Jeremy Hunt name-checked two formidable women in his speech on Tuesday: Labour’s Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves, both of whom were the butt of lumbering jokes, which only underlined their political potency.
There were no mentions of the millions of women out of the chancellor’s direct eyeline, however, who are often on the frontline when it comes to enduring the stresses of a stagnant economy.
Given that men tend to be higher earners on average, across-the-board tax cuts such as Jeremy Hunt’s 2p national insurance reduction – the centrepiece of Wednesday’s statement – tend to benefit them more than women.
Analysis by the Women’s Budget Group (WBG) of campaigning economists suggests the average single woman would gain £279 from the latest tax cut, against £346 for a single man.
The average lone mother would gain just £85, they said, given this group often struggle to work, and can get trapped in low-paid jobs.
As Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, the WBG’s director, put it: “Yet again the chancellor has announced tax giveaways that benefit men over women and benefit the better off rather than those most in need.”
However, the main impact for women of Wednesday’s budget – as it has been from the broad thrust of economic policy over many years – is likely to be felt in the systematic underfunding of public services.
Women tend to use public services more: on average, they still take on more family caring responsibilities than men, for children and elderly relatives. And women are the core of the public sector workforce, dominating jobs such as nursing and childcare.
That means public sector austerity hits many women twice over: they suffer from the lack of Sure Start centres, libraries and GP appointments, while also battling to deliver overstretched and underfunded public services themselves.
Many men are in exactly the same situation, of course; but on average, women bear a disproportionate share of the burden. And while it very much was not the main message of his speech, Hunt’s budget foreshadowed another five-year squeeze for public services.
His tax cuts are funded partly by implementing spending plans so tight that few economic experts believe they are plausible. Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, said the government has given very little detail about spending beyond the election – aside from a series of upbeat promises about boosting productivity. For many departments, that suggests tough years ahead.
Sometimes budgets are as interesting for what is not included as for what finds its way into the speech – and there was not a single word from Hunt about social care, which, let us not forget, Boris Johnson boldly promised to “fix”.
In reality that would have meant imposing a ceiling on how much an individual would have to spend on their care, as Andrew Dilnott suggested more than a decade ago. That was to be paid for through a “health and social care levy” – effectively a 1.25 per person increase in national insurance, a tax Hunt has since reduced twice, and is now hinting heavily that he would now like to scrap the tax altogether.
Aside from underlining the handbrake turns the Tories’ have made in recent years, the silence on social care points to deeper questions, about how politicians at Westminster see society’s toughest challenges.
Social care funding has been deemed politically untouchable since Theresa May’s “dementia tax” apparently helped deprive the Conservatives of their majority in the 2017 general election.
But behind the omertà at Westminster lie millions of individual stories – and once again, women are on the frontline. Two-thirds of dementia sufferers are women, according to the Alzheimer’s society. So are the vast majority of the notoriously underpaid staff caring for them.
Reeves, who recently published a book on the forgotten female pioneers of economics, has made no secret of the fact that if she becomes the first female chancellor, she would bring feminism to the Treasury – including by helping low-paid workers in undervalued jobs such as care.
But as analysis by the Women’s Budget Group over many years has made clear, the health of the nation’s public services is also a feminist issue.
There were some budget bright spots for women in Wednesday’s statement. Nurseries have been sounding the alarm for weeks about the underfunding of Hunt’s pledge to dramatically expand free childcare for the under-threes.
Of course, dads benefit from the scheme too – but given women still tend to take on the lion’s share of parenting and pay a career penalty through motherhood, the provision of more free nursery places is a boon for mums who want to work.
Amid dire warnings about childcare settings being unable to provide the new places needed to deliver Hunt’s pledge, he announced an extra £500m over the next two years to increase funding rates. It is unclear as yet whether this will resolve the sector’s issues – but it will certainly help.
Meanwhile, the WBG’s analysis points to one clear area where women are the winners from Wednesday’s decisions: they will not be hit nearly as hard by the clampdown on high-rolling foreign-born taxpayers – because two-thirds of non-doms are men.
