Parliamentary spokesman for angling Martin Salter MP continued his mullet fishing exploits with a trip to a Hampshire estuary in the company of Steve Smith, recently elected chairman of the National Mullet Club. Martin caught his first mullet last year and has developed a new interest in pursuing this most enigmatic of fish using standard coarse fishing tactics.

It was a real privilege last Thursday to be invited to speak at a victory rally for the Gurkhas in London alongside Joanna Lumley and the Gurkha Justice Campaign. There was a wonderful atmosphere and a real sense of a job well done.

Martin Salter, Labour MP for Reading West, will be at Battle Primary School this Saturday 4th July to raise the flag on their new internationally themed summer extravaganza. The event, running from 11am - 2pm, will celebrate the vast diversity that the school celebrates with students from a range of 42 countries!

I have no doubt that those self-appointed guardians of the public purse at the Taxpayers’ Alliance will be pleased to hear that as an MP I get very little time to indulge myself in long-session fishing trips. The demands of both Parliament and my constituency restricts me to not much more than two or three overnighters a year. This is no problem when targeting chub, barbel and big perch from my local rivers around Reading, as a couple of hours either side of dusk is usually the best time to be on the bank. However, it presents more of a challenge when travelling to far off venues in search of a dawn feeding tench of specimen proportions.

The Labour MP for Reading West, Martin Salter, will be re-launching the Dingley Family & Specialist Early Years Centre on Thursday 2nd June at 10.30am. Due to officially open its new premises on Kenavon Drive, the charity has formally invited Mr Salter to ‘cut the ribbon’ and to officially declare the building ‘open’.

Parliament’s standing is at an all time low. The expenses scandal of recent months and the subsequent public outcry, followed shortly by the ousting of former Speaker Michael Martin means that the new Speaker has taken office in unprecedented circumstances.

Following his election to the Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons, Reading West MP Martin Salter has helped to secure an important victory for the power of the new group to make recommendations on Parliamentary reform.

Parliamentary spokesman for Angling and Reading West MP Martin Salter spoke yesterday in the House of Commons in support of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill which received an unopposed Second Reading and will now go into its final committee stage. The Bill, which is expected to become law in October, has been eagerly awaited by angling, environmental, and conservation groups and will be an international first, as Mr Salter said in the House.

The European Elections were nowhere near as terrible for Labour in Reading West as elsewhere with a strong performance being recorded in many of the wards in my constituency. There is very little read across between the Euros and the General Election and I will remember us losing badly in the 1999 Euro poll before winning well in the subsequent general election in 2001. Although I’m not standing at the next election I would warn my political opponents not to be too smug or complacent about the outcome. My constituency has consistently bucked the national trend and can do so again.

On Monday 15th June Reading West MP, Martin Salter will be launching the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in Whitley in his constituency. Mr Salter has been working over the last year to ensure that Reading was chosen to be one of the next towns to benefit from the revolutionary pre-school reading scheme pioneered by country and western singer, Dolly Parton. The Dolly Parton Imagination Library has delivered millions of books across America and Canada to 0-5 year-olds, to drive up literacy standards and to encourage parents to read to their children from an early age. Two years ago, the scheme came to Rotherham in Yorkshire and a chance meeting between Martin Salter and a Dolly Parton fan in the House of Commons has resulted in the Dollywood Foundation choosing Reading as their second UK venue.