IT'S that back to school time and with Parliament also sitting next Monday the Perry household is in a flurry of children’s shoe fittings, haircuts and pencilcase purchases combined with the packing of my favourite bright jackets and big necklaces that show up so well in the Chamber (and which it has been a joy to leave in the wardrobe for most of the summer).

More importantly, I am reading up on the various items of legislation that we will be debating and working to understand the implications for my constituents.

I am very much looking forward to being able to contribute during Parliamentary debates again and especially in areas where I have maintained a long interest or which are important to us locally.

The forthcoming Digital Economy Bill will be an important one on both counts, as it represents the latest milestone in the journey the government has undertaken to improve connectivity for businesses and households, stimulate investment in the digital sector and ensure that Britain is among the world’s leading countries in providing a family friendly internet.

I spent much of my first few years in Parliament working to improve internet safety for children and huge progress has been made in the last five years. For example, the internet service providers and mobile operators who provide us with digital connections now offer filters that protect all devices in the home with just one click, supply connections with adult content filters set as 'on' by default and invest substantially in better education and safety training.

Britain has led the world in outlawing the depiction of rape and child abuse as 'pornography' and made the posting of so-called revenge pornography a criminal offence.

But, of course, the digital landscape is ever changing and the new Bill contains important provisions such as legislating for all providers of adult material online in the UK to implement a robust age-verification system and I shall be working to ensure this provision is applicable both to commercial and user-generated content.

The Bill also contains hugely important provisions to help some of the most pressing local concerns, such as the removal of local Wiltshire broadband 'not spots' by empowering the Government to impose a new broadband universal service obligation (USO) which would give all citizens and businesses the legal right to a fast broadband connection (defined as a minimum speed of 10mbps initially) as well as much tougher regulation to deal with the scourge of nuisance callers. It should be an interesting and productive September.