This Parliament recently decided that the UK will leave the Customs Union and the single market when we leave the EU. That was approved by 322 to 101. The official Labour party could have voted against but chose not to. If they had voted against the motion would still have carried, but Parliament would have sent a more divided opinion to the EU. This clear vote followed the decisive vote of the previous Parliament to send the letter notifying them of our departure, which left the EU in no doubt of our intentions.

Does this latest statement that they now want to stay in the single market and customs union for a longer time truly represent the Leadership’s views? What do all those Remain voting Labour supporters make of this latest apparent flip flop? Presumably the aim was to try to weaken the government’s position just one day ahead of important talks with the EU, as a warm up to Mr Blair’s audience later in the week with the EU Commission on the same issue when he will doubtless want to argue for some kind of continued or watered down membership of the EU for a country which has democratically voted to leave.

The Opposition is making themselves an irrelevance on this important issue by flip flopping around following their sensible statements to back our leaving the EU after the referendum decision. Their weak and feeble changes will not in practice undermine the government’s resolve but is not designed to be helpful to the country they are meant to serve.

Today when I was having another of my walks to inspect the work and hear feedback on what is happening to Wokingham town centre a constituent came up to me to say how worried she was about the volume of development going on. She was pleased to see I was viewing it and surprised to learn I do that every week! She also on reflection said she agreed with the idea of Town Centre improvement, and was more concerned about the scale of housing developments in the wider Borough.

Let me explain again to all those interested. I visit Wokingham, Earley and Winnersh every week and travel through them on many occasions. I live in Wokingham Borough, shopping and using local facilities. I visit the villages in the west of the constituency regularly as well. I walked around all of them in the recent election, and went to Burghfield for an event a week ago. I usually go to see any area where a complaint or problem has emerged where it is better to see it for myself on the ground. In the last few days I have visited Wokingham Town Centre and the Emmbrook area to see progress with building, have been to Arborfield following constituents concerns, to Winnersh and the Earley peripheral to see progress on the Winnersh by pass and to Shinfield to see the continuing delays with completion of the Shinfield by pass where it crosses the motorway.

I keep in regular contact with Wokingham and West Berkshire Councils, as most of the development and traffic issues are Council ones, so that they know what concerns my constituents and where people would like improvement or better service.

I have been asked to look into the law allowing landlords or the public authorities to ask people to move who are living in caravans and other temporary accommodation on land without permission. There is a current case in Arborfield that is worrying some residents.

There are two main legal routes to sort these out. The first is the landowner has a right to go to court to get a court order to ask the people to move off the land. This is usually granted and is enforceable. In the Arborfield case the land is owned by the MOD who assure me they are taking this action when I followed up at the request of a constituent.

The second is a provision in the criminal law under the 1994 Criminal Justice Act. This allows the police to act quickly to move people on where there is evidence that they are causing nuisance. Residents who think they are should provide the evidence to the police.

The issues in this case seem to be one ones about speed of enforcement, as the law allows action to be taken.

One of the extraordinary things about the main Opposition parties in the Commons and much of the UK establishment is their failure to engage in working out all the good things we will be able to do as soon as we can make our own laws, set our own taxes and spend our own money.

One of the areas I identified and pursued before the referendum was the question of tax cuts that are illegal under EU law. There seemed to be near universal support for the abolition of VAT on sanitary products, so I trust that repeal will go through the Commons easily as soon as we are free. There was no opposition to the idea that we should abolish VAT on green products. Currently we have to charge VAT on controls for boilers and heating systems, on draught excluders, insulators and much else that can cut fuel bills. I hope a Conservative Chancellor will propose an early removal of these charges which impede reducing needless fuel use and keep more people on low incomes struggling to pay the fuel bills. I am disappointed that the Green party does not make a bigger noise against these taxes on fuel saving.

A more expensive item is VAT on domestic heating fuel itself. We are not allowed to remove this all the time we remain in the EU. Given the political sensitivity about fuel bills and the general view in the country that they are too high, removing this tax charge would make a welcome inroad into this difficulty.

Then there is the question of spending levels. Both sides agreed there would be substantial savings of contributions when we left, though there was a long and largely pointless debate over whether you should look mainly at the gross or the net figure. I would like us to leave and cease all payments by the end of March 2019, and would like to see some of the savings announced as extra spending on health and social care in the March 2018 budget ahead of departure.

We can reform our fishing policy to reclaim and improve our fishing grounds. We can design a farming policy that promotes more home grown food. There are so many opportunities. It is high time we had a proper debate about the upside to becoming a self governing country.

I held a review meetings with the Chief Executive of the Royal Berkshire Hospital yesterday.

We covered a wide range of issues concerning quality of service and the future development of medical care in our area.

I was able to report a very low level of complaints to me about the service the hospital is offering. The Hospital of course has its own complaints and patient feedback systems which should normally be used where there are issues. They monitor these closely and are best placed to deal with them directly.