The Government's promise that healthy women who choose to can have their babies at home was undermined yesterday by fears of a shortage of midwives and lack of funds.

Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, announced that from 2009 all women would be able to choose where they had their baby - in hospital, in a midwife-led unit or at home.

But the Conservatives said there was "no substance" behind the plans and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said that the plan would need an extra 3,000 midwives.

Only about two per cent of the 600,000 babies born each year in England are home births but it is estimated that 10 per cent of women could safely have babies at home.

The Royal College of Midwives says only one in five women is currently given the option of a home birth.

Ms Hewitt said it would be up to NHS trusts to decide on staffing levels, although there would be another 1,000 midwives graduating from training by 2009.

She admitted no money was being earmarked for maternity services, which currently receive £1.7 billion a year.

"Our plan will help create a gold standard of maternity services. This will mean care is designed around the needs of women and their partners."

She said the NHS needed to make maternity care more of a priority. While the maternity budget has been rising in recent years, the overall proportion of NHS funds spent on it has fallen.

Ms Hewitt denied that maternity support workers would be used as substitutes for midwives.

"That's completely untrue, there's nothing in the document to support such a conclusion," she said.

"In certain areas, maternity support workers can be an important part of the maternity team, and free-up the team of midwives to concentrate on what only they can do, and we see maternity support workers doing some of the clerical work, or home visits, taking blood tests, but maternity support workers cannot be a substitute for the care that only a qualified midwife can provide."

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said he did not believe that the government would be able to deliver on its promises.

Research by the Tories shows that 43 maternity units are threatened with closure this year. "There is no evidence to support the planned closures and there is no evidence that Patricia Hewitt has substance behind this announcement about home births," Mr Lansley said.

The RCM said the service, which has the equivalent of 19,000 full-time midwives, would need another 1,000 by 2009 and a further 2,000 by 2012. Dame Karlene Davis, president of the RCM, told the BBC's Breakfast programme: "It is an ambitious plan and the RCM supports it wholeheartedly because we believe that the quality of service the Government is aiming for is exactly what the women of England should have.

"We are obviously concerned that there will need to be enough midwives to make it happen."