Firstly I went to the Environment Audit Select Committee (of which I am a member) to question the Government’s scientific adviser Sir David King.

My questions to him were on his seeming approval of the higher of two carbon emissions figures. Without getting to technical – best scientific evidence is that 550 parts of carbon dioxide per million parts of air would lead to a 2 centigrade rise in our temperature and that is the target that was set.

New evidence seems to point to the necessity of lowering that figure below 400 parts. I want to know why Sir David is seemingly setting his approval to the perhaps more politically possible higher target rather than one that would scientifically be necessary to save the world – literally. He disagrees and states that it should be 275 parts to save the world and tells the committee that he has been misrepresented in the media (don’t we all know that feeling).

So here on record he makes it quite clear that we are in trouble. It really is a depressing Doomsday scenario. I suppose the only cheering point is that there does seem to be a growing that there is a catastrophe awaiting and although hardly anyone has quite yet panicked – post-New Orleans and the tsunami, there is greater attentiveness to the issues.

At 2.30pm I go to Westminster Hall again and this time I am on the front bench for a debate on the rehabilitation of prisoners – which is part of my own portfolio. It is a debate secured on the Home Affairs Select Committee report – whose findings are pretty much pure Liberal Democrat policy. And all three parties croon together in admiration for schemes that avoid putting women into prison for minor offences with short sentences – which means they can lose their home and their children and so causing damage far out of proportion to the original offence. We croon together about restorative justice and community sentences.

We all agree that this is not being soft on crime – but much tougher than simply locking people up. I am able to expound my favourite theory about what sort of individual you produce if you shut someone in a room, give them no attention, skills or education to equip them for coming out of the room. Will you have a well-developer individual capable of taking their place in society, not reverting to crime and not being dependent on the state? I rest my case, m’lord!

Of course, the Minister just responded about how wonderful the Government are and how well they are doing!