Right about now you may be considering whether you’ll be voting your MP back into Parliament in the coming election.

Has he or she reflected your interests? One key way of checking that is to look at their voting record.

We’d like everyone to know exactly how their MP voted over the last parliament, so we’ve made some changes to TheyWorkForYou that make votes easier to understand.

See an example here, or read on to find out how to check your own MP’s voting record.

A complex matter

TheyWorkForYou publishes activity from Parliament each day.

This content includes parliamentary votes, along with the debates that they are part of. But it’s not always obvious to the lay reader exactly what’s being voted on.

Take a look at this debate, for example, on exemptions for smoke-free premises. By the time you’ve waded through the first clause,

“The appropriate national authority may make regulations providing for specified descriptions of premises, or specified areas within specified descriptions of premises, not to be smoke-free despite section 2”

– you may well be lost. And who would blame you?

Making it nice and simple

We don’t think you should have to be an expert to check your own MP’s voting record, and our new pages for each voting stance are here to help.

For some time now we’ve given you summaries of how your MP voted on certain topics, with a link to the votes that helped us understand each MP’s position on that stance.

Now we’ve created a page for each stance, and worded it in plain English so that anyone can understand exactly what it means.

See for yourself

Here’s how to see how your own MP voted (or we should say ‘previous MP’, since until the General Election, no MPs are now in office):

Go to TheyWorkForYou.com and input your postcode on the homepage.

You’ll be taken to the page of your (former) MP. Click on the ‘voting record’ tab.

Choose a topic you’re interested in, and click the ‘Details’ link on the far right.

You’ll see a plain English description of the stance, followed by descriptions of all the votes that were considered to contribute to it.

Want to see the context? Click on ‘show full debate’ and you’ll be taken to the full record of that vote.

Let us know what you think

These pages are still a work in progress, so we’ve included a feedback box at the top of each voting stance page. Do be sure to let us know if there’s anything else you’d like to see on them.

If you have feedback about how your MP has voted, mind you, that’s another matter… one you might want to reflect at the ballot box.

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Image: Paul Albertella (CC)