Members of Parliament are supposed to speak on behalf of the people living in the constituency they represent.

But just how local are the candidates standing for election in the St Albans and Hitchin and Harpenden constituencies?

In St Albans, Liberal Democrat candidate Daisy Cooper, the Green Party’s Jack Easton, and Labour’s Kerry Pollard all list their home addresses as being in the constituency.

However Conservative candidate Anne Main, who has held the seat since her election in 2005, lives in the Beaconsfield constituency in Buckinghamshire.

In 2010, Main was ordered to pay back more than £7,000 by the Parliamentary Standards Committee for allowing her daughter to live in her constituency second home full-time and rent-free.

At the time, Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards John Lyon said public funds should not have been used to meet the living costs of Mrs Main’s adult daughter when she stayed in the flat in Pageant Close, St Albans.

In the Hitchin and Harpenden constituency, Liberal Democrat candidate Hugh Annard bizarrely gives an unspecified address in Belgium as his home address.

The Conservatives have put forward another out-of-constituency candidate in the form of Bim Afolami, who lists his address as one in the Kettering constituency in Northamptonshire.

This contrasts starkly with the other four candidates – Ray Blake (Independent), Richard Cano (Green), Sid Cordle (Christian Peoples Alliance), and John Hayes (Labour) – who all list home addresses within the Hitchin and Harpenden constituency.