THERE is nothing quite as unpredictable as an English summer and this year we have had one to remember for all the wrong reasons: record rainfall and some pretty unimpressive levels of sunshine.

However come rain or shine there is the inevitable debate about exams and whether results are genuinely getting better every year or not.

One thing I am pretty certain about is that there are too many exams that our children are now expected to take. So I am delighted to see that one of the proposals from the Conservative Public Service Improvement Policy Group is scrapping AS-levels and making national tests fewer but more rigorous.

Other ideas include extending setting and giving remedial education to pupils falling behind, giving heads the absolute right to exclude and giving full anonymity to teachers faced with allegations.

There are recommendations on a whole range of other public services. We will be carefully considering which will become party policy for whenever Gordon Brown calls a General Election.

In the meantime I would be pleased to hear from any constituents with their views. The report entitled "Restoring pride in our Public Services" can be read in full at www.conservatives.com/pdf/psipg-report.pdf It also comes up with five things that everyone should know. The number of obese children has doubled in ten years and in England alone 30,000 deaths a year are caused by obesity. The number of people who have died from MRSA has quadrupled since 1997. The number of managers in the NHS is increasing almost three times as fast as the number of doctors and nurses. Forty three percent of pupils leave primary school without having reached the required standard in reading, writing and arithmetic. More than a million children play truant each year. None of these things can we in Britain be proud of at all.

I will remember this summer not for the weather but for the police in riot gear protecting property against climate change activists and local residents while violent gangs do not seem to receive the same level of attention. Perhaps I am wrong but the haunting image of the young boy shot in the pub car park sadly made this summer one none of us should ever forget.

John Randall is the Conservative MP for Uxbridge.