Ministers have proposed increasing the threshold by which e-petitions have a chance of generating a Commons debate amid a flurry of high-profile campaigns.

The e-petition system was created last year by David Cameron to make politics more accessible to the public. There is now a common public assumption that any e-petition with over 100,000 signatures will generate a Parliamentary debate – like the one taking place right now over fuel duty.

In reality, however, a petition that receives more that 100,000 signatures is sent to the Commons’ backbench committee of MPs, which then decides whether or not to hold a debate on the issue.  But the committee can also schedule debates on any issue proposed by other MPs – with or without petitions.

Its two most high-profile debates so far have prompted big rebellions for Mr Cameron; one Read more

Ministers in the Home Office are under new pressure – this time over allegations that they published “highly selective” statistics on drug seizures.

The chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar, has written to Damian Green, the immigration minister. Sir Michael asked for reassurance that the Home Office did not deliberately publish a press release suggesting a rise in seizures of Class A drugs to enhance the reputation of the UK Border Agency.

The letter says: “It was, I understand, produced without any involvement by, and without the knowledge of, the Department’s statisticians; and it is highly selective in its choice of statistics, in order, it seems, to show the UK Border Agency in a good light.”

Sir Michael suggests that if this was the case it would be “highly corrosive and damaging to public confidence in national statistics”.

This is the latest headache for Theresa May, home secretary, given the recent furore over immigration checks. Right now Brodie Clark, former head of the UK Border Force (part of the agency) – who resigned over the controversy – is facing the Home Affairs Select Committe.

Here is the letter to Damian Green:

Dear Mr Green

I am writing to express concern about the Home Office press release issued on 4 November 2011, copy enclosed, which contained statistical information on the volume of seizures of Class A drugs by the UK Border Agency. This press release was embargoed until 7 November, three days

 Read more

Chuka Umunna made his first flagship speech as shadow business secretary this morning at Bloomberg HQ in the City.

He was asked again about the “predator-producer” distinction made by Ed Miliband in his conference speech in late September. (You may remember that the Labour leader was criticised for the simplicity of his argument.) Read more

Andrew Lansley is to prevent primary care trusts from arbitrarily setting minimum waiting times and caps on the number of NHS treatments. In principle quite right too.

But the NHS also still has maximum waiting times – despite the health secretary’s initial attempt to scrap them as a Labour “top down” target.

So cash pressured primary care trusts, and their successors the clinical commissioning groups, will not be allowed to set minimum waits but will still have to attempt to honour maximum ones when longer waits have always been the way the service copes when spending is tight.

Over the next four years it is set to get very tight indeed as demand rises but the money remains flat in real terms.

So how can it cope? The good ways include redesigning service to deliver high quality at lower cost – in effect increasing efficiency – although the service’s ability to do that on the scale needed is in question. The bad ones are likely to include raising the threshold for Read more

David Cameron is poised to announce a sharp rise in the number of brownfield sites owned by Whitehall departments which will be made available for developers to build new homes.

During the Tory party conference five weeks ago the prime minister said that sites for 50,000 homes had been identified after departments had come forward with unused land.

Now that figure has risen to 83,500, according to coalition insiders, making it likely that there will be a surge in homebuilding on government land in the coming years.

That announcement is set to form a key part in a housing strategy announcement by the prime minister later this month ahead of the wider growth review.

Five departments have so far come forward with brownfield sites under pressure from Read more

If you are not familiar with Adrian Beecroft, the former venture capitalist, here is the upsum: the Tory donor was commissioned not long ago to compile a report into how employment law could be shaken up. He was called in by Steve Hilton (pictured), the head of policy in No 10, who wants to slash red tape as part of the autumn growth review.

As yet the report has not been published but its main proposal has been leaked to the sympathetic Daily Telegraph: that companies should be allowed to fire at will. Instead of going through complex unfair dismissal procedures they could simply get rid of staff and offer a pay-off. He admits that this would lead to some managers sacking people simply because they did not like them: “While this is sad I believe it is a price worth paying for all the benefits that would result from the change“, he says in the report.

The proposal has the backing of many business groups including the British Chambers of Commerce and the Institute of Directors.

But opposition within Whitehall has been led by Vince Cable and Nick Clegg, who believe the report’s recommendations go far too far. Their most convincing argument is that there would be an immediate impact on consumer spending if people suddenly lost their job security and feared they could be sacked at any time.

Critics of Beecroft believe he has a knee-jerk right-wing attitude. Apparently the first draft included a recommendation that women on maternity leave should give six weeks’ notice Read more