Many of you will already be aware that Parliament went on holiday two weeks ago. Some of you may actually play host to many of our country’s legislators and their families.

Some of you may be hosting them now. If this is the case, I would advise you to have a quiet word in their ear about the good work they are doing.

Our parliamentarians certainly deserve a break, and thankfully they have until 10 October to enjoy some well-earned rest and relaxation. We have 646 MPs in this country and what busy bees they have been.

While our ministers and MPs enjoy their annual holiday break this month, the BHA will be working for its members and the hospitality industry as a whole by trying to make sense of the seemingly endless streams of regulation coming from Government.

Luckily, like our legislators, we have some holiday reading to do: from the Department of Health we have a new consultation document on the proposed ban on smoking; from the Home Office a new consultation paper on changes to the point-based scheme for immigration; from the DCMS, we have the 2005 Gambling Act; there is also a paper on age discrimination from the DTI and one on the national minimum wage from the Low Pay Commission.

With all this paperwork, who needs Tolstoy?

And again like our MPs, when they come back to work it will be time to roll up the sleeves and get back to the grindstone. We will have many things to think about, talk about, discuss and do.

The Common Standards Group formed to discuss the harmonisation of grading for hotels and B&Bs has just reached agreement and will publish details of the new grading scheme shortly.

The Lyons Review is also due to publish its preliminary report into funding for local authorities in the next few months.

These new issues nestle neatly among the ongoing industry-related issues of child obesity, smoking in public places, food labelling, alcohol disorder zones, and of course, the continued challenges posed by the changes included in the new Licensing Act.

Perhaps it is too cynical to argue that much of this work is legislation for the sake of legislating, and that it is largely industry that bears the brunt, rather than the consumer being protected.

However it does beg the question. Government and the hospitality industry have a busy autumn ahead. Let’s hope that they enjoy their holiday while it lasts and that we make their stay a welcome one.