The Brown Government has discovered the People. The secret garden of the Westminster village is being opened up, and the public are being invited in. But on what terms? The constitutional Green Paper is a Catherine wheel of ideas sufficient to fill several Queen’s Speeches. Both there and in yesterday’s statement on the NHS (where the people appear as patients), the Government is treading a fine line between representative democracy and direct participation.

There is little dispute now that voters have a right to be involved between elections, rather than just every four or five years at the ballot box. E-mail and more energetic MPs have resulted in a huge increase in communications with constituents. Commons committees are also consulting more via the internet. Gordon Brown and David Cameron keep insisting that they are listening. But this appears a one-way process, in which the public are asked to comment on, and approve, leaders’ views. There is now widespread support for improving procedures for public petitions to the Commons, at present largely a formality. More than 4.4 million people have signed petitions to the Prime Minister since last November, but this has been a messy process since the petitions do not produce anything except an official response. Far better would be a version of the Scottish system where petitions are assessed and some are then considered by specialist committees. This has led to specific action and remedies. Petitioners know their concerns are being seriously considered, while decisions remain with legislators.

Mr Brown and Mr Cameron have talked of a trigger mechanism so that if a certain number of people sign a petition, it will be debated by MPs. But how far should this be taken? Some supporters of direct democracy favour a right of public initiation of legislation, though MPs would have the final say.

Implicit in these calls, as in the Power report, is a mistrust of the party system. The danger is of empowering vocal minorities of the active rather than the public as a whole. A representative system allows everyone a voice with parties providing coherence between competing minority claims. At a local level, however, the Government has talked of extending the right of people to intervene with their elected representatives through community rights to call for action; duties to consult through citizens’ juries; powers of redress; and powers to ballot on spending decisions. (There are echoes of these views in yesterday’s NHS statement.) There is scope for more public involvement locally, but, again, does community mean just the vocal and active, or everyone? The right to have a say, especially over decisions affecting everyday lives, is crucial. But, as the Green Paper says, “creating a more participatory democracy requires a healthy representative democracy”.

The Government needs to clarify the distinction between popular consultation and decision-making. Ministers might start by trying to establish a consensus (highly unlikely) on when, and if, national referendums should be held. Ever since the Irish Home Rule debates of a century ago, staunch defenders of parliamentary sovereignty have liked to invoke the People when they fear how MPs will vote. It is time for clarity.

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