ONE of the reasons I am incredibly privileged to do my job is the sheer variety it brings with it.
This last week in Parliament is a good example.
On Saturday I visited the Open Day at Houghton Regis Leisure Centre along with 700 other people. I was thrilled to see so many people there including many who were signing up to get back into a wide range of sports.
I run before work every day Parliament sits and definitely feel better for it.
The day before I visited Intraining in Luton who are providing back to work support as part of the Government’s new Work Programme for all my constituents from Leighton Buzzard, Dunstable and Houghton Regis.
I was really impressed with the commitment of the staff and their determination to help get their clients into work.
The jobseekers I met spoke positively of their experience. Intraining only get their final payment once they have found their client a job and helped them stay in work for a year or more.
On Tuesday morning I attended a debate on care for the dying and expressed the hope that older people would never be made to feel they were a burden and should end their lives to lessen the load on their families.
One of the most shocking stories I heard in that debate was from my colleague Penny Mordaunt, MP for Portsmouth North, who is also a hospital visitor.
She raised the case of an elderly constituent who had needed a bedpan in hospital and on the sixth time of asking was told to wet herself as it was nearly suppertime and the nurses were all busy.
I would not have mentioned this had not someone very close to me had to lie in a hospital bed in London for 45 minutes two weeks ago with a burst stoma bag close to a large post operative wound, which he was worried would get infected, before he was helped.
I always love being able to give praise where it is due and last week was able to do just that for Bedfordshire Police.
Most nurses do an excellent job, but instances like the two episodes I have just recounted do need to be raised so that we can have universally high standards of hospital care.
That was why I brought up the whole issue of nursing care in the Commons on Thursday, a subject that the Prime Minister has recently raised.
We need to take some of the paperwork off nurses and ensure ward sisters are closely supervising care insisting on the highest possible standards.
On Monday night, President Abbas of Palestine came to talk to MPs.
I was very impressed with his search for peace as were the 70 or so MPs and Lords who turned up to see him.
He was very exercised about the Israeli settlement activity on the West Bank which is against international law. I
If it continues, there will not be the land left for a two state solution, something which many moderate Israelis recognise.