Women and the Economy

Debate between James Cartlidge and Kate Green

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

We heard the then Pensions Minister, and other Ministers, assure us that there would be transitional protection for those women. We have seen no sign of that protection, and women are suffering as a result.

We already know that women are twice as likely as men to live in poverty, yet this Chancellor has a blind spot when it comes to gender. He is either unaware or disinterested in the gendered nature of poverty. It is not just the short-term injustice of this policy that is of real concern, but the long-term impact on our country’s future.

Women are more likely to manage household budgets. They are more likely to be the main carers of children, and poor mothers have poor children. Women’s continued economic disadvantage means more children growing up in poverty, which means long-term damaging effects on those children and on our future economic potential.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that debt does not discriminate, and that it is in the interests of every member of society, whether male or female, that we run sound public finances, which is the reason behind many of the measures that she was describing earlier? Unless we reduce our deficit and get back into the black, we will leave every member of this society in massive debt.

[Kate Green]

We on the Opposition side of the House of course agree about the importance of prudent management of the public finances. I would just point out that the Chancellor promised to eliminate the deficit by the end of the last Parliament. What he actually achieved was to halve it, which is exactly what the previous Labour Chancellor, Alistair Darling, had suggested. This Chancellor has presided over a rise in public debt, and he is substituting once again—one might have thought that he was learning—private debt for public debt. The Office for Budget Responsibility is now forecasting that by the end of this Parliament private household debt will be back at recession levels, which should alarm all of us.