“IT’S a way of life, rather than a job.”

Witney MP Robert Courts’s working day in Westminster can be up to 15 hours long - and he rarely has a free minute.

On Wednesday, the Oxford Mail sampled the breathless life of an MP by shadowing Mr Courts in London, where he addressed issues from human rights to potholes.

Mr Courts said: “One of the biggest challenges is diary management.

“There’s a baffling amount going on here and you could easily fill any given day with four or five days worth of work, but you just can’t do everything.”

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The Witney MP lives in his London flat between Sunday and Thursday evening during the working week, which normally begins at about 8am on Monday.

He said: "The house sits at 2.30pm on a Monday, so that morning is a very good time to catch up on case work.

"There will be outstanding issues from the weekend and the day in the constituency on Friday, plus we can start looking at the diary for the week ahead."

Wednesday’s first major commitment was a transport select committee meeting in Portcullis House, opposite the Houses of Parliament.

This was the last session in the committee’s long-running inquiry into improving local road surfaces, with transport minister Jesse Norman taking questions from the cross-party group of MPs.

Read again: Witney MP 'determined' to tackle pothole problem

West Oxfordshire's maze of rural roads means the inquiry affects thousands of residents in the district - and the Witney MP revealed he prioritises issues that impact his constituents most.

He said: “The focus of everything we do here is constituent-based.

“Even the national issues are approached with a West Oxfordshire angle.

"I will also focus on things I'm personally interested in - for example, defence is both a personal interest and a major constituency interest, because of RAF Brize Norton."

Mr Courts also sits on the justice select committee, which has its meetings every Wednesday.

These committees offer MPs the chance to scrutinise the ruling party and make suggestions to inform government departments.

Read again: Robert Courts says West Oxfordshire's pothole problem is improving

Next on the agenda was a trip to the House of Commons for Wales Office Questions, followed by Prime Minister’s Questions.

Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn were absent due to attending the funeral of journalist Lyra McKee in Northern Ireland, but several of the government’s big hitters were there.

After the 45-minute session, Mr Courts stayed in the House of Commons Chamber for urgent questions, where he asked for reassurance that the government ‘would not prioritise trade over human rights’ following mass executions in Saudi Arabia.

He then returned to his office - a small room in the Norman Shaw North building - for case work and correspondence, plus a chat with the Oxford Mail.

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Three of the MP’s staff work in the same room, with the fourth in his Witney office.

Mr Courts tries to attend drop-in events when possible, and on Wednesday he met RSPB campaigners lobbying MPs over the ongoing Environmental Bill in Westminster Hall.

Afternoons are prime time to meet ministers and catch up on case work, with Mr Courts and his staff receiving hundreds of emails from constituents every week.

He said: "I want to show I'm accessible, so instead of people thinking 'I need to contact the MP', they'll think 'I need to contact Robert'.

"Some things we can do remotely, so we would take people's details and take action.

"My staff will put in the request, but if they don't hear back, I'll get involved.

"In extreme situations I would get a minister involved and then things tend to happen very quickly indeed."

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He added: “These can be policy issues where people write to me about something they feel strongly about, or where someone has asked for help.

“Often I do that in the evening, because it’s not uncommon for me to be in the House from 8am until 8pm.

"At the end of the day, I either come back and spend a couple of hours here or work remotely.”

Several other tasks also fill his time, such as writing articles and contributing to think tanks, but Mr Courts is always keen to invite his constituents to Parliament too.

On the day before our visit, the MP took a group from RAF Brize Norton on a tour.

He said: "Until you've come to see it and you've walked around, you don't really grasp the fact that you can be walking through Westminster Hall and a cabinet minister will walk past you.

"This might be a building MPs work in, but it belongs to everybody as it's everyone's democracy."