Dr Kieran Mullan

They are citizens, are they not? They have signed a deeper contract with the country that they are in, and they are here under a different set of circumstances. The hon. Member needs to be clearer when she asks her questions in relation to two different groups of people, because we treat them very differently in our proposals. There is a distinction. Let me make a final point that is often not talked about enough. We are all incredibly focused on what the Government should do to help people and how taxpayers should help people. We know that for very many people in poverty, a big factor in that is having absent parents who give them absolutely no money or pitiful amounts of money for very many years. We also know that a large proportion of families with children who are in absolute poverty would not be in poverty if an absent parent who is not paying was paying. I wish that there was as much focus on the dereliction of duty that parents too often show to their children and the complete failure for decades to tackle that issue, across all parties, as there is on what taxpayers and the state should deliver. That is a significant moral failing that we are too shy to talk about in this country, and it does not get the attention that it needs. If all parents, whether they have split up or are together, contributed to the upkeep of their children, we would see a lot less child poverty; I wish that MPs on all sides of the House were as invested in that issue as they are in deciding how much the state should pay in their place.