I AM incredibly lucky to have had a caring and supportive family that looked after me, pushed me to succeed in life and worked hard to provide for me and my siblings.

But my parents divorced when I was quite young. It never occurred to either of them that this could mean that they didn't have to look after their children. But sadly this isn't the case for everyone.

You don't have to be an MP to know there are deadbeat parents out there who don't put money towards their children. I think that is one of the lowest things you can do.

Not only is it a betrayal of your children, it often leads to taxpayers having to step in. How have we got to the position when someone described as a single parent is almost taken to mean as default someone bringing up children on a single income?

We know how important every penny is at the moment. It isn't surprising to know that of children who aren't in receipt of financial support from one of their parents that are battling poverty, research suggests that 60 per cent would be lifted out of poverty if they were getting that cash.

I have never understood why high-profile campaigners have so much to say about what taxpayers through the government should be forced to do to help children who are less well off, but comparatively little about the people who should be looking after their own children.

I can't help but think that is because that sort of campaign wouldn't be so popular with celebrities and on left-wing dominated social media.

While of course solidarity means we as taxpayers should and often do step in to help people less well off-surely the true responsibility lies with the financially absconded parent?

Every week approximately £1 million of child maintenance payments go unpaid with a total of £436 million built up over recent years. The figure is expected to hit £1 billion by 2031 and more than £2 billion was written off from historical debts recently.

Figures from last year show that 38,000 parents with an ongoing arrangement had not paid any maintenance for more than three months, and 22,000 had not paid for more than six months.

This is a huge amount of money that's not being paid by non-residential parents, and I believe we have a responsibility to hold to account and punish those individuals who behave in this deplorable manner.

This is an issue I have worked on throughout my time here in Parliament and earlier this year I successfully persuaded the Government to move forward with home curfews, commonly known as house arrest, for people that don't pay the child maintenance they should.

In theory the Government  has some tough powers including imprisonment, but clearly the figures show they aren't working.

Imprisoning someone, though morally warranted, stops them from being able to earn and is not a practical solution to use at the scale we need to tackle the tens of thousands of non-payers.

And these delinquent individuals have learnt that if they just start paying a little bit again the whole system resets. Home curfew could be tailored to allow someone to still go out to find and take up a job.

I imagine three months at home every night pondering their responsibilities will be a powerful reality check for these people. They need to start understanding we as a society are going to crack down on this and they will be punished for not paying for the upkeep of their children.

To push further with the campaign I held a debate in Parliament on it earlier this month and secured a further step forward-avoiding the danger of a plan being kicked into the long grass-with the government announcing a public consultation on the proposed new powers will take place from June 13 to July 22, with the aim for final proposals to be published on 12 October.

I do want to acknowledge that there are very many loving parents who would and do contribute to the care of their children who are prevented from seeing them by parents who have primary custody.

When I first raised this issue many of them contacted me explaining the difficulties they had seeing their children and many have contacted me again after this debate. I am in no way minimising that and I fully support every parent in exercising their clear legal rights to secure access to their children.

Of course it is abhorrent for any parent not to act in good faith when it comes to access. But two wrongs don't make a right.

I also know the agency in charge of policing child maintenance payments makes mistakes. As with the current stronger powers there needs to be robust checks in place for cases where a curfew is being proposed.

But as an MP you learn you can't fix everything at once and if you waited for perfection in existing areas before proposing new ideas you would never be proposing anything.

Right now tens of thousands of parents are abandoning their responsibilities and we should do something about it. I am not going to stop pushing for that because a government agency makes mistakes, that would not be proportionate or in the best interests of the children I am seeking to help.

I am clear that every child deserves parents who step up and look after them and that no taxpayer should be left filling the void when they do not.

On behalf of a society that I believe wants to see tougher action, I will keep pushing this campaign until we get over the line.