One of the most common questions I'm asked is what is life like as an MP.
In general my week is split Monday-Thursday in Parliament and Friday-Sunday back home in Didcot.
Last Monday kicked off with a team meeting at the Department for Education, followed by my weekly meeting with the team delivering our huge expansion of childcare, with the first 15 hours of free childcare becoming available for working parents from April. Alongside various other meetings, Chilton County Primary School came for a visit to Westminster, and it was great to meet them and take their questions.
Tuesday included meeting with GARD to discuss the next steps following me echoing their call for a public inquiry of the reservoir proposal in December; attending a networking event of charities and businesses involved in our Disability Action Plan; and responding for the Government in a debate about nursery provision in the South West.
Just as MPs like myself have regular surgeries with constituents, so Ministers have regular surgeries with MPs to discuss problems they're having locally in areas the Minister covers and Wednesday kicked off with one of these. After attending PMQs, I presented to Parliament my petition to reopen Grove Station, which I'm grateful to the 2127 of you for signing. I met my Parliamentary team before taking another debate - this time on special educational needs - and several other meetings.
Last week was National Apprenticeship Week and on Thursday I visited childcare apprentices and then another nursery. To and from the visits I had calls with 10 local authorities and did some paperwork.
Then on Friday I began with a Q&A at Didcot Sixth Form then met with Liane and Mark from Active Future South Oxfordshire and visited apprentices at Williams Racing in Grove. I had several surgery appointments, including meeting a local subpostmaster who contacted me after seeing the ITV drama about the Horizon scandal having recognised that what happened had also happened to her. I am pleased this Government is taking such decisive action to right this wrong.
I met with Niamh Dernie to talk about the next steps in her campaign against sexual harassment and then had the pleasure of presenting Mikayla Beames from Team Mikayla, which I am a proud patron of, with her Points of Light award from the PM. Then I rounded off the day with my weekly visit to Merv.
Weekends are always a combination of door knocking, emails and paperwork for both MP and Minister roles and - when I can manage it - Liverpool games!
I love the ability to make a difference in the job and the variety - as I always say to people, it's better to be very busy than bored
