TOWN MP Peter Luff has had a busy start to his next term of office.

The Tory MP has written to Jacqui Smith, the new Schools Minister and MP for Redditch, urging her to deliver a fairer deal for Worcestershire schools.

He said she needs to look seriously at the new funding formula proposed by the 'f40' group of worst funded education authorities.

In his letter he said: "I was disappointed, I must honestly say, that during the election campaign you chose to seek to deter campaigners from pursuing the f40 funding model initiative with local schools.

He added: "It is an unavoidable fact that the funding gap between Worcestershire and the national average has grown sharply through in the last eight years."

Peter said that the f40 funding model may have its own inadequacies, but it does seem to offer a much better way forward for the people he represents.

During the debate on the Queen's Speech on May 19 Peter expressed his sorrow that he thought there was nothing in it that addressed the needs of Worcestershire.

Peter said the issues of agriculture and horticulture, fairer funding for shire counties' schools and public services, the impact of the Licensing Act 2003, travellers, and the hunting ban had not been addressed.

He added: "In short, there is nothing much for rural shires at all. It is a very thin Queen's Speech, indeed, when viewed from a constituency perspective."

Mr Luff also expressed concern about the adequacy of measures proposed to tackle postal voting fraud.

He devoted a large part of his speech to international development and said that an 'unseen tsunami of death from disease and malnutrition was sweeping Africa every day'.