I have spent much of the last week on the committee formally examining the government’s Intellectual Property Bill, which will bring the laws governing designs, patents and other intellectual property up to date, making the system clearer, more efficient and more easily accessible.

However, sometimes informal discussions with ministers can actually be just as effective as questions on the floor of the House of Commons, or even more so.

Last week, it was a snatched conversation in the corridors of Parliament by which I secured a promise from the Environment Minister with responsibility for flooding, my colleague Dan Rogerson MP, to visit Bradford on Avon and see for himself how households and businesses have suffered.

Indeed, I was in Bradford on Avon last weekend, knocking on doors and hearing from local residents about what they’d like me to focus on in the year ahead, before holding a constituency surgery at the library.

It was on an earlier visit to speak to residents of Abbey Mill in Bradford on Avon that a local pensioner first pointed out to me an unfairness in the way our income tax system treats some pensioners who’ve saved for retirement to secure incomes only around the national average.

Because the taxman claws back the additional age- related allowance, he faces a marginal income tax rate of 30 per cent while younger people earning a salary of the same amount pay income tax at 20 per cent.

In government, the Liberal Democrats have raised the income tax personal allowance to £10,000, cutting the income tax bills of more than 24 million low and middle earners by £700 and saving 2.7 million of the lowest paid from income tax altogether. We’re now campaigning to give ordinary people on low and middle incomes a further £100 tax cut, to help them with the cost of living.

I explained to the Chancellor at Treasury Questions an additional benefit of that policy: raising the personal allowance to £10,500 would almost entirely scrap the 30 per cent rate faced by older people like my constituent, as well as cutting their overall income tax bill.

My next constituency surgeries are at The Pound Arts Centre, Corsham today (4.30-6pm), at Melksham Town Hall on Saturday, (10-11.30am), at Bradford on Avon Library on Friday, February 14 (noon-1.30pm) and at my office in Avonbridge House, Chippenham on Saturday, February 15 (10-11.30am).