Last week’s difficult spending review was sweetened by Liberal Democrat Treasury Minister Danny Alexander announcing £100 billion of spending on roads, railways, homes and other long-term investments that will build a stronger economy.

He announced the biggest investment in roads since the 1970s, and I am particularly pleased that Wiltshire will benefit from the £9 billion being spent modernising railways through the electrification of the Great Western Main Line.

The £2.3 billion that will be spent improving flood defences should offer relief to farmers and households in our part of the country, as will the £250 million announced to spread superfast broadband to 95 per cent of homes by 2017.

And of all this investment will provide employment, as the Liberal Democrats work to create a million more jobs to add to the million that businesses have already created since 2010.

In Parliament, I pursued the shocking revelation that undercover police officers had been using the identities of dead children – which a police investigation has found was “common practice”. I know this has caused a great deal of distress to families who fear that their children’s identities may be among those used in this way. I asked the Home Secretary to make sure that families affected may be informed as soon as possible, both so they receive apologies and so that those worried families whose children’s identities were not used can be reassured.

At Education questions I cited the case of Forest and Sandridge Primary School near Melksham as an example of the desperate need for capital funding for Wiltshire’s schools to meet the needs of growing numbers of primary school pupils. They have been promised a new school building soon, but for too long have had to make do with no fewer than five temporary classrooms in a school of seven classes.

I visited Trowbridge to speak at the public inquiry to scrutinise Wiltshire Council’s development plans for the countryside around Chippenham. I argued that we should maximise the potential of the area in the centre of the town and that any additional housing should be substantially focused on meeting the existing housing needs of local people.

My next surgeries are at Melksham Town Hall on Saturday, from 10.30am to noon, and at The Pound Arts Centre in Corsham on Friday, July 12 between 4.30pm and 6pm.