Question: Recent governments have been dogged by allegations of sleaze and cash for influence and dodgy donors - putting aside the rights and wrongs of the specific cases, how has this affected government ministers' view towards state funding of parties?

Christopher Leslie: I think that there is a general acceptance amongst the public that there needs to be a structure in which political parties operate, in a way that is conceived to be above board.

For quite a while there was concern that political parties were gaining their income from unknown and undisclosed sources. I think that is one of the reasons why, after the Nolan Committee and the Neill Committees being appointed and making suggestions about greater influence, we have had the legislation that went through to really throw open much more transparency about information.

So I think now that donations over a certain amount, five thousand pounds, must be disclosed on the public record for all political parties to see and the public to see, I think that's been a major step forward in terms of trying to at least give some level of confidence and trust that comes with the parties to get their funding from open and above sources.

But state funding itself is still one of those issues that remains under debate. Some people think that if you have state funding you will end up with political parties that rely very much on the tax payer and focus on that not on their own membership, and since there is a school of thought that says it's better not to have state funding because political parties will be motivated to focus on their membership, have a wider group of people involved actively at the grassroots of the party because they rely on that and their money.

And that's a theory that I think is a fairly persuasive one, except for the fact that there are certain aspects of political party activity that I think do require support and we've got some money that comes in at about £5 million or so that comes to the main political parties and parliamentary support. For example, the work of the opposition party - because they don't have a civil service as the governing party does.

Similarly now I think the independent Electoral Commission set up by parliament (not by the government) are having a certain amount of support in terms of what they call, policy development brand, so that there is an opportunity for parties to develop policies for the manifestos so that they are more rigorous and more thought through and so forth. And I think again that is something that is supported across all parties.

But further than that I think the issue about full scale state funding is still in a sense awaiting the Electoral Commission's study, that they have said they are undertaking. I don't think they are announcing their findings until the summer. We will obviously as a government react to their suggestions and recommendations at that time. But that's the timetable essentially for where this issue sits right now.

Question: Looking to elections - why is the government extending pilots on e-voting when it seems the public is happy to simply have postal voting?

Christopher Leslie: Well of course we have had the bill going through parliament and will still be taking it through in the coming weeks to extend all postal pilots for a certain number of regions in the forthcoming June European and local elections . We have got to decide which regions will have postal ballots. But we have also said, as part of that, that we would like one of those regions to also be an e-enabled electronic voting pilot as well, and by that we want that to be in the simplest sense - in terms of either telephone voting and/or internet voting.

I think that it is quite important that we keep the innovative process going but try and scale it on the regional level.

That would be quite an interesting process because I think voters have high expectations of what services in a general sense they want. They now demand to be in an instant environment so why shouldn't it be any different for voting?

We see Pop Idol, Big Brother all these other things which involve the public and of course they aren't walking down to a local school or driving round and putting their cross on a piece of paper, they are ringing up, they are doing it over the telephone, they are using the internet and so forth.

Its perfectly reasonable that we then look to see if that's a feasible prospect for euro, national elections, regional, local elections and so forth over the medium term, and that's why we've got these trials with the parties.

Of course we have already been testing out things like text messaging voting and so forth, so I am not particularly closed to any of those different avenues.

Question: Out of telephone voting and internet and SMS/text, which option at the moment seems to be the most effective one?

Christopher Leslie: Well in terms of the electronic voting it doesn't appear to have been uplifting in terms of turnout as postal voting has been. Postal voting has seen typically a 10 to 15 per cent increase in turnout .

But there has been a lot of interest in a couple of pilots, we have seen almost a quarter of votes taking place by electronic pilots or telephone in particular it has proved quite popular and a lot of it is to do with the availability of internet access in the home versus the complexity of having personal identification numbers, typing it in to the relevant spot and so forth and a lot of it is that the internet has penetrated into all age groups now, but of course there are some people more keen to use it and find it more readily accessible than others.

Question: How well do you think MPs use the internet as a campaigning tool?

Christopher Leslie: I think MPs from all parties are becoming wise to it. I don't think we are quite there, we are slightly behind the curve as a political class, say compared to others in commerce and industry and so forth. I think we are recognising that there is a lot of potential and scope for our own political ideas as well as our candidates to be advanced and be communicating by electronic means.

I think 50 per cent of the population nowadays have internet access through the home and so having a website, having the ability to email on mass, even telephone communications are issues we need to look at.

Probably of course each individual MP in a small constituency with a small number of services and very basic fundraising abilities doesn't necessarily have the access to more expensive technology or mass communication as companies may have. But I think most MPs and most political parties will get there very soon.

Question: How do you respond to the arguments to lower the voting age to 16?

Christopher Leslie: I'm aware that we had a debate in parliament about this, about 18 months ago, where several MPs put a motion before the Commons that as an amendment to the bill we should go down to 16. I think the overwhelming majority of MPs voted for it to stay at 18.

Again this is an issue of a number of different organisations, including the Electoral Commission, who have said they will look at this and think about it a bit more.

As far as the government is concerned, we don't have any plans to reduce the age of voting but certainly we are interested as to see what the response is in terms of public debate and the direction in which people feel this might be a reasonable prospect.

I'm not sure that would be the solution to turnout issues or the engagement of younger people. After all, we see the age group from 18 to 24 is not particularly motivated to turnout to vote, so I'm not sure extending that to 16-years-old makes massive amounts of difference in terms of general engagement. But I don't think we shouldn't necessarily close our minds to it.

Question: Why do you think so many young people are disengaged with the party political process and the election process?

Christopher Leslie: I think there was no golden age where young people were avidly following every volume of Hansard and parliamentary procedure, although there are one or two exceptions.

But I don't think that we should be under the impression that we need to hold back, indeed there has been some trends that have affected all age ranges but I do think there are certain key issues that motivate young people more perhaps than other age groups.

Environmental concern, animal rights, education policy, a lot of policy in terms of job opportunity and so forth all those issues, transport, college, and schools and so forth that people can get interested in. When those issues come up you do see a lot of interest and engagement, and by and large all the things we have to try and do is raise awareness generally about the power of the individual to really make a difference on political decisions.

Most young people I don't think are fully aware that actually it is their individual right to contact a member of parliament. To speak to them, or to contact key organisations with particular suggestions ideas or submissions.

Chances are they are going to get a lot of good responses from those people and those MPs and so forth. And they can have quite a big effect. Now a lot of that relies on citizenship education in schools and the changes to the national curriculum might well help that. But it is a constant process and it's not something legislation can sort out.

Question: How is it that you can vote at 18 but you have to be 21 to stand for parliament?

Christopher Leslie: This was something that I was quite interested in when I first got involved in politics! I think that there is a strong argument to be made. I'm not saying that it is something that is government policy, but there is a strong argument to be made that if you are able to vote then - in a sense - how do you draw the line between the entitlement to vote and the entitlement to stand as a candidate?

Question: There is an argument that if people who are 18 to 21 are to be encouraged to vote there should be 18 to 21-year-old representatives in parliament?

Christopher Leslie: There is a very strong, persuasive and attractive point to be made there.

I was a councillor at 21 years of age and then I was a member of parliament at 24, so in a sense I got involved in it as soon as I could but at the same time I don't necessarily think there is a massive ground of opinion amongst 18 to 21-year-olds that there is some great unfairness in their not being able to be elected yet they can vote.

There is a wider debate to be had on that particular point and again I wouldn't be close-minded to the issue. That being said, there are lots of other priorities we need to focus on; electoral reform and improvements to communications and all the rest of it.

Question: You are one of the youngest MPs and one of the youngest ministers - how do you respond to those on the other side of the debate who say MPs should be mature?

Christopher Leslie: This is the flip side of the argument, people have traditionally argued 21 is really the minimum age because of the need for experience and life in general.

Really to be representing a wider group in society you need to have a certain amount of experience. I think there are probably an equal number of people who think on the one hand you need longevity and experience and on the other hand that group of people of who quite like refreshing new blood in the political arena.

Question: Do you think it is important to have more young representatives in parliament?

Christopher Leslie: I do think we shouldn't just simply think that we can continue the way things currently are. I do think we need to get new people in, bringing new ideas perhaps, better connections with the new generation, with different priorities and expectations of work and life and leisure and recreation and I think you know we do have a duty to try and encourage people to come through, get them joined up to political parties, encourage people to get involved with campaigning at a local level.

And to see, as I have, that actually if you do have a good idea and you can support it low and behold people will grasp on to it and it can even get up to the national level, and so that I think that is the excitement of politics.