The British Government’s War on Women

Bernadette Horton
RINF Alternative News

As David Cameron and Nick Clegg gear up for further huge budget cuts should the Tories, either alone or in coalition, gain power again in 2015, one thing is certain – slashing of both social security and local services budgets will affect women more than any other group.

With Iain Duncan Smith already arguing with Cameron to cut winter fuel allowances, bus passes and TV licences from the elderly in 2015, women are in the firing line.

Every day more headlines and statistics emerge on a seemingly never-ending production line, telling women just how unimportant this government thinks they are.

While the posh boys line their male front bench up at PMQs each week, women are on the front line, facing the consequences of their policies.

Nick Clegg is blindly blundering on with his plan for free school meals for all four to seven-year-olds – despite teachers saying that they did not have the facilities to cope – yet he ignores the fact that working poor households lose out even more than poor households on free school lunches.

Many working poor households like mine have always had to pay either full cost for hot school lunches or a packed lunch.

Sometimes when my four sons were all in school the cost for hot lunches was £2.50 per day per child – £10 for our family and £50 per week.

Needless to say, they took a packed lunch. I vividly remember on a few occasions when I could not stretch lunches for all four boys and sent the older two to high school empty handed, with an excuse to tell any concerned teacher.

I then had beans on toast waiting as they came through the door after school. The guilt was overwhelming, but the cupboard was bare and the younger two sons had to be put first.

There are more working poor families facing this huge dilemma as their wages can’t stretch to school lunches as well as breakfast and tea. On the whole, women are shouldering this guilt.

Not surprisingly, 42 Tory MPs are members of the Free Enterprise group which advocates VAT on kids clothes, baby food and prescriptions. Supposed Childcare Minister Liz Truss is one of them.

Unaffordable childcare has hit all women regardless of class, but working-class women the most.

Childcare prices have rocketed under the coalition as the population expands and the Tories’ only solution has been to increase the child-to-staff ratios in nurseries, so ultimately our children have poorer quality care as staff have more children to care for.

In smaller towns and rural areas, finding childcare at all is a problem in itself.

Labour is courting working mums’ votes by offering 25 hours of care per week for nursery-aged children free of charge, but I feel it could be bolder as many mums and dads feel the strain of childcare costs, not just on their pre-school children but on those aged five to 11 too.

After having met Ed Miliband myself and argued the case for affordable childcare for parents of disabled children, I feel this sector of parents has once again been left to rot.

Many parents of disabled children would like to work even part time, but are stuck on carer’s allowance of £59 a week as there are few childcare providers either willing, specialised enough or affordable enough to take on a disabled child. And why should they take that child on a one-to-one basis when they can take on six able-bodied children and so reap the extra income?

Local social services departments have been cut to the bone. Many women over 45 may also be caring for elderly relatives and daycare centres allow them to work.

However these services are being cut and women my age are shouldering a huge burden, often caring for sick elderly relatives and bringing up their own children too.

Women suffering domestic violence will soon have nowhere to turn to as the rate of closures of refuges escalates weekly.

Combine this with the catastrophic closure of Sure Start Centres and women are losing vital lifelines and being cast adrift by this government which mocks the services women value.

Statistics reveal the public sector employs a large proportion of women, who are now being made redundant due to government cuts, and women are also taking the brunt in jobs like shop work, often on low pay or zero-hours contracts.

Single women are struggling to even rent as landlords refuse tenancies to those on insecure contracts.

Banks won’t even discuss a mortgage unless women can provide evidence of full-time permanent work.

Universal credit is designed to hit women the hardest. Single parents will be particularly hard hit as allowances for under-25s are slashed and the enhanced disability premium is cut altogether.

Young carers where mum is severely disabled will be particularly hit by this cut. Even in two-parent families, only one parent is allowed to make the claim. If a woman is caught up in a controlling relationship, the other partner may make the claim and thus deprive the woman of access to money for herself and any children. The payment is also made monthly not weekly, so women may go through the month with no funds or be forced to turn to foodbanks in desperation. A vicious circle of deprivation will result.

Any woman on maternity leave may find herself out of work if unscrupulous employers decide to sack her at this vulnerable time.

Legal aid to take an employer to a tribunal has been abolished and it costs £1,200 – something the woman has to find herself or lose her job. Employers know this and can exploit the system.

As a member of the working poor myself, I have felt the effects of the government’s attacks.

Osborne and co will no doubt throw a few bones off the table to keep us sweet for 2015.

Don’t be fooled. Use your vote wisely in 2015 and don’t fall for Nigel Farage and his “blokes” seeking influence in order to keep women as second-class citizens for another five years.

Women have throughout time changed the course of history. Isn’t it time we changed the next five years by booting out the posh boys and pretenders like Ukip and using our voices, our actions, to bring about policies that benefit, protect and promote women?

These past four years have been the dark time for women and the history books in time will document this.

No more slave years. Now is the time for drastic change.

Bernadette Horton blogs at mumvausterity.blogspot.co.uk