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Christmas Adjournment

Indeed. We also need some kind of appeals system. I am frustrated by the way the system works at present. It does not serve local interests well when the views of the people who know best—those who represent a local area—are overturned. I firmly believe that the Kilmardinny development as currently proposed should not and must not go ahead. Elsewhere in my constituency, Tesco, which is well known in the context of planning, has a current application to expand its Milngavie store—to knock down the existing store and more than double it in size, in effect placing one of its Tesco Extra stores, I imagine, right next to the town centre. That is a massive expansion. I have surveyed my constituents on the matter—the 5,500 households affected in the town—and had more than 800 replies. The majority said that the proposed size of the store is far too big, and its location will result in its protruding more than 7 metres above the road, whereas at present it is set below the road and away from it, so it is not an eyesore on the landscape. As is often the case with large supermarket developments, people are also concerned about the impact on local shops. We are still lucky in Milngavie to have a great range of independent stores, such as a butcher, an ironmonger, a fabulous independent bookshop, confectioners and others. More than doubling the size of a large supermarket in that vicinity could have a very negative impact on those shops. I hope that those concerns will be taken into account when the application is considered, although I must note that, from the experiences of other hon. Members, companies such as Tesco do not necessarily have a great track record when it comes to changing their plans. In Bishopbriggs, the town centre is also being redeveloped, but again the plans seem to be arranged entirely around creating a Morrisons superstore and a large car park, rather than focused on other aspects that make up a town centre, such as community facilities. In fact, the proposals involve knocking down a sports hall that was built only a few years ago at significant expense—despite a group of volunteers in the community getting together and putting forward a business plan to run the hall for community gain, which is surely something that we should all encourage in our local areas. Nevertheless, that development has not received final approval, either, so I urge developers and the council to take heed of local concerns. The situation is not all doom and gloom, however, and I should like to share an excellent example of community action in Kirkintilloch in my constituency. In 2003, a group of young people decided that they would like to have a skate park in the town. They got together with like-minded people and lobbied politicians, including me—although in 2003 I was standing for the Scottish Parliament. They lobbied MSPs and the council; they raised funds and managed to secure grants of £500,000; they were involved in community activities such as litter picks and gala days to raise their profile. Just a couple of weeks ago, the skate park opened. It has been well used—a healthy activity whereby young people can socialise and learn mutual respect. I pay tribute to Susan Murray for driving forward the project, and to Alex Baylis, who is a skater. When he started out on the campaign, he was at school, and in the six years that it has taken to build the park he has gone through university, graduated and set up an increasingly successful band called the Acutones. Without those people and many other volunteers, the park would simply not have been possible. I shall touch on a couple of national issues before concluding. I had hoped to raise the first in Prime Minister's questions, but sadly time sped away and we just missed out on reaching my question on the Order Paper. It is the important issue of body image. Some Members will know that today the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint, made through a campaign website that I co-ordinated, about an advert that had been digitally retouched. The advert was for an Oil of Olay anti-wrinkle cream, and it is clearly misleading for such adverts to retouch wrinkles out of the picture. I am glad that the ASA upheld that complaint, but there is a wider issue. There is a lot of academic evidence showing that the idealised and heavily retouched images that we see in the media damage the health and self-esteem of not only young people, but people of all ages and both women and men. I should like adverts to be labelled to show the extent to which they have been digitally retouched, and I very much hope to return to the issue in the new year and, possibly, to secure a fuller debate about the subject. I should also like to mention political reform. We all accept that 2009 has been a somewhat difficult year for politics and democracy. Having had the expenses scandal, the public are understandably quite angry about what has happened, but I am sure that I am not alone in thinking that quite a lot of MPs are quite angry about what has gone on, too. I am sure that many of us were unaware of the extent to which expenses were being used for unexpected purposes. We need to grasp this opportunity to rebuild our politics and to make changes that make our politics much stronger in the long run. We must ensure that we make progress on reform of the House of Lords, for example, and the Prime Minister recently said that he was in favour of votes for 16-year-olds. That is Liberal Democrat party policy, Labour party policy and Scottish National party policy, so let us introduce either an amendment to existing legislation or a short Bill and put it into practice. There have been private Members' Bills on the right of recall, and there is increasing consensus on the issue. We should make such changes so that, if an MP is found to have done something wrong, their constituents have some power in between elections. They should not have to lump it; they should be able to take action and prompt a by-election. I strongly believe that electoral reform should be back on the agenda, as indeed should reform of this House. I urge Members to look carefully at the Wright Committee proposals to help to ensure that the agenda of Parliament is set by a cross-party Committee—by Parliament rather than the Government—and that Select Committee Chairs are elected rather than stitched up in smoke-filled rooms. We should look at more ways in which the public can interact with Parliament; perhaps they can even initiate proceedings in Parliament, whether through suggestions for topical debates or other methods. The Wright proposals are not the entire solution, and they do not go far enough, but they are a step in the right direction. I welcomed Mr. Speaker saying earlier today, in response to a point of order from my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), that he had no reason to believe that these proposals would not be coming to the House and, I hope, voted on in the new year. That will be a very important piece of reform for the House to get through. I would like to give sincere thanks to the members of my staff—Hannah Wright, Karen Hurst, Jamie McHale and Mark MacDonald—who have been absolutely fantastic this year in helping me to serve my constituents through my Bishopbriggs and Westminster offices. I wish you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, colleagues and all the staff in the House a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.