"It's time to make our economy work for our society, instead of the other way around."
Published on 13th March 2018
Philip Hammond today issued his Spring Statement, updating the official forecasts for the UK economy.
Sophie Walker, Leader of the Women’s Equality Party, said:
“The Spring Statement is an opportunity to see what work needs to be done to ensure our economy is working well for all. This Chancellor’s inability to understand or care about the ways it is holding back women - and therefore holding us all back - demonstrates a damaging short-sightedness. It is terribly complacent to update economic forecasts without also analysing why those forecasts show muted growth, low productivity, and minimal real-terms wage increases.
“Austerity was the result of a broken economic model and yet is still being held up as a necessary medicine. That medicine has made women sick. Cutting benefits, upon which women disproportionately rely, in order to increase personal income and higher earning thresholds to the benefit of men - who earn more and rely less on public services - is no way to build a healthy country.
“We are now heading towards Brexit with that same broken model and a Chancellor who has said his Brexit investment pot will continue the same lopsided approach - investing in physical infrastructure, factories and technology instead of the social infrastructure that women provide unseen and unpaid to immense personal cost. And the Opposition mimics this outdated way of thinking.
“In the coming months, women will continue to pay for biting welfare cuts, while gender pay gap reporting lays bare the lack of equal opportunities in the UK. It's time for a new vision of economics. Feminist economics understands that investing in childcare and social care would boost productivity and create twice the number of jobs as equivalent investment in construction. It's time to make our economy work for our society, instead of the other way around.
“WE are the only political party with the ideas to achieve that transformation.”