Monday's business began with defence questions, a topical area given the news that two British C-17 transport aircraft were supporting the deployment of French troops to Mali. Little did we know at the beginning of the week that muslim militants would remain at the top of the news agenda with the attack by terrorists and taking of hostages at the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria. Monday's main business was the 2nd reading of the Crime and Courts Bill, which establishes the new National Crime Agency (to be headed by Ex-Warwickshire Chief Constable Keith Bristow), and amongst other things introduces some changes to the administration of courts, introduces a criminal offence of driving under the influence of drugs and clarifies the law on the use of force in self defence in your own home. Monday evening was also the launch of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Channel 4, which gave MP's a chance to hear more about Channel 4's plans for the coming year and look back on some of the great work they did last year, particularly on the Paralympics. Tuesday generally sees the Business Innovation and Skills Select Committee, of which I'm a member, sit and this week was no different as we took evidence for our inquiry into women in the workplace from the Women's business council, BIS Minister Jo Swinson MP and the Secretary of State for culture, Media and Sport, and minister for women and equalities, Maria Miller MP. The advancement of women in the workplace is an area of interest for me and one I wrote about in my book Masters of Nothing (www.mastersofnothing.info). There's a significant amount of evidence that having more women at executive and board level improves the performance of businesses and it's important that Government does all it can to support businesses in delivering. Wednesday was PMQs which exposed Ed Milliband's true position on the EU. We shouldn't forget that the leader of the Labour party is a man who has refused to rule out Britain joining the Euro and who it's clear doesn't trust the people of this country to make the right decision on our position with the EU. If he did then he would agree that a referendum is the right thing to do. Of course the Lib Dem position on this is no better. In their 2010 manifesto they pledged an in/out referendum, something they seem to have forgotten as they disagree with the Conservative position on renegotiation and a subsequent referendum. Regardless of what they are saying now, I think their "real referendum" leaflet from 2010 is pretty clear on what they were saying then. This week I also met with Lord Digby Jones, who as well as being a minister for trade and investment in the previous government is also one of my constituents. We discussed Europe and what businesses want from the government in relation to the EU, and you may be interested to read his position on his blog. This week also saw an opposition day debate on examinations reform, during which it was clear that Labour's Shadow Education Minister had little support from his own benches for Labour's convoluted position on education and education reform. It's clear to most people that our examinations system needs significant reform. Businesses and universities will both tell you that the students our schools are turning out are ill-prepared for either work or further academic study, yet for 13 years of Labour we saw ever increasing results driven by rampant grade inflation. Given the global-race we are now in it's no longer sustainable for this to continue, our examination system has to be reformed and I'm fully supportive of Michael Gove's plans to do so. By Thursday there were suggestions that the stand-off in Algeria that began the day before may not end well. Sketchy reports were coming in that Algerian forces had opened fire on a convoy and it was becoming increasingly less likely that the PM would be able to give his speech on the EU the next day. When the news came through that it would be postponed I felt that this was the right decision. The hostage crisis had to be the number one priority for number 10 at that time. Friday for me should have been a full day of meetings in the constituency, but as the snow piled up more and more of my meetings were cancelled and I ended up spending the day catching up on case-work with my team in Stratford and carrying out a telephone surgery.