Not so long ago, at the end of the summer, political reporters would decamp to the seaside for three weeks at the party conferences.

That tradition is now just a memory.

Although Labour is in Brighton, the Conservatives will meet in Manchester and I joined my fellow Liberal Democrats for our conference in Glasgow last week. Glasgow is a great city, but a week of debates in a modern auditorium is a long way from the beach.

The focus of the Liberal Democrat conference was the policies that can build a stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling everyone to get on in life.

Now that businesses have created a million new jobs in Britain, there was a particular emphasis on how we can help them create a million more. Ideas included expanding the new Business Bank to boost lending to small and medium sized businesses and allowing councils to borrow more to build more homes.

We agreed to go further to make taxes fairer, by cutting income tax for low and middle earners by an extra £500, to add to the £700 tax cut we’ve already achieved in government.

I spoke in a debate on how we can help create green jobs whilst cutting our climate-changing pollution and getting off the oil price hook.

I focused on the exciting, rapid developments being made in electric cars at the moment.

This is exciting new technology that will make motoring greener, and crucially cheaper too.

I was also delighted to hear Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announce that, from September next year, all infant school pupils, including the more than 15,000 in Wiltshire, will benefit from a free hot and healthy meal at lunchtime.

Research from pilot projects has shown this will help raise standards in schools and stop some children falling behind, and save their families as much as £400 a year per child.

Back home in Wiltshire, I spoke at the official opening of the newly-restored footbridge at Bradford on Avon railway station.

This investment and the efforts of volunteers and the Heart of Wessex Rail Partnership ensure the station is an attractive welcome to the town’s tourists and commuters alike.

After a full constituency surgery at The Pound arts centre in Corsham on Friday, my next will be at Bradford on Avon Library on Wednesday, October 2 between 3-4.30pm and at Melksham Town Hall on Friday, October 4 between 3-4.30pm.