In May, the Liberal Democrats made you a promise to protect the Green Belt, but their Local Plan has shown that they had no intention to keep that promise – they’ve instead delivered a developers’ charter.

In last month’s column, I set out why keeping promises made in elections is so important in a democracy.

The response has been depressingly predictable – the Liberal Democrats and their supporters have argued that it is fine for them to make promises they don’t intend to keep, because (they claim) the Conservative Government hasn’t kept the promises we made in 2019.

Now, I will be the first to admit that changing circumstances, including Covid and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, have forced priorities to change.

The critical difference is that since the election in 2019, our promises to the British people have been at the heart of our approach, regardless of how things have changed.

The Liberal Democrats cannot seriously believe that circumstances have changed so dramatically since May that they can no longer protect the Green Belt.

Moreover, the Conservative Government has delivered on the vast majority of the promises we made in the 2019 manifesto.

We’re delivering 50,000 more nurses by 2024, have a fully-funded long-term NHS plan, a long-term social care funding commitment, and we are building 40 new hospitals – including a commitment to re-develop the hospitals in Watford, Hemel Hempstead and St. Albans.

We’ve recruited 20,000 more police – with record numbers of officers now on the streets in Hertfordshire – and introduced new measures to tackle rural crime, with tougher penalties for fly-tippers.

We’ve passed the Domestic Abuse Act and implemented a new strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. Making local people safer.

We’ve set up the new Office for Environmental Protection and the new Nature for Climate Fund, worked to restore our peatlands and plant more trees.

And our Environment Act contains sweeping protections for our environment – including new targets on air quality, new rules to tackle sewage discharges and measures to rejuvenate our chalk streams.

We’re investing in improving our roads – with millions committed to fixing potholes in Hertfordshire this year alone. We’ve invested billions in rolling out faster broadband – with our area currently seeing work being done to upgrade broadband.

We’ve delivered a better deal for renters, new support for rough sleepers, renewed the Affordable Homes Programme, and we’re working to build a million new homes by the end of the Parliament – all while introducing new protections for the greenbelt.

That’s just a small selection of what we’ve done – and of course, our local Conservative team in Harpenden and the villages have an exceptional record of delivery, with a new leisure and cultural centre, new playparks, a new boardwalk in Batford Springs, and much more.

So yes, as I acknowledged in my last column: you can’t always deliver everything that you set out to in politics.

But as your Member of Parliament I can honestly say to you that – in difficult circumstances – I have done everything I can to deliver on the promises you elected me on in 2019. Can the Liberal Democrat politicians elected on a promise to protect the greenbelt in May say the same?

Together with Harpenden & Berkhamsted’s new Parliamentary candidate Nigel Gardner, I’ll continue working to deliver for our communities.