The Supreme Court ruling this week was constitutionally momentous and I was pleased to be able to return to Westminster for the resumed sitting on Wednesday.

As I said in my Letter from Westminster immediately after I lost the Conservative Whip, I was forced to vote against the Government because I felt Parliament needed time to scrutinise and debate the Government’s no deal plans. Evidently, the Supreme Court agrees with that view and this judgement enables Parliament to resume its job of holding the Executive to account.

On Wednesday I returned to Westminster to resume this session of Parliament and was frankly shocked by the level of jaw-dropping anger and hostility seen in the chamber. Too frequently the terms “zombie parliament” were banded about. We must not forget that every MP was democratically elected by their constituents, each one is doing their best to use their judgement, as Burke commented, to serve their constituents as best they can.

I spent the majority of the day in the chamber and used my opportunity to ask the Prime Minister a question during his statement to encourage him to temper the tone of his words and to embrace the House – he gave me an assurance that he would do just that, sadly that did not immediately happen.

It goes without saying that I do not think the fears of MPs on either side of the House are “humbug”. No one should be fearful of doing their job – MP or not – and the incendiary language being used in this debate is simply unacceptable.

I have written many times in my column about my concerns of how MPs are treated and, by and large, my constituents are usually very polite when sending me their thoughts, but we must not let anger get the better of us for it achieves nothing.

I am sorry to all the constituents, businesses and organisations I was scheduled to meet over the next three weeks and have now had to postpone. However I am sure most agree that Parliament should be sitting and MPs should be holding the Government to account.

Caroline Nokes

MP for Romsey and Southampton North