YOUNG Parliamentary mum Ruth Kelly is urging the House of Commons to introduce a family-friendly voting system.

The Bolton West MP, who has a son and a second child on the way, wants to see the current system of frequent and irregular votes scrapped.

Instead, she would like to have all Commons "Divisions" rolled together into a single voting time - preferably during the daytime, rather than in the evening or at night, as now.

While she accepts that there may be exceptions to allow specific votes on issues during controversial debates, she has written to leader of the Commons, Ann Taylor - a Bolton-born former MP for the town, to advocate the rolling together of votes.

Ms Kelly says: "I believe that my colleagues and I would be better able to serve our constituents if we had sensible working hours.

"It is also important that Parliament is as representative as possible and I believe that reformed working hours, made possible by the rolling together of votes, would help towards this aim.

"At present, it is extremely difficult for those with young families, or other caring responsibilities, to cope with the lifestyle of late votes."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.