Last week I had the pleasure of visiting The Crown at Arford to present the team with their certificate for winning my Best Pub competition.

They have now won two years running, which says everything about the welcome, the standards and the sheer hard work that goes into running a pub every day of the year. Congratulations to everyone there.

The competition also produced some brilliant category winners. The Holly Bush in Frensham takes Best Food, the Bluebell in Dockenfield wins Best Garden, The Queen’s Head in Farnham takes Best Entertainment, and the Royal Exchange in Lindford is Best for Dogs. If you haven’t visited any of them yet, I suggest putting that right this autumn.

That last award brings me to a remark from the Labour benches. A government minister recently dismissed the idea of warm ale and a Labrador by your feet in a pub as a nostalgic fantasy that never really existed. I would invite her to spend a Sunday lunchtime in Lindford. Our pubs exist, they are thriving, and they are the beating heart of village life across our area: as employers, as venues and as places where communities come together.

Defending pubs takes more than words, of course, and the Government’s record on business rates is a muddle. During the Makerfield by-election, Andy Burnham promised to cut rates for all hospitality businesses by 20 per cent.

Within a week of becoming Prime Minister, he had narrowed that to pubs and clubs only, leaving restaurants, cafés, hotels and others facing Labour’s £9 billion business rates rise in full. He was clearly keen to match his predecessor’s penchant for U-turns.

On Friday I held another business roundtable, this time bringing together hospitality firms and businesses of all kinds from across the constituency. Costs, tax and red tape are what I hear about most from local employers, and the message was the same again: stop making it harder to hire, invest and keep the doors open.

This week Conservatives gather for their party conference, and that is the message we are taking with us. Kemi Badenoch opened proceedings with a statement of principles built on the idea that wealth must be created before it can be distributed.

We have since set out plans in that spirit, including cutting red tape and bringing down the cost of a new-build home by up to £50,000. We have also pledged to cut business rates for up to 250,000 high street retail, hospitality and leisure businesses.

Our pubs and local firms do not need lecturing about what is or is not a fantasy. They need a government that backs them, taxes them fairly and lets them get on with the job. In the meantime, the best thing any of us can do is simple: go out and support your local this week. The winners have certainly earned it.