FIRSTLY, I would like to thank the people of Warrington North for their continued support in returning me to Westminster for a fifth time.

It is a great honour to represent you for another five years.

By the time you read this, the Queen’s Speech will be over and Parliament will be settling down to work but because of deadlines I’m writing before that, having been down to London to get sworn in.

The place was crammed with people, newly-elected MPs looking a little shell-shocked, old hands greeting friends who had been re-elected or exchanging information about those who had been defeated.

The 'newbies' looked lost, trying to orientate themselves in the warren of corridors and carrying round huge piles of post.

One MP looked relieved when we told her that most of it will be from lobbyists and can be thrown away. “The only letters that matter are those from constituents,” I said and she smiled gratefully.

We met on the Wednesday to elect the Speaker, a procedure which went smoothly except for the new Scottish Nationalist MPs trying to occupy our seats.

Some plonked themselves on the front bench reserved for shadow ministers and were told to move by the staff. Some were sitting on the row behind in the places reserved for parliamentary private secretaries, and a couple of brave souls tried to occupy the seats in the back row which are generally the preserve of people like me, Andrew Gwynne, Derek Twigg and Dave Hansen.

The process of swearing in began the next day, starting with the cabinet and shadow cabinet. After that, MPs are meant to swear their oaths in the order in which they were first elected. I was astonished to find that I’ve now been in the place so long that I come fairly high up the pecking order.

Everyone must attend Parliament to swear the oath before they can take their seat so my friend Lisa Nandy had to leave her two-week-old baby at home and travel to London.

Once sworn in, I shook hands with the Speaker, gave a sample of my signature to the clerks and then travelled back home. Now the real work begins.