Annie Howitt is the Senior Communities Officer at the organisation Sense about Science, an independent charity that campaigns for the use of sound science and evidence in public life. She’s worked with community groups and organisations over two previous Evidence Weeks to raise public concerns in the House of Parliament with MPs and national experts.
Follow Annie on X here.
Have you ever wondered what information Government uses to make its decisions? Is there an issue where you don’t think politicians are using the best available evidence?
Evidence matters to people, and our representatives must be able to use it to scrutinise important decisions and policies. Our recent survey data has shown that 66% of people want to see all the evidence behind policy decisions, but over 55% of people are not confident that MPs are equipped to question the government on the economy, healthcare, energy policy, climate change and AI.
Sense about Science is teaming up with Mumsnet to bring the issues you care about into the corridors of power and discuss the evidence behind them with MPs, government advisors and experts as part of Evidence Week in Parliament.
This is our seventh year running the campaign, and the opening event is led by people like you asking Parliament about the evidence behind issues you’re passionate about. With an election on the horizon, it’s never been more important for politicians to hear the issues that are affecting you. You can hear from previous participants about why it’s worth taking part in the video below. .
This year the event will take place in-person at Westminster, so you get an immediate answer from policy makers and select committee representatives, including the science and technology, health and social care and education committees.
We’d love Mumsnetters to take this opportunity to come with us to Parliament to raise the issues that matter to you. If your question is selected, you’ll be invited to join us in Westminster to ask your question in person on Monday 24th June 5-6.30pm. We’ll help you organise transport, and if you can’t make it a representative of Mumsnet will be able to ask your question on your behalf!
It’s completely up to you to decide the topics under discussion, and you can ask about anything – we’ve had questions on energy, housing, pensions, transport and healthcare policymaking, parliamentary process and even allotment planning. The only restriction is that you should ask the policymakers to look at the evidence and explain how it’s been used, not just tell them what you think they should do.
You can take part by submitting your issue via our online form. There’s no need to have worked out your exact question yet, we just need the topic and we can support you in developing it into a question ready for the event.
If you have any questions, you can get in touch with us at
[email protected] or check out our FAQs.
We hope that mums across the country take the opportunity to join us in Parliament, and show MPs that evidence matters. We look forward to receiving your questions!