Statement From The Women's Equality Party On Budget 2024

The price of tax cuts is austerity, austerity, austerity

In today’s budget the Chancellor made it crystal clear who he is prepared to make pay the price of his tax cuts. Just like austerity, the pandemic and the cost of living crisis before it, it’s women.

He announced, to jubilant cries from his colleagues in the Conservative party, that his latest cuts to national insurance mean the average employee will get an extra £450 a year. But the trouble with his averages is that the people who the system is not designed for—women, Disabled people and people with minoritised ethnicities—are already the furthest away from that average, and therefore less likely to benefit from his tax cut. 

Women are already poorer than men, less likely to work full time, more likely to have their earnings negatively affected by the expectation that they take on the lion’s share of childcare and caring for adults. Women’s Budget Group analysis this week showed that single mothers are the group who would benefit the least from national insurance cuts. Women are more likely to fall into debt to pay for basic essentials, are more likely to live in poverty than men and benefit more from public services.

Whilst the government may peddle that funding for tax cuts will come from abolishing the non-dom tax status, the truth is it’s coming from departmental budgets. After 14 years of Conservative cuts our public services are crumbling away around us. NHS waiting lists are sky high, local government funding has been cut to bone and there are councils on and past the brink of bankruptcy, school buildings are crumbling quite literally, free childcare places have been underfunded for so long that what could be a transformative expansion in April has put the whole sector at risk. The list goes on and on, and the knock on impacts on women do too. Violence against women and girls is increasing, nearly a quarter of children are growing up in poverty, and baby formula is now one of the most shoplifted items. Cuts are costing lives, and this Government only cares about saving itself.

Today’s budget was a last, desperate attempt by the Chancellor and Prime Minister to cling to power. But whilst they’ve got their eyes on their party, they are driving our public services to destruction. And we will be the ones to pay the price.