As soon as I could, I came back to Burnley to tidy things up in the office, touch base with my team and carry out a series of appointments with constituents who had urgent issues that needed sorting out.

I then spent a happy few hours in the evening stretching my legs by delivering some mailings near my house in the Rosehill/Healey Wood part of town.

While most other MPs went off for the summer, some of us had the important task of discussing the content of our next manifesto at a special meeting of Labour's National Policy Forum at Warwick University.

This was a three-day event which marked the culmination of a six-month consultation with all sections of the Labour Party to seek ideas and consensus as to the future direction the party should take. Burnley Labour Party had engaged energetically with this opportunity, arranging special meetings and putting forward a number of ideas.

In total, there were 4,500 submissions from all parts of the country and all sections of the Labour Party that needed to be discussed and resolved.

This was a difficult logistical task and hundreds of meetings were set up to discuss the various policy proposals. I was there primarily as a Treasury minister, tasked with ensuring we didn't agree to anything without properly considering the effect on taxpayers, but I also took the opportunity to push a few constituency issues as well.

One of our local delegates, for example, had put forward a policy proposal to improve train links in and out of East Lancashire including from Burnley to Manchester so I ensured this was raised with transport ministers and got the promise of a proper meeting in the autumn to see what could be done.

By 5 a.m. on Sunday, an agreement was finally reached. Labour's offering to the British people at the next election will now include an extension of the right to request flexible working to all parents of children aged up to 16 (it's currently only for parents of very young children) as well as an extension of the full minimum wage to people aged 21, rather than 22 as at present.

The party also committed itself to affirming the central role of the public sector in delivering public services and laid down important criteria around the protections available to staff in companies that were contracting with the Government. In addition, delegates agreed the voting age should be reduced to 16 and the House of Lords should be fully elected.

At the end of rather gruelling negotiations, all sections of the party – unions, constituency delegates and government ministers – expressed themselves as pleased with the outcome and went off on their summer holidays with a sense of achievement.

We will come back together again at the annual party conference in Manchester at the end of September to continue these discussions further and Burnley's delegates will continue to ensure the work of a national Labour government also works well for us.

I'm off now with my family for a bit of a summer break. We will be staying in Britain with extended family, enjoying some country living quite near where my sister lives in Bath. Then we'll be back in the constituency towards the end of August.

My first surgery will be in the first week of September but the office is open throughout the summer so don't hesitate to get in touch.