The East Coast railway line from Doncaster, Retford and Newark down to London was being run until yesterday by National Express, the well known bus company.

They won the tender under the system of private companies providing the train services. I have never agreed with a privatised rail service. It means complex ticketing, varied and overly expensive prices, a lack of investment and a fragmented system. Thankfully the government has stepped in to take over the East Coast Mainline operation, guaranteeing all existing services and all the jobs.

What I now want is a clear guarantee into the future, including the improvement of services from Retford to London and to the North and Scotland. I also want the ridiculously expensive car parking prices reviewed with a big expansion of official car parking space.

The best solution to maintaining and improving our rail network is to listen to the train drivers, the station and train staff, the signallers and the other experts who work in the industry.

I received an extraordinary letter from one of our council big-wigs this week demanding that I provide copies of the plans proposed for thousands of new houses on Kilton Forest, including the Golf Course. It is an extraordinary letter, because guess where those plans are officially lodged and available for viewing? That's right, in the Town Hall.

I suggest that the super sleuth council big-wig gets down to his own planning department, reads the plans and then joins me in opposing the building of a Kilton new town as unsustainable, unnecessary and unwanted in Worksop.

I voted against the long summer recess that Parliament agreed this week. In my view Parliament should meet in September and every September. I will of course be working through part of August and throughout September, as I always do. And I think my time will be more productive in Bassetlaw rather than London. But nevertheless it is wrong that Parliament suspends itself for 10 weeks and it is yet another part of the antiquated Parliamentary Gentleman's Club that I am demanding be swept away.