Tebbit attacks childcare tax break for working parents

Former Tory chairman Lord Tebbit has criticised the coalition’s flagship childcare policy, saying mothers or fathers should be encouraged to stay at home to raise their children.

He said helping parents to stay at home would help save taxpayers’ money because it could reduce the cost of coping with family break-ups.

Lord Tebbit, who claimed the coalition was “past its sell-by date” and should split, said he was not “terribly impressed” with the policy of offering working parents a tax break of up to £2,000 to help with the costs of childcare.

The scheme, jointly launched by David Cameron and Nick Clegg and due to come into effect in autumn 2015, will help around 1.9 million families with children aged under 12 where both parents work, at a cost of around £750 million.

But giving a “state of the Conservative Party” lecture to the Bow Group think tank, Lord Tebbit said people should face up to the choices that being a parent involves.

“I’m not terribly impressed with the idea of subsidising people who both want to have children and to go to work, both members of the family,” he said.

“There are choices which have to be made.”

He said the Tories should “think about how we could encourage mothers, normally, or even fathers to look after their own children, bring them up in the family”.

“I think that would save a lot of money in the longer run as we look at the costs of family break-ups,” he added.

Turning to efforts to modernise Parliament he said: “Where I see credence being given to the demands of an MP to take a baby through the division lobbies, to change the House of Commons to make it child friendly and things like that, I say to myself ‘why don’t you make up your mind what you want to do? Do you want to be a mother looking after your own children or do you want to be a politician?’

“When I was elected to the House of Commons I left my flying career. I couldn’t continue with it, it was incompatible with being a member of the House of Commons.”