I MET with three very inspiring women this week.

Julie Rose and Michelle and Sarah Cowell have written a compelling novel about their families’ struggle with drug addiction.

The novel, called Tenacity, explores their struggles to get their children off drugs, highlighting that addiction can be a hard-hitting problem that can happen to anyone.

Julie, Michelle and Sarah hope the story will serve as a deterrent against drugs and have published the book on Amazon, as well as toured the country speaking to experts on addiction.

I am currently reading the book and am looking forward to working with the ladies to organise meetings with national charities to ensure that their story is heard by as many people as possible.

Whilst it is a hard-hitting read, I would encourage anybody who has had similar experiences to get a copy or for those with younger family members it certainly provides a stark reminder of the dangerous potential that the problem of drugs can present to any family.

Elsewhere, congratulations to everyone who received their results.

They are the result of the culmination of two years of dedication and hard work.

Rightly, we want everyone, regardless of background, to be able to fulfil their potential and, for many, A-levels are the pathway to a university degree.

While university may not be the right choice for everyone, the proportion of young people on their way to higher education, taking that big step to move away from home to study, is at a record high.

At the end of June this year, almost 650,000 people had already applied to a UK higher education course, among them a record proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

We are currently increasing entries to science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects in order to contribute the future economic prosperity of our country.

It will help to grow our workforce in these sectors, allowing young people to secure well-paid jobs and compete in the global jobs market of post-Brexit Britain.

Importantly, we are also increasing the number of young women studying STEM subjects, which has been an important objective of the Government, so it is particularly pleasing to see that more young women are taking STEM subjects.

In fact, yesterday’s results mean that for the first time since 2004 there are more young women than young men studying chemistry.

I am delighted that there are currently more working class young people going to university than there were in 2010.

This, along with our plan to create three million new apprenticeships (of which two million have already been created) demonstrates our aim to provide more choice for youngsters and more opportunity for them to fulfil their potential.

Finally, a personal well done to Jade, my office intern, who received her AS results.

She has a bright future ahead of her whatever she chooses to go on to do and we are very pleased that she has been such a fantastic member of our office team.