Stay-at-home mothers in the UK will be “stigmatised” by Labour’s plans to offer parents 25 hours a week of free 
childcare, campaigners have warned.
Presently, all children aged between three and four are entitled to 15 hours of free child care a week.
But yesterday Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls (pictured) promised that if the Labour Party is returned to power, families where both parents are working will be entitled to an extra 10 hours a week of free child care, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Mr Balls said this would leave up to 400,000 families £1,500 a year better off under the plan, which he said would be rolled out by 2020.
But campaigners said the move penalised stay-at-home mothers and would mean that children would spend too long in institutionalised care.
Laura Perrins of Mothers at Home Matter said: “They are penalising and stigmatising stay-at-home mothers. Most mums say they want to spend their early years with their young children, but this is creating more pressure for them to go out to work.
“It’s too long for small children to spend away from home, it is part of the constant drive to push mums out to work and children into institutionalised care.”