LAST weekend saw Boris Johnson’s first outing on the world stage as Prime Minister.

The Biarritz G7 Summit was the first opportunity for Boris Johnson to meet with EU leaders and talk more about a deal.

Finding a solution to the Irish backstop conundrum is key to securing a deal with the EU. They, understandably, will not make any concessions until they are sure Parliament will pass any proposals.

The solution must lie in a proposal that Parliament can agree on.

The work of the Alternative Arrangements Commission has put forward proposals that seek to layer existing procedures, develop new ones and change some arrangements in order to come up with an agreeable solution.

Although these proposals may take two or three years to complete, an agreement on them would secure a time limited backstop that may be acceptable to Parliament. We could be in sight of a solution.

Elsewhere at Biarritz, President Trump talked of a US/UK trade deal within a year.

Boris Johnson was more realistic about timing, but again, progress seems to be made.

Of course, still a huge area of contention is what we may be expected to give away to secure that deal.

But it has always been the position of the government that we will not compromise on standards and access in order to do a quick deal.

It is worth remembering that the future trade relationships with the EU, the US and the rest of the world have yet to be established.

As we start to do these trade deals, I suspect that there will be much contentious debate.

Finally, climate change was a big issue. The fires in Brazilian rain forests – the lungs of our planet – are significant.

Teenage climate activist Greta Thumberg’s incredibly uncomfortable, carbon free passage to the UN climate change conference in New York, and the fires, continue to push this agenda to the fore front of news.

I had an opportunity to speak with a climate scientist at Leicester University last week and asked him about it all. I challenged him on the fact that the Earth’s climate has been changing for 4.5 billion years.

Whilst he agreed with this undisputed fact, the reality is our climate is warming at a rate 10 times that of any period in recoverable history.

Climate change is, I believe rightly, becoming the top story of our generation.