Tough choices ahead - a new handbag or dinner?
After months of doom and gloom from politicians warning of hard times and tough decisions, today the Chancellor is set to reveal final plans for the coalition government’s public spending cuts. But with controversy brewing over the unequal burden the June budget placed upon women, can we trust the coalition to play fair?
Since the election the government has been busy putting the country’s finances through the Whitehall version of ‘Spendaholics’ and like the tough-love presenters who rustle through shoeboxes of receipts stashed under a shopaholic’s bed, the Treasury have forced government departments to scrimp, save, nip and tuck, to create a slimmed down spending plan for the next four years. Unfortunately, with a £160 billion hole to plug in the nation’s finances, change found down the back of the sofa and making their own packed lunches to take to work just isn’t going to cut it, meaning few areas of public spending, from child benefits to local authority spending, have been safe from the Treasury’s thrifty eye.
But while the reality of scaled-back public services and tightening our already snug belts is not appealing, at least we know that however tough the cuts may be, they will be fair. Don’t we? Well, that is what we keep being told. Only weeks ago, the Prime Minister based an entire speech to his party conference on the importance of fairness, and slogans like ‘We’re all in this together’ round off nearly every government sound bite. But just a quick look behind the words reveals that the government’s record on fairness has already been called into question, with equality campaign group, The Fawcett Society, launching a legal challenge against the emergency budget earlier this year on the grounds that it places an unfair burden on women.
In fact, the results of a ‘gender audit’ of the budget, carried out by the House of Commons Library and commissioned by Shadow Equality and Women’s Minister, Yvette Cooper MP, show that a massive £6 billion (72%) of the £8 billion of money raised through benefit cuts and tax increases will come from women.
Some of this unequal share is explained by the fact that the Chancellor targeted child support in his cuts. Most of us are aware of the scrapping of child benefits for high earners but the budget also cut and froze a number of other child related benefits that are almost exclusively received by women –so not a great start for Mr Osborne. But even when all of these cuts in child support are put aside, the gender audit states that women are still left shouldering an unequal share of the burden, £3.6 bn (63%) to be precise, compared to the £1.9 bn (34%) by men.
Sound fair? Equality campaign group, The Fawcett Society, doesn’t think so. They argue that by hitting women the hardest the Government is pushing us down a slippery slope, towards Mad Men style roles of the dependent woman and the male breadwinner –we all know where that got Betty and Don Draper.
So what is the government’s record in terms of women? Female representation is low in the Coalition, with only four women in their 23 strong cabinet, which isn’t a great start. David Cameron has also been accused of lacking genuine enthusiasm for women’s issues- in 2006, when asked in a press conference whether he was a feminist, he is reported to have blushed and said: ‘Er, I don’t really know what it means any more….But I suspect not.’ Just in case you were wondering David, being a feminist does not mean you go by the name Davina on the weekends. Similarly, some of the coalition’s other policy moves on issues affecting women have caused controversy. In July, the government floated plans to give men accused of rape anonymity, causing outrage throughout Westminster and resulting in a hasty u-turn. But whatever your interpretation of their actions, it does seem the coalition has some work to do to prove that they understand the issues affecting women. My own experience of working with the Tories in Parliament left a less than shining impression on me in terms of their understanding of equality.
As we brace ourselves for the full extent of the public spending cuts to be revealed, what should women expect? Some forecasts have been gloomy for the girls here too. The Women’s Budget Group warn that women will be more adversely affected than men by the public sector job cuts and pay freeze, as 65% of public sector workers are women. On top of this, the fact that women live longer, have babies, use public services more heavily than men and are more likely to end up going into part-time employment at some point in their careers means the coalition’s public spending cuts are being tipped to affect women more than men.
In reality, the full impact upon women will only become clear once the dust has settled and spending plans have been put into place. But whatever happens, it would be wise for us women to keep a close eye on this government, just in case the boys club decides to build itself a tree house and lock us out!
How might the government’s plans affect the big decisions in your life?
Single or couple?
Many critics of the emergency budget say the cuts will force women to rely upon men as breadwinners, meaning singletons, especially single mothers, are worse off. However single working women are set to benefit from the raising of the personal income tax allowance (albeit not as much as men).
Marry or cohabit?
The recently announced married couples tax break means married couples and civil partners get £150 a year extra over their cohabiting friends. A tax break isn’t necessarily a good reason for marriage but it is clearly a direction the government is pushing people to go in.
Try for a baby?
This is where the cuts really seem to hit. Child benefit is being scrapped for families earning over £40,000 and being frozen for three years for others, the health in pregnancy grant paid to mothers has been scrapped and Sure Start maternity grants have been stopped after the first child. So, in terms of financial support there certainly looks like there will be less available for those who choose to have a child in the next few years.
