What About Women Campaign update – this week, money and power …

Welcome to your weekly What About Women campaign update

Fawcett kicked off budget week with a press release showing our polling result that 49% of women feel politicians are not considering their views on the key election issues of tax and spending and that a large majority of voters (73%) want spending policies that don’t disproportionately disadvantage women. Our CEO Ceri Goddard made the point that “This week’s budget isn’t just important for women’s votes - it’s important for women’s lives.” Her view was echoed in article by Yasmin Alibhai Brown in the Independent. Budget Day itself saw Fawcett publish an open letter in the Guardian signed by 14 leading economists and social policy experts calling on all parties to ensure their economic policies and budget plans don’t further disadvantage women.

While these media debates continued, we have been looking over the parties’ responses to our questions on the economy. We had asked them, if elected:

• How their tax and spending policies would impact on women?
• How they would ensure that any public spending cuts wouldn’t further disadvantage women ?
• How they will ensure women’s contribution to the economy – paid and unpaid – is properly valued and supported?

So what do we think so far?

We are still very concerned that as yet none of the parties has committed to undertaking a gender impact assessment of the budget/ deficit cutting plans. If elected to government, this will not only be key to ensuring that women are not unequally disadvantaged, it will also be a requirement under the gender equality duty. We will be pressing all the parties on this point, especially at the time when failure to do this could see a backwards move for many women’s equality; particularly the most vulnerable.

In terms of the particular parties’ answers on the economy to date, all had positive and negative points. Here are some of them:

LABOUR

Good – proposed pension reforms that mean carers will now qualify for a basic state pension, narrowing the gap in pension entitlement between women and men and progressive tax proposals (e.g. higher rates for higher earners) which support greater economic equality for women.

Could do better – no commitment to restore link between earnings and state pensions, a commitment to “half the deficit fairly” is not enough detail on how they would guard against disproportionately impacting women. They talk a lot about what they have done but not enough about what next.

CONSERVATIVES

Good - propose to restore the link between earnings and state pensions which would increase income of those women who have pensions, commitment to retain some benefits that women rely on including child benefit

Could do better – their proposals to only make companies do gender pay audits once found guilty of pay discrimination won’t stop it happening in the first place and offering respite services to carers is not enough, given their economic contribution. They don’t even mention their policy to introduce a marriage tax allowance which Fawcett would not support for a wide range of reasons.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

Good - A more progressive tax system that would benefit women who are more likely to be in lower paying jobs and they support mandatory equal pay audit for all but the smallest companies.

Could do better – Same problem as the Conservatives in not doing more to recognise carers’ contributions by, for example, ensuring they are credited in their pensions for their contributions to the economy. Their commitment to “hardwire fairness” doesn’t tell us how they will ensure women employees and users of key public services will not bear the brunt of any cuts.

If you want to read and comment on parties' answers, click here.

All the parties’ answers are still quite vague and we hope their manifestos and linked policy announcements will give us much more details on how they will progress and not regress women’s equality and women’s rights with their economic policies.

One way we will do that is by getting more women into positions of power in the political parties and in Parliament. And this week saw Fawcett, alongside the Centre for Women and Democracy, the Hansard Society (two What About Women campaign partners) and the Government Equalities Office host a roundtable on Women into Parliament: Implementing the Recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference Report. Ceri chaired the discussion, which brought representatives of the all political parties together to discuss how to take forward and add to the recent speaker’s conference recommendations on getting more women into Parliament.

We managed to reach a consensus on several issues, including that Parliament should prioritize a debate on introducing quotas for the representation of women in Parliament after the elections, that reforms were urgently needed to bring the rights of women MPs as employees up to the same standards as all other employees and that all the recommendations of the recent Speaker’s Conference should be implemented to achieve this. It was noted that Parliament is the most high profile workplace in the land and if we can’t set an example here about family-friendly working and female representation at the top then how can we expect to progress elsewhere? A great debate was had over the media representation of women MPs and how that ties in with the ‘gladatorial’ culture of the House - described by one participant as ‘Hogwarts with alcohol’ – and what can be done about it. A report from this meeting will be issued as soon as possible with recommendations for moving forward on this.

London Local Elections Hustings 2010

The Women’s Resource Centre (another What About Campaign Partner), HEAR and Voluntary Sector Forum hosted a local elections hustings event for London’s voluntary sector on Wednesday 24th March, which saw an excellent turnout and lively debate. The panel of four councillors faced questions on three main areas: London’s voluntary and community sector, equalities sectors, and the women’s sector. Questions ranged from the future of the London Councils budget and the role of second-tier organisations, through to the impact of the Human Rights Act at a local level, the plight of women with no recourse to public funds and how new licensing laws relating to lapdancing clubs will be realised on the ground. Read all about it on WRC’s blog, along with photos and video.

DON’T FORGET, IF YOU WANT TO HOLD A LOCAL HUSTINGS OR DEBATE FOR YOUR LOCAL ELECTION CANDIDATES DOWNLOAD THE ACTIVIST PACK FROM THE FAWCETT WEBSITE FOR GUIDANCE

Take Action

It's likely the election will be called in the very near future and when it does we want to be able to talk about how many women have signed up to our campaign and what you are saying!

1 minute – if you haven’t already, sign up to support the campaign.

3 minutes – forward campaign details to 10 women (or supportive men) you know and get them to sign up too.

5 minutes – look at the parties’ answers to the What About Women Questions and comment on line.

30 minutes – write to your local prospective parliamentary candidates – see the activist pack for guidance and don’t forget to pass on any answers you get to us.

Thanks for your support,
Fawcett