Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; it is great to catch your eye. It has been a while since I spoke from the Back Benches, and I have certainly never before spoken after the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman).
This place is at its best when we can use real-life examples and be a lot more passionate than when we are simply reading from a briefing document. Whether we are talking about the two-and-a-half hours, or however long it takes to make a cup of tea, about charities shovelling snow, which we do not have in Southend—I suspect we do not have the snow, which is something my children would very much like—I share with the hon. Lady some understanding of the credits. My youngest is five, so I greatly sympathise with her. In particular, I thank her for pulling me up and correcting my intervention about whether it was possible under the existing legislation to change the 1:10 ratio, although I would like to return to that in a lot more detail later in my speech.
This is the first time I have spoken from the Back Benches in some time and it is a particular pleasure to do so on the subject of charities. My constituents are an awful lot more interested in charities and what we can do for them in Southend than they are in some of the very good work that I did overseas. Important as that work was, charity begins at home, and in this case it begins in Southend.