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Across the country all this week young people and those who work with them have been focusing on the scourge of bullying. They've been working hard trying to find ways of preventing and tackling it. National Anti-Bullying Week has become an annual event, with numerous organisations and individuals playing a part in highlighting the misery bullying causes, as well as promoting effective remedies.

The Western Daily Press and some other media are making significant contributions too - the more attention is drawn to the subject, the better able we are to fight it

It's now a year since this newspaper, as well as a number of national publications, shone a fierce spotlight the west country's way after Tony Blair rightly criticised Bristol City Council's approach to bullying.

It's extraordinary to think of it but just 12 months ago, on the Friday of Anti-Bullying Week, the council was launching with a fanfare a document in which it actually instructed its schools not to punish bullies.

It was plainly a daft policy which needed, for the sake of Bristol's children, to be challenged. In answering my question to him in the House of Commons a year ago, the Prime Minister said "Children who bully must be made to understand the harm that they have been doing."

Pupils who bully others should be made to face the consequences of their actions, not just for the sake of their victims, but for their own good as well. But even though that's something most reasonable parents understand, it's exactly what ruling councillors appeared not to accept.

By initially refusing to back down, the council ensured the focus fell still more firmly on their policy. Bristol's championing of the 'No Blame' approach, followed by councillors' initial refusal to admit they'd got it wrong - was a real low for west country child protection efforts.

But I think we can now say that from the ashes of that debacle, thankfully, a lot of good has come.

One year later we can see that, whilst it could hardly have been their intention, Bristol's folly had the effect of spurring on national efforts to deal with bullying in appropriate ways. The pressure applied on the council by parents and others meant it did eventually withdraw the policy. In fact the whole 'No Blame' approach was so thoroughly discredited that it has now been ditched nationwide. As a result of its abandonment, thousands of young people are safer.

Important though that is, it's not the only way the west country has been pivotal to anti-bullying efforts these past 12 months.

A few weeks before the 'No Blame' episode, a booklet that I co-wrote with Michele Elliott, Director of children's charity Kidscape, had been published here in the west.

'Don't Bully Me', a free 16-page publication, offered advice and support to primary-age children. Its aim was to help equip youngsters with the skills and confidence they need to tackle bullying while at primary school and beyond,

Local pupils from schools in North East Somerset were involved in its production too, with children at Welton Primary, Midsomer Norton and Temple Primary, Keynsham, supplying the illustrations.

It was launched with financial backing from local firm Western Power Distribution and, thanks to their generosity, copies were circulated across the west. It proved popular. But when bullying was thrust into the national spotlight by the Prime Minister's intervention, demand for the common-sense booklet rocketed.

Earlier this year, it reached such a high that Kidscape and store group Argos teamed up to send booklets to every single school in the UK, with an invitation to them to request further copies.
Requests have come not just from all over the UK, but from overseas too, particularly the USA.

Many thousands of children are now better able to deal with bullying as a result of this free booklet, which started out here as a west country initiative.

We should always stay vigilant in our efforts to tackle bullying. There are no 'off the peg' solutions to a complex problem. It remains the scourge of far too many childhoods.

But we are making headway. As I write this article an email has just arrived from Kidscape's Michele Elliott. It says: "One little boy from Bristol wrote to Kidscape today that he got the booklet in school and finally got the courage to tell his parents that he had been bullied for two years. The bullying has now stopped, and I am sure this story has been repeated many times."

I was delighted to be able to announce earlier this week that the number of copies that I've sent on request to parents and children has passed the 100,000 mark. Another 400,000 have been distributed across the UK via Kidscape and the Argos store group.

One year on from events that triggered the burying of 'No Blame', there are at least half a million reasons why we should be pleased those events happened.

Note: Anyone who would like a copy of Don't Bully Me! should telephone Dan Norris's constituency office on 01179 728 865 or write to him at The House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. It is also available using this link