This is a bit like having to write a thank you letter before opening the present – not that I think any of us are likely to be terribly excited about the content of this particular parcel. I say this because I am submitting this piece the very day before Chancellor George Osborne unveils his emergency first Budget.

By the time you read this, you will know the worst – and I somehow doubt whether many of you will have written thank you letters to 11 Downing Street. I hope, however, that many of us will have been able to write notes of congratulations on a difficult task courageously accomplished.

The strangest thing about this Budget for me is that I will not be in my place in the House of Commons to hear it. It is the first Budget to be held since my retirement from the Commons and so the first since 1970 at which I have not been present, sitting either facing or behind the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The ones that will always be fixed in my memory are Denis Healey’s and Geoffrey Howe’s for their contrasting styles – the belligerent and the soporific. Only Gordon Brown succeeded in putting me to sleep – I had a pager message from my wife, watching on television, which urged me to ‘wake up’.

I have, however, been keeping in touch with former parliamentary colleagues and some of those newly elected to the House in May, and it is clear that the coalition government has made a promising start. The loss of David Laws as Chief Secretary to the Treasury just three weeks after the election was a real body blow, but not the knockout one some of the jeremiahs were predicting the day after his resignation. All in all, the government has presented an impressive unity and an ability to get down to tackling some of the real issues that touch all our lives. And while the cancellation of several major projects – such as the Stonehenge Visitor Centre – have caused real dismay, other announcements have been greeted with near universal approval.

In recent years, I have become increasingly exasperated by the constant interference of the State in almost every aspect of our lives. I was therefore delighted to see that the Prime Minister had appointed Lord Young to create a bonfire of many of the senseless health and safety regulations, and some of the other bureaucratic nonsenses that have been so destructive of privacy and trust. Let us hope that Lord Young comes up with an all-embracing and hard-hitting report that puts an end to stories of grandparents being interrogated for taking photographs at school sports days and innocent tourists being stopped from taking photographs of Westminster Abbey.

There are two other things I would single out for praise. First has been the way in which our new Prime Minister has engaged with his colleagues in the European Union, and secondly the way in which he has dealt with what could have been one of the most divisive issues on the domestic front. In Europe, he has engaged intelligently with the French President, the German Chancellor and others. He has made it quite plain that the UK is committed to the European Union, but is implacably opposed to anything that could move us towards a federal structure. He has shown in the process that it is perfectly possible to be a leading member of the Union without wanting further political integration. And how right he was to have no truck with the suggestion that our Budget should be vetted in Brussels before being presented to Parliament.

But Mr Cameron’s finest hour to date came when he presented the Saville Report on Bloody Sunday to the House. He seemed to judge both the moment and the issue impeccably. While maintaining his pride in our country and in our armed forces, he made no attempt to challenge Lord Saville’s damming verdict on the Bloody Sunday shootings. The shootings were wrong, and he said so. They were indefensible, and he made no attempt to defend them. The consequence was that crowds of nationalists in Londonderry stood in the streets and applauded a British Prime Minister – and a Conservative one at that. So what could have been a document that derailed the peace process could instead become a stepping stone towards a greater and more lasting peace.

The statement on Saville was the moment when I most felt my absence from the House. For the past five years, I have chaired the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and have come to love that beautiful, but sorely bruised, part of our country. I would have liked the opportunity to thank the Prime Minister for his clear and dignified words – and the chance to underline the fact that 90 per cent of the 3,500 killed in the Troubles were killed by terrorists – and that, Bloody Sunday apart, the Army did much to protect those who detested violence in both Unionist and Nationalists communities.