Party conference season is upon us, which means that over the next three weeks every political party, including the Liberal Democrats, will be gathering its members, activists, and politicians together to take stock of the last election and agree its future platform and agenda.

I attended ours in Brighton last week; and it was a great opportunity to not only see my Liberal Democrat colleagues, thank our activists for all their incredible work this year, and celebrate our remarkable election results - a total of 72 seats, our highest since 1920! - but to talk with experts on a variety of key local and international issues.

For me, this is the real benefit of the party conference season. Beyond the speeches, roundtables, and, ahem, questionable karaoke we’ve seen from some parties in the past, it is these one-on-one meetings with organisations and charities that I most look forward to.

In particular, this year, I enjoyed meeting with James Wallace, CEO of River Action, where we talked about cleaning up our beautiful rivers. Since becoming an MP, I’ve received countless messages from my constituents who are rightly outraged about the shocking levels of raw sewage being dumped into our rivers.

It is an environmental scandal; and James and I discussed what further action we can take to hold water companies to account, as well as the broader industry-wide changes that must be made to upgrade our outdated sewage networks.

I also met with several organisations and charities to discuss how I can support their work, and, in turn, my constituents. Included within this were Dementia UK, who shared my surprise that there is still no coordinated dementia strategy in place for Devon.

Alongside these meetings, I was also incredibly proud to talk and support a conference motion regarding reversing the cuts to bereavement support payments. As I’m sure you can imagine, it was a very moving debate with many speakers sharing their personal stories of kinship care and bereavement.

When I lost my husband to oesophageal cancer when our daughters were just one and three, I became one of the countless people in the UK for whom these payments were a life saver, and so I know first-hand just how devastating these cuts must be for bereaved people around the country.

I’m determined to fight for this important benefit to be restored, not just for those who are bereaved now but in the future, too, so no one has to struggle with unexpected and unmanageable financial pressures while also coping with the devastating grief of losing a loved one.

On the international side, I also joined a panel alongside Yevheniia Kravchuk, deputy leader of Zelensky’s party in Ukraine and a member of the US Democratic National Committee, about transatlantic relations ahead of the US election and support for Ukraine, and spoke on our motion about restoring a European Youth Mobility Scheme to give young Brits the right to live, love, and work in Europe once again.

Needless to say it was an incredibly busy four days! But I’ve come back to South Devon feeling energised and ready to make progress on all the issues and challenges we discussed.