It has been a busy week with a return train journey to Westminster on Sunday evening to join the MPs’ panel on BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour.

I conducted a Monday morning surgery and paid a visit to Qinetiq before driving back up to London to vote in favour of banning smoking in cars where young children are present.

For me this was a straightforward decision to support the rights of young children who cannot speak for themselves.

Given the proven medical facts about the effects of passive smoking, I am incredulous that anyone would smoke in a car with children present.

Of course there are practical issues in implementing laws but these need to be faced up to and overcome rather than be used as a reason not to put a ban in place.

Flooding continues to dominate the national headlines and in the constituency I am very aware of the ongoing flood risks faced by many homeowners. I will be visiting Tilshead on Friday but I have been through various flood-affected parts of the constituency numerous times over recent weeks and I have been impressed by the resilience of local people and the dedication of flood officers and council workers.

Nationally, lessons need to be learned, but I am doing all I can to ensure that flood defences in south Wiltshire will be strengthened for the future.

I spoke about school funding last week in Parliament, I followed up with a visit to Wyvern College last Friday and I will drop into Bishop Wordsworth’s Higher Education Conference this Friday.

My job is to lobby for every school in the constituency.

People often assume I am partial to one type of school or another. That is emphatically not the case but, sadly, changing national funding formulas or wiping out historic deficits to individual school budgets are not things I can do by myself.

I am committed to making the strongest representations for all my constituents and, where there are ongoing systemic challenges, I will keep working for improvements – behind the scenes as well as in public. Salisbury has a unique blend of school options – we need to value all of them in order to keep challenges in perspective.