THERESA May has doubled down on DWP claims that the government is being supportive when it forces victims of rape to choose between reliving their violent sexual attack or losing their benefits.

The Prime Minister was pushed yesterday to condemn comments made by Work and Pension Secretary Esther McVey at a Scottish Parliament committee hearing, when she defended the so-called rape clause, saying the process could offer “double support” for survivors.

May declined to do so.

She said she fully recognised “the sensitivities involved for the mothers” but that the government had put in place a system where the mothers applying for the “non-consensual conception” exemption to the two child benefit cap would speak to a health worker rather than a bureaucrat in a jobcentre plus.

“We have taken great care, considerable time and care, to set up procedures following extensive consultations, that mean that no government staff will question these mothers about what they’ve experienced,” May insisted.

She said the point McVey had made was “that a mother would be granted the exemptions through engaging specialist professional like health and social workers who may be able to provide them with support in those circumstances, over and beyond the issue of their entitlement.”

On Monday McVey was asked by Green party MSP Alison Johnstone if she was “comfortable with the idea that a woman has to prove non-consensual conception in order to access an entitlement?”

McVey replied: “There will be no invasive or delving questions asked. What we’re doing is providing extra help where people have got more children that they couldn’t have planned.

“This could give them an opportunity to talk about, maybe, something that has happened that they never had before so it is potentially double support … them getting the money they need and maybe an outlet which they might possibly need.”

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, held up the eight page form women who have been raped are forced to fill in for the exemption.

“Hanging benefits on proving trauma isn’t a choice. It is a disgrace and one which may well re-traumatise the woman involved,” he said.

“The chair of the BMA in Scotland has said it is fundamentally damaging for women, forcing them to disclose rape and abuse at a time and in a manner not of their choose at pain of financial penalty,”

“What kind of society do we live in?” he asked.

May replied: “We live in the kind of society where we have taken every care to ensure that this is dealt with in as sensitive a manner as possible.”

“No mother in these circumstances will be granted the exemption by dealing with job centre staff,” she promised.

The clash in Parliament came ahead of a major protest mark the one year anniversary of the implementation of the rape clause. Hundreds are expected to gather at the Mound in Edinburgh tonight.

“We have a situation in 21st century Britain where a woman are forced to choose between disclosing rape, potentially for the first time, and poverty is a disgrace,” organisers said.