I got away from Westminster this Wednesday to visit some of the areas hit by the June floods in South Yorkshire.  On Thursday I had the first questions to the Department for Children Schools and Families.  But I ended the week promoting the Big Wild Read in Weymouth Library.

The Big Wild Read is a campaign to encourage children to keep reading through the summer.  It is run through libraries with a challenge to read six books over the summer, and to find out about the environment as you go.  There is a great website (http://www.bigwildread.co.uk/) with more details.  I was given some books to donate to the library and thoroughly enjoyed reading one of them to some of the boys at the library.

Wednesday's visit to Yorkshire was remarkable.  Toll Bar near Doncaster has been under water for many days and was just starting to recover.  The residents had just started moving into mobile homes near their houses that will need lengthy refurbishment.  The school needs a lot of work and will open in September in mobile classrooms.  The community spirit was, however, hugely encouraging.

Outside Rotherham was Catcliffe where flash floods had caused huge damage for the second time in eight years.  The streets were lined with skips taking away people's damaged possessions and the remains of the interiors of their homes.  Sandbags were still around in case the floods returned.  Again residents were living in caravans in their gardens while the wait for months for their houses to be returned to normal.

Thursday's oral questions to the Department for Children, Schools and Families went fine (read the full transcript in Hansard).  We only were allocated half an hour which seems ridiculously short for any proper scrutiny of policy on everything to do with children.