The Fawcett Society’s application will ask the court to review Treasury decisions in the light of Labour’s Sex Discrimination law which means all public authorities must pay “due regard” to gender equality. Slashing maternity support, attendance allowances and the state second pensions and freezing child benefit all impact disproportionately on women. All of this is in addition to public sector job cuts which seem similarly likely to hurt women more.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has written to the government for an assurance that they will comply with the gender duty and with the similar ones concerning race and disability.
Labour’s laws prescribe “specific duties” to be complied with to fulfil the obligation to have “due regard” to gender equality. The Government has to focus its efforts where they can have most impact in reducing gender inequality – not increasing it. They must carry out a Gender Impact Assessment, on where the burden of cuts will fall. Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Yvette Cooper and Fiona Mactaggart MP have asked a series of Parliamentary questions to probe what work was done before women were singled out for extra cuts. The Treasury’s equality scheme says that in “tax and welfare we systematically analyse the diversity impacts of the measures proposed” but Justine Greening’s Parliamentary reply says;
“whether or not a full equality impact assessment will be carried out in any case depends on the likely impact of a proposed policy on members of the relevant groups of people and whether it would be proportionate to do so”. History does not relate whether she thought the “Likely impact” of two thirds of the burden was enough to make an impact assessment “proportionate” in this case. A written answer from Equalities Minister, Theresa May simply says:
“I have no plans to commission separate work on how the provisions of the budget will affect women”.
Analysis of the overall budget impact is likely to have been carried out at household level because tax credits and benefits relate to family income. Fawcett rightly raise the question whether that is sufficient to fulfil the Treasury’s statutory duty, since these cuts will at least weaken women’s financial independence and undermine their ability to choose how to balance work and family life. Yvette Cooper has called this “an ideological drive to turn back the feminist clock” and since it follows hard on the heels of the now discredited anti-feminist plan to give anonymity to rape defendants, there is much in what she says.