BECAUSE of the Whittington Hospital row, I had a busy day with the media on Friday.
The high spot was a brief appearance on Newsnight with three students from Stourport High School who were researching a newspaper article.

I have had talks about the proposed Wolverhampton and Stourbridge bypasses and heard views of alternatives that could be of benefit to Wyre Forest.

I enjoyed a lunchtime farmers' breakfast organised by the Home Grown Cereal Association and the National Farmers Union as one of the events to promote agriculture. We saw breakfast being cooked on a shovel in the firebox of a locomotive on the Severn Valley Railway, but ours was expertly cooked at the King and Castle.

Saturday evening saw a successful Anglo-Polish dance to celebrate 20 years of the Wyre Forest Polish Solidarity Campaign. On Sunday, I went to the service outside St Mary's Church to remember the Holocaust.
Music and prayers as well as honouring the victims sought to prevent anything similar happening again. I was gratified to see many people there who had no official duty of attendance.

Sunday was spoilt for residents of the Marlpool Gardens Estate by leakage of sewage from manhole covers into gardens and kitchens. It led to the revelation that some estates have sewage systems which have never been adopted by Severn Trent and are the sole responsibility of homeowners even when sewers run under public property.

Returning to London, I find that other MPs are already working on the same problem in constituencies throughout England.

On Tuesday, a deputation from the Public and Commercial Services Union came to Westminster to emphasise the risks of verbal abuse and threatening behaviour that staff at Benefits Agencies throughout the country suffer. Talks between the Government and the union have broken down and as a result of the meetings yesterday, I hope MPs of all parties will write to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to ask him to reopen discussions. It is totally unfair for frustrated clients to blame Benefits Agency staff when policies are made by Government.

As the House of Commons rises for Easter on March 26, the hospital lobby we are arranging is likely to be on March 25, and as soon as this is finalised we will let people know.