Women bosses are more likely than men to discriminate against female employees with children, Sir Alan Sugar has told The Times.

Sir Alan, executive chairman of Amstrad and Viglen, discussing the issue of working women and the provision of childcare, said: “Be under no illusion. There are women employers who are more ruthless than men. They are more conscious of not employing other women because they feel they’re not going to get the value of work out of them.”

He thought it right that women were asked about their plans to have children and how they expected to look after their children while at work. “I think it’s right for women to volunteer the information,” Sir Alan said. “Companies have no divine duty to help with childcare. Companies employ people. It’s the Government’s responsibility to provide childcare. You pay a person a salary and they cut their cloth accordingly.”

Sir Alan, who fronts The Apprentice, which starts a new series on BBC One tonight, has been criticised for arguing that equality laws make it more difficult for women to find jobs.

Women bosses fought back last night. Erika Watson, the executive director of Prowess, an association for women entrepeneurs, said of Sir Alan’s comments: “It’s dinosaur attitudes like those that really threaten the UK’s competitiveness. Too many talented women are not achieving their potential in the workplace because of the discrimination such attitudes encourage. Bar a couple of extremists — wheeled out by the press on such occasions — those views certainly don’t reflect the views of our female business leaders.”

Glenda Stone, who co-chairs the Government’s Women’s Enterprise Task Force and is chief executive of the Aurora marketing company, said: “Women employers are looking for the best person for the job, and if that is a woman with kids that’s fine. When men are ruthless they are seen as assertive. But when females are — to use Sir Alan’s word — ruthless, they are seen as aggressive.”

This month Sir Alan said that he did not regret having criticised rules that bar employers from asking job applicants if they plan to have children. He said: “I don’t want to be dragged into a debate about stupid EU employment rules. I do what I want in that boardroom and if they [the candidates] don’t like it, they can p*** off.”

Sir Alan was confident that his empire would survive the downturn. “Because of my wealth of experience one has gone through the valleys and mountains of these things before,” he said. “The one we’re in at the moment will bottom out and we’ll rise again. I’ve tailored my business to be immune from doom and gloom by not overstepping the mark, by cutting our cloth according to what we can afford. You have to sit on the fence in periods of depression and be ready to pounce when the time is right. We’re not indebted up to the neck. We own property in prime locations. If we go through a two or three-year period of remaining stagnant, so be it.”