This week obviously began with the Diamond Jubilee festivities. Across the country people came together to celebrate the Queen’s 60 years of tireless service in a way that only Britain can. A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be on the Politics Show with the official Pageant Master and I have to say that despite the weather he delivered the spectacle he promised on Sunday. Here in Stratford on Avon communities across the constituency put on events and street parties, with our towns and villages decorated with red white and blue bunting and Union Jack flags. I am at all times privileged to be the MP for such a wonderful place but this weekend was a reminder of how truly special an area we live in. This final week of the Parliamentary recess was an excellent opportunity to catch up with correspondence, emails and local issues. I receive upwards of 100 letters or emails a day and breaks from Parliament give me a time to catch up on them and ensure I know the current concerns of my constituents. I am always very happy to hear from you and will always provide a reply so please feel free to get in touch on nadhim.zahawi.mp@parliament.uk This week I have also been trying to help the residents of Pillerton Priors obtain a meeting with a minister to discuss a very pressing issue. For over a year a fallen animal waste transfer site has been operating in the village despite being refused planning permission twice. This is a long running issue that has caused a great deal of distress and nuisance for local residents and working with District and County Councillors I hope to be able to resolve it soon. On Thursday night I was asked by Newsnight to come on and discuss the Eurozone crisis and the Prime Minister’s meeting with the German Chancellor earlier in the day. My view and the view of the Government is clear, the Eurozone needs to urgently get its act together and fix its problems to regain market confidence. Eurozone countries have to reform to ensure they are competitive, there needs to be more support for heavily indebted countries form the ECB and richer Eurozone countries and there has to be some form of fiscal burden sharing such as Eurobonds. The IMF says that setback in the Eurozone are “the key risk to economic prospects and financial stability in the UK” which is why this is so important to us here at home. As I said on the show last night, if this needs more Europe as Angela Merkel has suggested then that would need a treaty change. Thanks to legislation we passed last year we now have a referendum lock, so the creation of tighter integration and more Europe would almost certainly lead to a referendum here in the UK. You can watch the whole programme on iPlayer for the next 7 days. Friday, as always, was set aside for meetings and surgeries here in Stratford, and this week seemed to begin with a horticultural theme. The day started with a visit to Vale Fresco in Hampton Lucy a major local salad producer who produce 300 tonnes of lettuce a week for supermarkets across the country. I met with farm owner Nick Mauro and local NFU members, as well as the head of planning at Stratford District Council to discuss how local farmers can better engage with the planning department. Agriculture and food production is the 2nd largest business sector in this area so I try to have a very good relationship with tour local farmers and meetings like this one are an important part of that. This was followed by a visit to Vicarage Nurseries, a strawberry producer with land in both my constituency and in neighbouring Worcestershire. As a result I was joined by my colleague Peter Luff MP for a discussion on some of their challenges and a tour of their fruit packing plant. We also discussed some very interesting ideas they have to utilise seasonal working (for which they alone employ 300 people) to help deal with youth unemployment. I’ll be following this up with them and feeding their ideas back into Government. My final visit of the day was to TouchFM’s studios where I learnt more about the station and their parent business and recorded an interview for them to play out later in the day. Their focus on local content and their approach to using technologies such as iPhones for outside broadcasting is incredibly innovative and clearly delivering real results. I was also pleased to hear that they’ll be holding the second Pride of Stratford Awards in February next year and have already put it into my diary to attend. The day wrapped up with several hours of surgery appointments. As always the topics were wide ranging from concerns over extradition arrangements and changes in the Medicine act affecting homeopathy through to the miss selling of interest rate swaps and issues with treatment in the NHS. Next week Parliament resumes and we will continue delivering on the Government’s legislative agenda. Alongside votes and debates I will also be grilling David Willets, Minister for Higher Education, on HE reform when he appears in front of the BIS Select Committee, appearing on the Daily Politics to discuss equality legislation and the Beercroft report, asking a question of Andrew Lansley on the implementation of the NHS reforms at Health OPQs, meeting with the Home Secretary on the Communications Data Bill, and giving a speech on the Economy.