It is “hard to prevent” people photographing others who are breastfeeding in public, Jacob Rees-Mogg has said.

The Commons leader was asked on Thursday about a case of a woman feeling “violated” after a man took photos of her in a park.

Labour MP Jeff Smith said while it was not “illegal” to take such photos, it was “disturbing and intrusive”.

He asked Rees-Mogg if the government would look at how to “tackle the problem”.

Rees-Mogg said there was a “difficult issue as to privacy in public spaces”.

“It is not easy to legislate for every possible circumstance,” he told MPs.

“And people in public are obviously in public. And that is hard to prevent people seeing things that take place in public.

“But you would expect people, out of courtesy, not to photograph people doing things that, are of their nature private, in public.”

Smith had told him: “Last week one of my constituents visited a local park with her friend and their two young babies. They both began breastfeeding.

“And before long saw a stranger taking photos of them with a telephoto lens.

“They confronted him and the man refused to delete the photos, even when asked to by the park warden.

“They reported it to he police who said there was nothing they could do because it was a public place and taking photos is not illegal.”

Smith said it had left his constituent feeling “violated and discouraged from breastfeeding out side the house”.