On the floor of the House of Commons this afternoon, South Lakes MP Tim Farron urged the Chancellor to give local businesses on the high street a much-needed tax break this Christmas.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Tim said: "51,000 shops in the UK high street closed in the last year.

"Local businesses in even successful places like Kendal and Windermere struggle because they are forced to pay huge taxes whilst mega online retailers get away with paying next to nothing at all.

South Lakes MP Tim Farron visited the Royal Mail Delivery Office at Troutbeck Bridge this morning to see first-hand the operation of delivering Christmas post and to pass on early Season's Greetings to Royal Mail's dedicated, hardworking staff.

Tim was shown around the office by Delivery Office Manager Michelle Rickman and was introduced to the postmen and women, who will be pulling out all the stops to sort and deliver mail in the Lake District in the forthcoming busy Christmas period.

On the floor of the House of Commons this afternoon, local MP Tim Farron secured a meeting with the housing minister to discuss problems connected with excessive second home ownership in South Lakeland.

According to South Lakeland District Council, there are currently 3819 properties in the council tax list classed as second homes.

Commenting on the news that Crossrail has received a £1.7bn bailout from the Government, South Lakes MP Tim Farron said:

"Once again we see this Government prepared to fork out billions of pounds to keep a failing project in the South East going with no finish date in sight.

"Meanwhile here in the North of England, passengers will be lucky just to find that their train that runs on time - assuming that their train is running at all.

Local MP Tim Farron has welcomed the Government's decision to further reduce the maximum the number of weeks' rent a landlord can charge tenants as a deposit, to the equivalent of five weeks' rent.

Back in September, the Government presented a bill to Parliament which looked at lowering the cap on deposits to six weeks' worth of rent.