK Government and Parliament"
Petition signed. If you have nothing to hide there shouldn’t be a problem in making such disclosures