The Women’s Budget Group (WBG) has today published its comprehensive assessment of how the measures announced in the joint Autumn Statement and Comprehensive Spending Review will impact on women.

In launching the response, WBG Chair Diane Elson said:

The Chancellor promised to ‘put security first’. Yet our analysis shows that with further cuts to the social infrastructure that will see public spending, as a proportion of national income, fall to nearly its lowest level since the war, the daily lives of many will be increasingly insecure. Even the protected budgets of health and school education will fall as a proportion of GDP by 2020.

Our analysis shows that female lone parent and single pensioner households will experience the biggest drop in living standards as a result of cuts to public services compared to other households. This is in addition to analysis by the House of Commons library which shows that of the £16bn in savings announced since the 2015 general election, three quarter will come from women.

Pursuing deficit reduction in this way is a political choice, not a necessity. There is an alternative. If the Chancellor wants to, as he pledges, leave the next generation a ‘stronger country than we inherited’, he must invest in the social security and public services that provide such a vital safety net.

Read the full response

ENDS

For further comment or media requests, please contact:
Dr Eva Neitzert – 07908 111 344 / admin@wbg.org.uk.org.uk