IT feels like the calm before a storm in Parliament as their Lordships battle through the Brexit Bill and MPs wait to see if it will be returned to us without amendments next week. Or, if we will engage in a series of 'ping pong' votes where we reject the amendments and send the Bill back to the Upper House for further debates until we reach agreement – or in exceptional cases, use the Parliament Acts to pass the Bill, without the consent of the Lords.

Given the tight timetable we have set for triggering Article 50, I’m expecting a very lively few days next week.

Luckily there have been some great pieces of local news to distract me from the Parliamentary lull, the first being the fantastic progress being made at St Joseph’s School in Devizes. The Year 6 children had, as an English project, written to Mr Trump setting out their views on why he should or should not build the infamous wall and I was so impressed with the quality of the arguments that I sent the bundle to the Foreign Secretary.

I then went to meet the children on Friday for a further discussion of politics, walls, our view of Donald Trump, my life as an MP – the questions just kept on coming!

It is always so exciting to see children being so well taught and engaging in some of the tough 'real world' questions as part of their learning and I have promised to host the school in a visit to Westminster.

After staff changes last year the school has been rapidly improving across the board and I am confident, based on the excellence I saw, that it will achieve a very successful turnaround – which I will support in any way I can.

The second piece of good news has been a long time coming but is no less sweet for the wait. Last week Great Western Railway confirmed that it has reached agreement with the Department of Transport to buy new hybrid trains to serve Bedwyn, Hungerford and Kintbury stations, and this means that when electrification reaches Newbury we will keep our direct services to and from London going forward – one of my key local campaigning priorities and one in which so many people have been involved including Wiltshire Council and the Bedwyn Trains Passenger Group.

We will be getting brand new state-of-the-art trains from 2018 and maintaining the direct services that are so vital for so many. It’s been a very good week!