So where has she been?

Well, for the last week I have been part of the first all-female parliamentary delegation to Taiwan. The other members of the delgation were all baronesses and we attracted a fair bit of interest.

I was completely bowled over by the country. The people were great and nothing was too much trouble - for the cynics amongst you I will say that this was even amongst those who had no idea we were MPs.

The capital was much cleaner than London and this is a real achievement when you consider that it was not so many years ago that rubbish was just dumped in certain parts of the city. There is now a system whereby residents wait for the weekly collection wagon and then go in to the street to place thier rubbish in the van. Don't know whether this is true but someone told me that the universal music used by the collection vans is Fur elise !

The trouble was that when I arrived back at the filthy, sweaty unpleasant experience that is Terminal 3 at Heath Row I really realised that we could not rest on our laurels as a country.