Baroness Flather, a former president of the Family Planning Association, wants health clinics to advise parents from deprived areas against extending their families.

The Tory peer, who is a director of Marie Stopes International, the sexual health charity, believes poor people like television’s The Royle Family should focus their resources on two or three children.

Recent research has shown that the cost of bringing up a child from birth to university is £164,000. The less well-off have, on average, 2.7 children compared with two for middle- class parents and 2.3 for the top social class.

Parents of large families accused her of advocating eugenics. They argued it was beneficial for children to grow up with several brothers and sisters.

Speaking last week, Baroness Flather, who has two sons, said a mother should be told by health clinics to weigh the costs of having a large family after the birth of her first child.

She said: “People should be thinking more about how much they can offer five children compared to how much they can offer two or three.

“Perhaps parents (with large families) cannot give their children the education they would like to be able to give, or do not have the time to educate the children themselves. Perhaps they do not have the space for them to study.

“If you want the best for your child, you have to think about how many children you can look after. If you had two or three children, maybe you could have higher aspirations for them.” She says smaller families that focus on the education of their children would be more beneficial to the economy.

“We need people with skills, and large families are not always focused on that. In Britain, the highest achievers among immigrants are the Indians, who have smaller families. We know that the Bangladeshis, who tend to have larger families, are not as high achievers.”

Baroness Flather says it is easier for smaller families to go on educational outings such as visits to museums and galleries.

While the peer is careful to point out that decisions about family size are up to parents, she says women must realise they have a choice over how many children to bring into the world. “We are not saying ‘you will only have three children’. We just want women to think about the children’s future.”

Flather adds that while the middle classes have greater resources to bring up more children they are choosing to have smaller families.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• DIY video helps the WI get to grips with sex
• Artists urge nation to save Titians
• Go home, Iraqi leader tells Britain