Last week saw the final two days of Parliament before the summer recess begun and I could spend some quality time in the constituency meeting constituents and businesses and dealing with case-work. Select Committee On Tuesday the Business Innovation and Skills Select Committee held an evidence session into bank lending and business growth and took evidence from Vince Cable. The availability of growth capital to British businesses, particularly small businesses, is very important and bank lending is an important part of that mix. My questions to the Secretary of State focused on RBS and whether his department had considered breaking the bank in order to provide a business bank and more competition. His answers were very interesting and show that the BIS Department and Treasury have a very open mind with regards to what to do with RBS in the long term. Shakespeare Week - Update Last week I reported on my meeting with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and their plans for a national Shakespeare week in schools. I'm delighted to say that I had the opportunity this week to raise this with both Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove and that the Education Secretary was particularly interested in finding out more details. In the Constituency My schedule in the constituency last week was extremely hectic so I thought I'd just pick out some of the highlights of three full days spent in the constituency. Wednesday morning kicked off with a talk to Stour Valley Probus in the beautiful village of Cherington. This was actually a rescheduled event from last year, when Parliament was recalled for a debate on phone hacking, and it was great to finally be able to meet the local members and talk about my work and the work of Government. From there I had a meeting with Dr David Spragget who Chairs the South Warwickshire Clinical Commissioning Group. CCG's are a replacement for PCTs and put clinicians rather than bureaucrats in charge of commissioning and managing NHS services. At present they are operating in a shadow role and this was a great chance to hear how things are going as well as to check that the CCG would be supporting important local projects such as the new Health and Wellbeing Park in Shipston. I also met with Richard Austin, Managing Director of Vinegar Hill, a fantastic Stratford based business who as well as their two stores in Stratford also have 4 other stores in Bath, Bristol, Cheltenham, and Shrewsbury. The meeting came about after an email from Richard about increases in business rates and I suggested that we meet up to talk about his views on Government support for growth and what we can be doing to help businesses grow. As regular readers know I am always keen to meet local businesses and it really helps me to keep in touch with what is happening in the real economy and outside the Westminster bubble. On Wednesday I also visited the Women's refuge in Stratford. A fantastic and little known (for perhaps obvious reasons) resource which operates with limited financial resources but does so much for the women who end up having to stay there. Whilst there I also met two residents, one who has a housing issue and another who wanted to talk about a new business they plan to start. Closing off Wednesday was a public meeting hosted by Stratford Voice in the town Hall. I gave a short speech on Stratford Voice and Localism (which you can read here: Speech to Stratford Voice Public Meeting) and also took a large number of questions. It was standing room only in the Town Hall and whilst the questions weren't always the friendliest I did my best to give straight and honest answers, Thursday began with a 7am visit to Alcester, which was still looking resplendent in its Olympic Torch bunting, for a talk to the Alcester Aluna Rotary club. The Alcester club is relatively small but very engaged and I had an enjoyable breakfast, gave what I hope was an interesting talk, and answered a number of questions. Thursday also saw a Stratford based business being presented with the Queen's Award for innovation. Square Box Systems, started by Stratford resident Rolf Howarth, has built a truly innovative international business selling their CatDV software to film and television companies across the world. As someone who had a tech start-up myself I'm always very excited to hear about successful technology businesses and so was delighted to be asked to be there when the Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire presented the award. I also met with Warwickshire dairy farmers on Thursday. This was a follow-up to a meeting I had with a delegation in Westminster the previous week. In Westminster we agreed to meet again as soon as possible in order that more local farmers could provide further detail son the contracts and milk processors that were affecting them. With the cost of production rising it's unacceptable that prices paid to farmers are decreasing, and whilst we all want our food to be affordable it also has to be sustainable. At the current prices some processors are paying dairy farmers in Stratford and across the country will have no choice but to shut down, leaving us having to import our milk from abroad. Friday morning begun with a visit to Moorlands Farm in Little Kineton to formally open a new grain drying plant. William Forsyth is the third generation to run the farm and has recently invested a significant amount into new higher capacity grain drying plant to serve Moorlands and other clients. It was great to hear more about the business and I was very excited to be asked to formally open the plant by driving a tractor through the ribbon! Amongst other meetings on Friday I also met with AgeUK to hear about their new referral gateway project, the Kempe Society on Waterside, and visited Bright Assessing, a growing Stratford business that is working to bring down unemployment. I also held two surgeries last week seeing 20 people with a wide variety of issues. Access to social housing is a recurring theme, but I also saw a constituent who is launching a new bio-tech business, someone with a complaint about how they'd been treated by a hospital, a number of complaints about various public services and government departments and a manager in a petrol station business who is concerned about how the Police handle drive-offs. The Olympics and Stratford The Olympic opening ceremony takes place on Friday and Stratford Upon Avon will be hosting a big screen and live event on the Bancroft gardens. The screen will be in place all day showing the olympic build-up and there will also be ongoing activities and entertainment. The evening's festivities and the ceremony build-up will start from 8pm and the event is totally free so do come along.