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Childcare cuts, maternity leave threatened, higher taxes... Young mothers are bearing the brunt of coalition cuts

No reason to worry. "He comes out with this stuff all the time," said a senior Whitehall source for news of the idea emerged last week. "He's crazier than an order of the cartoons."

But what then of the government 's reduces to expansion of childcare, Sure Start services and working tax credits? And what women are the latest research from the Fawcett Society, Gender Equality Group, to make the most of the triple whammy of cuts at the sites, services, and services were single mothers?

Despite all the talk of family-friendly policies and Cameron and Nick Clegg's insistence on paternity leave, while at the school run ", the remarks only further evidence of the Conservatives 'maybe Hilton \ blind spot when it comes to motherhood.

"There are serious signs of the government is not just an oversight on women 's life, but an ideological approach risks turning the clock back," said Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary and minister for women. "It is hard, someone who proposes an idea of ??working mothers or their importance to the British economy, the abolition of maternity leave, can imagine -. Unless, of course, mothers think they shouldn 't work at all"

Cooper 's intervention could be passed out as party politicking, but also within the coalition there is some evidence that Hilton' s plan was for a direction not entirely foreign to the government. This month, the minister for equalities, Lynne Featherstone, a Liberal Democrat, publicly warned ministries and local authorities that they, in violation of the equality laws, if they do not consider the potential for cuts disproportionately on women. Last year Fawcett Society, said that the announced EUR 8.1 billion in savings (of cuts to jobs, benefits and services) in the emergency budget in June 2010, £ 5.7 billion or 72%, and of women alike, compared with 28% of men.

There has been a £20m (28%) cut to Playbuilder funding, a Labour government programme to build more playgrounds. A 22% cut to funding for childcare provision and Sure Start, with the removal of ringfencing, has resulted in many councils withdrawing, scaling back or charging extra for services such as holiday childcare and leisure activities. Justine Roberts, co-founder of the website Mumsnet, said: "It seems rather ironic that the coalition government agreement included a promise to make our society more family-friendly. We've yet to see much evidence of this. Parents are struggling with some of the highest childcare costs in Europe, static wages and the prospect of reduced child benefit and tax credits for many."

"I am contributing to society by working, I am contributing to the economy through my taxes, I'm being a good role model for my five-year-old daughter. Where is the incentive for me to work? I'd be better of being a stay-at-home mum living off benefits. It's ridiculous."

Sharon Hodgson, the Labour MP for Washington and Sunderland West, said she believed the government was targeting women with children because they were the demographic least likely to vote. "The worst things they did last year, people have forgotten about. Getting rid of the child trust fund, the baby bond, the health in pregnancy grant, added to all the things they have done recently, is all targeted at women and families."