At this time of year educational visits to the House of Commons are arranged for senior students from schools and colleges. Last week I spoke to a group of eighty undergraduates from the Faculty of Law at University College , London and AS level politics students from Peterborough . They listened with apparent interest and asked questions about my role as an Independent MP and about the functions of the House. As it was the day of the Hartlepool by-election I assumed they would be interested in that and so I asked them how they would vote if they lived there and how they planned to vote in the next General Election. The result staggered me! Nine would vote Liberal Democrat, three Labour, none Tory and 68 out of 80 (85%) would not vote at all. These were law undergraduates and AS level students supposed to be interested in politics!

I realise that interest in politics and in voting is at an all time low but these results shocked me even more than the turnout of only 46% at Hartlepool where I had hoped that the electorate might have relished the opportunity of firing a warning shot across the Government’s bows.

A Government with a large majority can do virtually whatever it wants. Is that why people have no interest in elections thinking their vote can have little effect? That is a huge mistake as it is only by use of the ballot box that ordinary people can make a difference. My small survey bears out general experience that young people are even less likely to vote than their older relatives. What can be done to kindle their interest in local and national government? Politicians are wrestling with this problem now. It cannot be lack of relevance to the young when education is so frequently on the agenda and there are increasing numbers of young MPs who should be capable of engaging with youth. I hope that young and old will remember that they can make a difference by voting at the next General Election as I believe a more balanced House of Commons is vital to hold the executive to account and for our democracy to function less like a dictatorship.

Most people are coping well with waste recycling but a few continue to have concerns about fortnightly bin collections which we now have in return for weekly collections of recyclable waste. The prime reason for this change was to reduce the unsustainable transfer of rubbish to landfill and to increase our recycling rate from among the lowest to a level other European countries achieve. Extra waste collections would defeat this object so we must persevere and make the current system work. I am grateful that the Council has addressed a few exceptional problems that were referred to me initially.