Kent MP Tracey Crouch has apologised for remarks suggesting that some poor families facing tax credit cuts did not understand they needed to go without to make ends meet.

The sports minister faced criticism for comments in a wide-ranging interview in which she defended the government's reforms to tax credits and said there were some cases in which families had not grasped that they could save money on things like TV subscriptions.

She has now apologised saying that she had not meant that she did not understand the pressures some families were under.

"I apologise for causing any offence. I'm sorry for giving the impression of a lack of understanding of the financial pressures many families face - nothing could be further from the truth," she said.

In an interview with The Spectator magazine, the Chatham and Aylesford MP said of the tax credit reforms:

"I think it’s about communication. We will be discussing this, and I’m sure that DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) are looking at all of these issues, in great detail but I think at the end of the day one of the kindest things that we can do is try to help people to support themselves and work around their finances.”

She went on: “Some of my most heartbreaking cases are those that come to me saying that they are struggling and then you go through with them their expenditure and income – I’m not generalising at all, I’m talking about some very individual cases – and actually they just haven’t realised some of the savings that they need to make themselves, you know it can be… things like paid subscriptions to TVs and you just sit there and you think you have to sometimes go without if you are going to have people make ends meet.”

Opposition parties said it was further evidence that the government was out of touch.

"I'd had a miscarriage during the election and it had changed my priorities on life in general" - Tracey Crouch MP

Shadow Treasury minister Rebecca Long-Bailey said: 'Another day and yet more evidence of out of touch Tory MPs insulting working people in low pay in what has been a further torturous week for George Osborne on tax credits.

'It's outrageous for a serving minister to claim that working families simply need to 'go without' in order to make ends meet.

During the interview, the MP also revealed she had suffered a miscarriage during the general election campaign and that had almost made her turn down the job of sports minister.

The MP is expecting her first child, and in February, will become the first Conservative minister to take maternity leave.

When David Cameron offered her the post after the election - replacing her Kent colleague Helen Grant - she told him of her concerns.

"I said I wasn’t sure because I wanted to start a family and I said it so very honestly," she explains. "I said to him I’m 40, I want to start a family, that I’d had a miscarriage during the election and it had changed my priorities on life in general.”

Ms Crouch says her miscarriage “just made me realise really how much I wanted children”.

She continues: “One of the things that I learned actually was how little we talk about miscarriage… I discovered that some of my closest friends had had miscarriages and hadn’t told anybody about it, and it’s, you know, it’s something that they had to cope with by themselves

On her plans to take maternity leave, she says: “I’ve worked really hard to be a good MP and it will be difficult to completely stop doing constituency work while on maternity leave but at the same time, the first few months of a baby’s life are so incredibly precious I will want to spend every moment possible enjoying them.”