The traditional family in which one parent stays at home to look after children is treated by ministers as their “economic enemy”, Nigel Farage has claimed.
The leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party said bringing in a marriage tax break would “allow people to make informed and compassionate lifestyle choices about how they bring up their children at home”.
The news comes after George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was accused of “patronising” stay-at-home mothers after saying that they had made a “lifestyle choice” and should not receive childcare vouchers.
In a Commentary for Telegraph.co.uk, Mr Farage said that the Government’s “nonsensical” policy was to target traditional families, where one adult goes to work and the other stays at home to look after the children.
He said: “Nonsensical Government policy seems to suggest that the real economic enemy to the Coalition isn’t the failure to cut red tape and empower small and medium sized businesses, but seems to be the concept of the traditional family, where one parent (of whatever gender – after all over a million households now have the woman as the main bread winner) goes out to work while the other brings up the children.”
Mr Farage said that couples in a marriage should be allowed to swap tax allowances between each other. He said: “Child benefit is available to those earning up to £60,000 a year, where those with two incomes can earn up to £100,000.
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