The Parliamentary Petitions Committee has proposed changes to its 2019 guidelines to ensure petitions that garner significant public support are debated in parliament. The current guidelines, introduced in 2019, state that “a petition does not require a minimum number of signatures to be considered. Each petition is assessed on its own merits.”Agius noted that while the committee refers certain petitions to the relevant ministries, it often does not receive replies. Under its proposal, petitions that receive 75 to 80 signatures would receive a formal government response, while those drawing 800 signatures would automatically be debated in parliament. “There should be a revision of the 2019 guidelines to introduce a mechanism that ensures the committee can tackle the petitions appropriately,” the committee said.