PARLIAMENT has now “risen” for the summer recess, meaning that I can get home and catch up on my local constituency commitments.

It has been an action-packed first session with the highlight being the radical summer budget that will keep the whole country moving forward to a more productive, higher wage, lower tax and lower welfare society and which represents a plan that puts the economic, financial and national security of our great country first.

It was a budget for everyone with a National Living Wage to be introduced from April 2016 that will mean two and a half million people get a pay rise in cash terms, further tax cuts for the businesses that are driving the economic recovery, a focus on skills and apprenticeships to get people into skilled work and control welfare budgets and payouts so that we can better protect spending on our vital public services such as the NHS. And I know many of you will share my relief that our country’s strong financial footing means we can commit to meet the NATO pledge to spend two per cent of our national income on defence – a wise move given the escalation of various ISIS-backed atrocities like the massacre of innocent people in Tunisia.

After my non-stop schedule of the last few months, I am so looking forward to finally taking a family holiday and then heading down to Cornwall in my campervan.

As we get on the road I will be cheering the fact that great progress is being made on refining the detailed route options for the A303 Super Highway project, and that the £2bn of funding for the project is secure.

Without these sorts of investments, the economy of the south-west will never reach its full potential – and the relief from congestion and rat running for us Wiltshire residents can’t come soon enough.