Sir.-I did not vote for Maria Miller in the recent general election. However, the grumble she makes in her new column in The Basingstoke Extra about the lack of certain parliamentary facilities deserves total support.

In my view, she campaigned well and, since her success, has shown a creditable commitment to communicating effectively with her constituents.

If she betters Andrew Hunter in this respect, she will be doing extremely well!

It's bad enough for an MP to have political opponents (both outside and inside their own party) making life difficult, but it is surely absurd that any representative, of whatever party, is left having to do battle with the facilities on offer.

There was a time when MPs had truly appalling permanent House of Commons office facilities. I had understood that, with the construction of Portcullis House, this was a thing of the past. Seemingly not.

We have a Government wasting millions on self-publicity and over-extravagant "launches" of one sort or another. I suggest that the next big publicity stunt for something like city academies is immediately cancelled and the money redirected to providing proper facilities for our representatives.

Never again should we have to read that a newly-elected MP is hot-desking and does not have satisfactory facilities for communicating with her electorate.

While not particularly looking forward to a Conservative Government, I cannot help but think this Labour Government has seriously lost the plot and it thus becomes increasingly important that MPs - of whatever persuasion - have the best facilities available in order to not only deal with the massive postbag they face from constituents, but also to be able to readily convey the views and concerns of citizens to ministers, in an efficient manner.

-Cllr Martin Biermann, Chineham.