The spending review and women

‘The prime ministerhas not prioritised the services most vital to women’.

Last week’s spending review saw Chancellor George Osborne announcing the government’s using upplans for 2015-16.

He chose investment in a huge roads programme butleavestill leave millions of women on the road to precarious betrothaland poverty, according to the UK Women’s work outGroup (WBG).

Local government provides services that atomic number 18crucial to women and funding for many women’s organisations but its budget has been attenuatedby a further 10 per cent. At the analogoustime he has found enough money to repealcuts to the defence budget.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport faces a cut of 7 per cent, but ‘elite sport’ has been protected with no indication that community sports bequeathreceive similar treatment.

He says he has protected NHS spending but has made no allowance for health servicecostrising faster than inflation and the increased demand of an senescencepopulation and a rising birth-rate.

And his previous commitment to valuethe NHS has not prevented the destruction of thousands of nurses’ jobs.

Chancellor announced £50bn investment in foundationprojects but once again priority has been given to fleshlyinfrastructure – investment in new roads, two racetracklinks and in guarantees for new nuclear plants.

He made no mention of new investment insociablefootsuch as care for children and frail elderly people, which would namemore new jobs – in particularfor women – than construction, would respond to urgent and expanding social enquireand would provide a larger stimulus to the economy.

The Chancellor says every job expiryin the public vault of heavenis offset by three created in the private sector.

Sowhyis this not reflected in economic growth?

It wadonly be because the new jobs are lower paid, more precarious and part-timewhen rising costs of living and stagnant wagesmean valuemost people need full-time employment. And yet he announces further public sector job cuts, which go outflirt withyet more women pushed into low-quality jobs.

For those who stay in the public sector, loss of pay progression will harm the lowest remunerativeworkers and entrench existing gender pay inequalities.

Yet further changes will be introduced to the social security system to make cuts of everywhere£350m a year.

Most troubling is the plan to make the unemployed andprecariouslyemployed wait seven days before braggythem access to Universal Credit which is expected to save £250m a year. This is just another way to take money from those who need it most.

It will hit women, the Budget Group points out – especially those with young children – particularly hard since they are often the ones in low-paid, insecure jobs.

In a context where the majority of children arealreadyexpected to be living below the Minimum Income tiredby 2015, this can only make matters worse.

For a righttranscript of the Chancellor’s speech, click here.

The UK Women’s Budget Group is an independent volunteer(prenominal)organisation bringing together over 200 individuals from academia, topical anaestheticand national government, non- government organisations and trade unions to conduct Gender Budget Analysis and promote Gender Responsive Budgeting by the UK Government.

The engenderis to show the impact that government taxation and expenditure can have on women’s everyday lives, especially women experiencing poverty and identifyfeminist alternatives to policies that are not supportive of gender comparabilityand women’s rights.

 

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Materials taken from Womens Views on News