The British Government has been accused of insulting stay-at-home mothers after Downing Street suggested 
that they will be excluded from receiving child care support because they do not want to “work hard and get on”.
The Government announced that working parents earning up to £150,000 each will get up to £1,200 per annum to help with child care because they have a “greater need” than those who do not work, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Under the £1 billion scheme, up to 2.5 million families will be able to claim vouchers to help pay for child care.
However, the proposed payment will only be available to couples where both parents are working or a single parent who is in employment.
Critics say the policy ignores the interests of 1.2 million parents who choose to stay at home to look after their children, many of whom have already lost their child benefit this year.
Asked whether the Prime Minister was “concerned” that the vouchers scheme was penalising stay-at-home mothers, his official spokesman simply said the measures were “very important as part of supporting those who want to work hard and to get on”.
When asked if Mr Cameron believed that stay-at-home parents were less in need of state help than working parents, the spokesman would only say that the Prime Minister wanted to support “aspiration”.
The spokesman added: “The announcement is very specifically focusing on helping those who want to work hard and face the very high child care costs.”
Campaigners accused the Government of being “anti-stay-at-home mothers”.
Marie Peacock, from Mothers at Home Matter, said: “Those mothers are working hard and they want to get on. Hard-working families are not just families with two earners. David Cameron is alienating mothers across Britain. We have been inundated with calls from stay-at-home mums who are puzzled and confused by what Mr Cameron is saying.”
Rachel Aston, from the Mothers’ Union, said: “We are concerned that single-earner families, where one parent takes full-time care of children, are still losing out in the tax system. And we are seriously disappointed that the Government has failed to introduce a transferable tax allowance for married couples, which was promised in its manifesto.”
Tory backbenchers criticised the Government for “penalising” families.
Dominic Raab, the Tory MP for Esher, said: “It is welcome that the Government is supporting hard-working families, but it should not end up penalising their individual choice about how to strike the right balance between bread-winning and child-caring.”
Robert Buckland, the MP for South Swindon, added: “I know we are in a Coalition, but as Conservatives we should still be supporting the concept of transferable tax allowances which would really help millions of families where one parent has decided to stay at home to help bring up the children.”