As the Big 6 energy firms raise their prices like dominoes, politicians in all parties are searching for ways to help make energy more affordable.

In coalition government, Liberal Democrats have introduced the Warm Homes Discount, which gives the most vulnerable households £135 off their energy bills. We are also encouraging more competition to get customers a fairer deal. There are now 15 challengers to the Big 6 suppliers, including Chippenham’s own Good Energy.

In tackling energy bills, it would be incredibly short-sighted to abandon support for renewable low-carbon sources of energy. That’s why the Liberal Democrats are sticking to our guns on green policies to help people now and in future generations.

We have set up the UK Green Investment Bank, the world’s first, to unlock billions of pounds of investment in renewable energy. We have doubled the energy generated from offshore wind, extending the UK’s lead as world number one. And in transport, whilst freezing fuel duty, we have introduced a Local Sustainable Transport Fund, some of which is being spent locally introducing a new TransWilts rail service next month.

As I established in a House of Commons debate last week, Labour’s policy of an energy price ‘freeze’ just won’t work.

Even if the coalition government adopted it today, the energy companies would hike prices before the law came into force. Once it was in effect, the Big 6 could plan ahead and absorb losses but their smaller competitors would be squeezed. That would leave us with a less competitive market and a more dominant Big 6 who could raise prices again as soon as the freeze ended.

Back in Wiltshire, I visited the surprisingly secluded site of a proposed solar farm east of Melksham, which could generate 40MW – enough to power 12,000 homes. Then it was on to St Mary’s School in Broughton Gifford to discuss safe routes to school with the pupils and free school meals with their head teacher.

I attended Remembrance services at the war memorial and St Andrew’s Church in Chippenham on Sunday morning and at St Michael’s Church and Cannon Square in Melksham in the afternoon, before heading to London where I observed the two-minute silence at the Cenotaph for Armistice Day on Monday.

After a constituency surgery in Corsham last Friday, my next are at Bradford on Avon Library on Saturday (10-11.30am) and at Melksham Town Hall on Friday, November 29 (3-4.30pm).