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Local Government and Planning (Parkland and Windfall Development) Bill

I accept that. I would not argue, even at this stage, that we should introduce online voting in local authority and general elections. My biggest concern about referendums being carried out online is fraud. The public must have confidence in the voting method that they use, and until internet voting is improved, we have reservations about it. But we need to think outside the box, rather than assuming that a referendum needs to be a £250,000 exercise in which people turn out at polling stations and put crosses on pieces of paper. There are problems even with that system, with people being away, ballot papers going missing and so on. No method is foolproof, but the concept that the hon. Lady proposes in her Bill could well be extended to other issues. Let us start somewhere. I am in favour of extending democracy. We all speak about devolution in this place, but we pay lip service to it. The best way to devolve any decision is to leave it to individuals to decide. If the public delegate the decision to their local authority, they have no more say about it. The issue in the hon. Lady’s constituency may never have been debated at the time of the last local election. All of a sudden it turns up and the public have had no say in it whatsoever. That is where a referendum would come in handy.