A senior UK Independence party politician has said women with babies do not have the ambition to go right to the top, sparking yet another storm about sexism following the sacking of the party's controversial MEP Godfrey Bloom.

Stuart Agnew, a Ukip MEP, made the remarks in a debate about gender quotas in Brussels last week as he tried to explain the lack of women in senior roles.

Speaking in the European parliament, Agnew said: "If you look at the people who get degrees, more women get them and they are getting the jobs in the workplace, but for various reasons they don't have the ambition to go right to the top because something gets in the way. It's called a baby.

"I've never had a baby, but I understand if you do have a baby it can change your life – it changes your ambitions. So, the route is there. Those females who really want to get to the top do so."

He defended his comments in a statement to the Huffington Post, saying: "I was certainly not trying to suggest that all women who have babies don't make it to the top. Margaret Thatcher is an example that springs to mind!

"It is a great pity that there hasn't been more focus on the EU's mandatory gender quota itself. The penalties include closing down the company if they have too many men or women. Dissolving the company would hardly benefit either gender employed there. All would be unemployed."

His comments come just two months after Bloom, another MEP, was removed from the party shortly after branding a roomful of women "sluts" and hitting a reporter over the head with a brochure during a rant about racism.

It also follows a row this week about a Ukip councillor in Cambridge, who allegedly suggested a group of children in care were "takers" from society.

Cambridgeshire county council is now looking into a number of complaints about the incident, in which the councillor, Gordon Gillick, reportedly asked three teenagers in foster care: "How does it feel to be takers from the system?" He was also reported to have asked them when they would "start giving back to society".

Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, had to fend off a number of embarrassing comments by Ukip candidates in May's council elections and since then the party has been making an effort to improve vetting.

It asked candidates for next year's European Union elections to fill in questionnaires about their views and this was taken into account during the selection process.