03:43

Andrea Leadsom, Theresa May’s new environment secretary who pulled out of the race for the leadership after being plunged into controversy over comments on motherhood made in an interview with the Times (£), appears to have slipped up again.

In further comments released from the same interview, Leadsom said it was not “sensible” to appoint a man to look after young children because of the danger that they could be a paedophile.

“As an employer we’re not — let’s face it — most of us don’t employ men as nannies, most of us don’t. Now you can call that sexist, I call that cautious and very sensible when you look at the stats. Your odds are stacked against you if you employ a man. We know paedophiles are attracted to working with children. I’m sorry but they’re the facts,” she said.

The comments are likely to anger the 5% of nannies who are male. A survey by the pre-school learning alliance has shown that the vast majority of parents are happy for men to work with children aged 3 to 5 at nurseries, with 89% happy for younger children.

The government has been trying to boost the number of men in childcare saying the “gender imbalance” should be addressed.