Open Up! Speaker's Commission on Digital Democracy report launch

Cutting the jargon, increasing engagement and online voting.

These were all key recommendation of our report, Open Up, released last week.

The report is the culmination of a year's work for me and the commission. We spoke to people up and down the country, held hundreds of meetings and received thousands of messages from around the world.

The Digital Democracy Commission, set up by the House of Commons Speaker John Bercow MP, set out to explore how Parliament could make better use of digital technology to enhance and improve its work.

Our five key targets and recommendations were:

1. By 2020, secure online voting should be an option for all voters.

2. By 2020, the House of Commons should ensure that everyone can understand what it does.

3. By 2020, Parliament should be fully interactive and digital.

4. The 2015 newly elected House of Commons should create immediately a new forum for public participation in the debating function of the House Commons.

5. By 2016, all published information and broadcast footage produced by Parliament should be freely available online in formats for re-use. Hansard should be available as open data by the end of 2015.

The report provides a comprehensive roadmap to break down barriers to public participation. It also makes recommendations to facilitate better scrutiny and improve the legislative process.

As Parliament celebrates its 750th anniversary, it is imperative that we look to the future and see how we can modernise our democracy to meet the changing needs of modern society.

You can read the report in full by clicking here.