As this is my last Westminster Diary before the Christmas break, I thought I would look back over the past year.

Reading MP Martin Salter has welcomed today’s decision (18 Dec 08) by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to drop the Government plan to directly elect some members of police authorities.

Salter asks Secretary of State to personally intervene to stop closure.

Reading West MP Martin Salter has today written to Gordon Brown to highlight the plight of Gurkhas living in Britain.

The Member of Parliament for Reading West, Martin Salter, will join with those demonstrating against yet another significant rise in the Pangbourne Toll Bridge charging fee on Thursday December 11th at 8am.

Salter backs Patients in their Fight to Maintain GP Dispensaries

The Labour government this week made good its promise to Britain’s 3 million anglers to update and overhaul our fishing legislation when it announced in Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech that the long awaited Marine Bill was to be included in this years legislative programme.

Reading West MP Martin Salter has claimed victory in the campaign against the Environment Agency’s plans to dispose of residential lock-keeper’s homes along the Thames.

With the Commons prorogued there are normally a couple of days of relative quiet as we get ready for the State Opening of Parliament but this was shattered on Thursday evening with the extraordinary news of the arrest of ex-Reading school student Damian Green for allegedly ‘grooming’ a mole to breach his contract as a Home Office official and leak confidential and sensitive information to the Conservative Party.

Whilst I am primarily an angler and only an occasional shooter, I am proud to have been asked to be a Centenary Patron of the British Association of Shooting and Conservation (BASC).