Free Our Bills by Writing to Them

Those nice people at Free Our Bills asked me to Write to Them, so I did:

I am writing to ask you to sign Early Day Motion (EDM) 2141, whose text is as follows:

"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."

As you can see, this about making the Parliamentary process more transparent, more useful, and therefore, ultimately, more engaging. This would obviously be beneficial not only for the electorate, but also for politicians.

The new format request is not onerous in the slightest, but would provide a huge boost to democracy in the UK. I hope that you will support it.

Yours sincerely,

Glyn Moody

You might want to do the same if you care about a transparent democratic process - or just want an excuse to write to your MP.