ON Thursday morning I met nine GPs from across Morecambe Bay alongside my constituency neighbour, Tim Farron, to discuss the challenges that GP practices and their staff are currently facing.

There has been a 45 per cent increase in calls to GPs over the last few months and clearly demand continues to outstrip supply.

They are doing their utmost to provide a service to everyone and triaging out to services - like pharmacies - who can provide good community care, but this is proving extremely difficult.

Reception staff often bear the brunt of patients’ irritation, so please try to understand the difficulties that they are facing, and be kind.

I attended the party conference last Sunday until Wednesday. These are quite strange affairs, where politicians and officials can come together; but they provide a unique and valuable opportunity to exchange views, and hear from attendees what they think we should be focussing on.

I spoke on three panels. The first was with Lord John Bird, Founder of the Big Issue.

We discussed a piece of legislation (The Future Generations Bill) that we are trying to pass to make Government plan long term about things like climate change, pandemics and national defence.

Another was about innovation strategy where I spoke with George Freeman, minister for science, research and innovation.

I raised particular issues that we see locally such as the the limitations of the A590 and the A595 infrastructure while we are trying to deliver the national endeavour; and the need to accelerate and support innovation in life sciences, specifically in relation to GSK and Lakes BioScience.

The minister has agreed to visit us soon, and it will be great to show him our opportunities and challenges.

Other useful meetings included those on: nuclear power, specifically including Sellafield and Moorside; another on the hospitality sector how government can best support the amazing businesses we have here; and in relation to the Conference theme itself, levelling up the North – a matter close to all our hearts.

On that theme, the senior journalist Michael Crick, formerly of the BBC and Channel 4, proposed that levelling up should be demonstrated by creating a new Royal Borough in the north, and suggested the Royal Borough of Barrow as the first. The campaign starts here!