It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist). We spent time on the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government, and we agree on much. I also agreed with much that the shadow Secretary of State said earlier. She was my predecessor as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on poverty, so we share many of the concerns that have been raised in this debate.
However, I listened very carefully to what the shadow Secretary of State said, and at one point she said—I hope I do not get this wrong—that it is the Government’s job to make sure children do not go hungry. I differ there, and I think lots of my constituents differ there too, because they would be appalled by the prospect of the Government interfering in their daily lives to make sure their children did not go hungry. Many in this House will be aware that I had a slight fall-out in the Twittersphere with Marcus Rashford a couple of weeks ago on this issue, which is why I wanted to speak today. When somebody said something similar to me on Twitter, I simply tweeted:
“Where they can, it’s a parent’s job to feed their children”.
I noticed that the shadow Secretary of State did not include the caveat “where they can”, and that is the key difference here. It needs—