Westminster is getting back to life with the start of the new parliamentary term and one of the first things on the agenda is a debate inspired by the Sky News #MakeDebatesHappen campaign.

The campaign started with a parliamentary petition calling for an independent commission to oversee television debates between party leaders at general elections.

Backed by more than 135,000 Sky News viewers and readers, it has attracted enough support to guarantee it is discussed in Westminster.

The petition will be debated by MPs on Monday and you can watch it in full and live on Sky News and Sky News mobile from 4.30pm.

The Conservative MP who is opening that debate, Steve Double, has told Sky News he thinks it is "inevitable" that leaders' debates will become a permanent fixture of the political calendar.


He will open the debate in Westminster Hall where public petitions are debated. There, a minister will be obliged to respond and lay out the government's position, and MPs can make their views known.

Leaders' debates to 'test our future PM'

Television debates are commonplace in most democracies - but in the UK they have only happened once, in 2010.

Before and since, negotiations over the topic have broken down between party leaders and broadcasters.

The idea of the commission is to take politics out of the discussions, as happens with the Commission on Presidential Debates in the US, where a TV debate has taken place in every election since 1976.

The debate in Westminster Hall is an important staging post of the campaign.

"I think what's important is two things," Mr Double said. "One, you can gauge the level of interest in parliament for that particular issue.

"And as I've said, very importantly you get the government on record laying out their position. I think it will very much depend what the government's response to this debate is.

"That will show us whether this is something they are prepared to take forward, or whether those who feel sternly that debates should become a regular feature will have to take other courses of action to try and bring this forward."

If the government is not willing to adopt the policy, other MPs have said they are willing to take up the baton.

Wellingborough MP Peter Bone plans to table his own private members' bill in the House of Commons in March, hoping to rally fellow parliamentarians.

"By having a commission established now, it's far away enough from the general election that it can be established and they can work out what is right for the broadcasters, the politicians and the public," the Conservative politician said.

"And if we get it right now we'll always have leaders' debates."

The recently aborted Brexit TV duels between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, cancelled as a result of intra-party wrangling, show why a new commission might be needed.

Unless the government gets behind such a scheme it will be unlikely to pass, though of course in a hung parliament anything is possible.

Whatever the outcome, all of this will be debated in parliament for the first time, thanks to Sky News viewers and readers.