The Argus’ backing to save our local children’s centres is very welcome and I am happy to give my full support to the campaign.

I wholeheartedly agree these services must remain intact, and will fiercely work to protect them, both in the community and in Parliament.

But it is incredibly disingenuous and irresponsible to let the Government off the hook for their systematic, cruel and economically illiterate cuts, which target the poorest and threaten our most precious services – including these centres.

Britain’s 3.5 million children living in poverty did not cause the financial crisis and should not pay for the deficit.

Between the Prime Minister first declaring ‘we're all in it together’ in autumn 2010 and April 2016, core central government funding to local authorities will have been slashed by a staggering 40%.

The threat to our most valued public services are a direct result of what’s amounting to the lowest levels of public spending by government since the 1930s.

Most MPs have bought into the narrative that such cuts are somehow necessary. Some of us have not.

In order to campaign as effectively as possible, we need to put the responsibility for local authority cuts firmly at this Government’s door.

Caroline Lucas MP, Brighton Pavilion