Get more mothers into work, orders EU

BRITAIN has too many stay-at-home mothers and must do more to get them into work, the European Union has said.

British women are twice as likely as those in the rest of Europe to choose not to work in order to care for their children or elderly relations, EU figures show.

The large number of mothers who work part-time or not at all is a “social challenge” that the Government must address by providing more free child care, according to a report by the European Council.

The report prompted anger from campaigners and MPs who said that a Brussels institution had “no right” to “lecture” mothers.

There has been a record increase in the number of women who are entering the workplace and a manifesto pledge by the Conservatives to provide more taxpayer-funded child care places.

The recommendation came as part of an annual assessment of every European economy and was presented to George Osborne at a meeting of finance ministers last Friday.

The report noted how unemployment had fallen dramatically in Britain in recent years, but criticised the fact that women were far more likely to be in part-time work than men.

“Despite the positive trends in relation to labour market outcomes, social challenges persist,” it said. In 2013, 42.6 per cent of British women were in part-time work compared with 13.2 per cent of men, one of the highest differences in the EU. The percentage of women who did not work or worked part-time “due to personal and family responsibilities” was 12.5 per cent, almost twice as high as the EU average of 6.3 per cent.

Figures compiled by Eurostat, the EU statistics body, showed that in 2012 only Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Malta had more women who did not work in order to care for their families.

Laura Perrins, of the campaign group Mothers at Home Matter, said: “How British families organise their care is up to them. They shouldn’t be lectured to by the British government, or beancounters in Europe. This is just another bullying tactic to get mothers to leave their young children.”

Peter Bone, the Conservative MP for Wellingborough, said: “They have no right whatsoever to tell women and families to go to work. It is not within spitting distance of what they should be doing.” Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory MP for North East Somerset, said the council was “nitpicking”.

The council’s recommendations are part of European targets to get 75 per cent of working-age adults into employment by 2020. Britain’s employment rate stands at a record 73.4 per cent.

The Office for National Statistics has recorded a dramatic fall in the number of women who do not work in order to look after a home or children. The current figure stands at 2.024 million, a fall of 31 per cent on 2.913 million in spring 1993. The number has dropped by 13,000 in the past year.