Sarah Champion MP condemns cuts to women in Autumn Statement

Research commissioned by Sarah Champion MP shows that women are faring just as poorly under Philip Hammond's Autumn Statement as they did under George Osborne's budget earlier this year. As of the Autumn Statement yesterday, 86% of savings to the Treasury through tax and benefit changes since 2010 will have come from women.

This is an increase in the burden on women from the last Autumn Statement when the figure was 81%.

The Conservative government have repeatedly refused to gender audit their own economic policies and announcements despite formal requests from the cross-party Women and Equalities Select Committee

Sarah Champion, Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, said:

This was Theresa May and Philip Hammond's first Autumn Statement and a chance to put their warm words on equality into action. They failed miserably.

We have a government that says they are doing everything they can to protect women and those people who are just about managing  but the Tories are failing again and again on their promises.

Their silence on how their cuts affect women, and their refusal to gender audit their own policies, speak volumes. The government's attitude to the impact of their policies on women has now shifted from a blithering dismissiveness to wilful and deliberate evasion.

Labour have promised to gender audit all our economic announcements. It's only under a Labour government that women can ensure they are getting an equal and fair deal.